“Order them to saddle Blackbird, Tom, and tell one of the grooms to attend me.”
“Is it necessary to ride tonight, my Lord? It is so late and dark, you have had a long day in the saddle, and you have hardly eaten.”
“I think there may be no time to lose.” Lord Mounteagle turned as he was leaving the room.
“Tom. Not a word of this letter to anybody. Not a whisper. It must be for you as though you had not read it. Do not forget.”
Lord Mounteagle mounted his horse, and rode so fast over the muddy, unlit lanes that his groom had hard work to keep up with him.
Windows were still brightly lit in the new Palace of Whitehall, and torches were burning at the gates of the courtyard. Mounteagle had friends at court and was well-known to everybody in the Palace. When they recognized him the sentries admitted him. He dismounted, threw his reins to his groom, strode across the Great Court, and climbed the stairs to the Royal Rooms.
To the Captain of the Beefeaters in the guard room he said, “Mounteagle. I would have audience of the King now on urgent business which concerns his safety.”
The Captain let him go through to the inner door, but there one of the Gentlemen of the Household told him that the King was away.
“His Majesty has been hunting all day in Hertfordshire, and has sent a messenger to say that he will sleep in his hunting lodge at Royston so that the hunt may make an early start tomorrow morning.”
“Is the Earl of Salisbury here?”
“Yes, my Lord. The Earl of Suffolk dines with him, and the Lord Chamberlain.”
“I must see them.”
After some delay, Mounteagle was ushered into a room warmed by a big fire, and bright with candlelight. The company round the table had finished their dishes of meat and their salads. They were picking at the sweetmeats in the small gold dishes and drinking their wine. Mounteagle saw that the Lord Chamberlain sat on Salisbury’s right, the Earl of Suffolk on his left. Opposite to him was Charles Howard, the Lord High Admiral of England. He saw, too, the Earl of Northampton and the Earl of Worcester, two men high in the esteem of the King.
Mounteagle was very glad that he had come. He was ambitious and these were all men whose approval it would be well worth his while to win. As a Catholic who had only lately become a Protestant, he knew that he might still be partly suspect to them. Whether the letter was worth taking seriously or not—he thought it was—he wanted to show himself in this high company as being alert to the least hint of danger to the King and Parliament.
“I beg your pardon, my Lords, for disturbing you in this unmannerly way,” he said. “But I received this letter an hour ago. It was handed to one of my servants by a stranger in the dark. When I read it I did not know if it was the work of a madman, or whether it was by the hand of someone who knew of a real danger threatening the safety of the King and the Lords and Commons. I am happy to commit it to you, my Lord of Salisbury, for your judgement.”
Cecil spread out the letter on the table and moved one of the heavy gold candlesticks nearer to throw more light on it. He made a beckoning motion with his hand to the Lord Chamberlain who came round to read over his shoulder. There was silence while the two were reading. When they had finished, they looked at each other with meaning.
Cecil passed the letter to the Lord High Admiral. He said thoughtfully, “Reports have come to me lately from my people on the Continent that it was known in the Low Countries that Catholics in England were planning some kind of a disturbance to mark the Opening of Parliament on November 5th.”
He turned to Mounteagle. “You know nothing at all about this letter? You can make no guess at the writer?”
“No, my Lord.”
“You did right to bring it to me. I shall show it to His Majesty.”
“My only care, my Lord, was for the safety of the King and State.”
Cecil made no answer to that. He disliked and distrusted Catholics so much that he could not bring himself to be very encouraging to a man who had been a Catholic until lately. Mounteagle might have been honestly converted to the Church of England or he might have changed his religion for safety and advancement. On the whole, the Earl of Salisbury preferred those Catholics who were loyal to their faith and could, therefore, be soundly punished. He was not going to be over-grateful to Lord Mounteagle, nor was he going to admit him to their counsels.
“I am sorry,” he said, “that you have another ride before you when it is so late and dark. You are accompanied by some of your household, I hope?”
“A groom, my Lord. I did not stay for the others.”
“Then we must not keep you.”
Mounteagle saluted the illustrious company and left the room.
The Earl of Salisbury tapped the letter with his skinny fingers. “Gentlemen, I do believe that we may have here a clue to a dangerous conspiracy. We can do nothing at the moment but watch and wait. Let none of us speak of it outside this room. Tomorrow evening when he returns from hunting I shall show it to the King.”
Chapter 10
A Warning
Thomas Warde, the young man in the household of Lord Mounteagle who had read the unsigned letter aloud, happened to be a friend of Thomas Winter. On the next day, October 28th, he went into London to see Winter at his lodgings. Warde had been thinking about the letter. At first, it had seemed to him that it must be a joke. Then he saw that Lord Mounteagle took it very seriously. He began to wonder if it conveyed news of a Catholic Plot.
It might be a real plot or it might be an imaginary plot trumped up by enemies to discredit Catholics and to justify further persecutions. Such things had happened. Whichever it was, it was not unlikely that Tom Winter might be involved in it. Tom Warde thought he would like to find out if Winter knew anything. If he did not it might be as well to drop a hint that something was brewing. Perhaps, Tom Warde thought, he could do this without exactly telling Winter about the letter, since Lord Mounteagle had ordered him to keep it secret.
What happened was that he told Tom Winter all about the letter, because he enjoyed telling such a dramatic story.
“And my Lord put down his knife and fork and drained a glass of wine at a gulp, and shouted for a fresh horse. And although he was weary from a day’s hunting, he rode off to Whitehall with the letter. I do not know what he did there; when I asked him he said that the King was away hunting, but he had seen some of his Councillors. He was very short-tempered all this morning. There is something in the wind, and I thought you should know of it.”
“Thanks,” Tom Winter said, after a short pause. He looked dismayed, but was clearly not going to say anything more. Thomas Warde left him and rode back to Hoxton.
Very early next day, Tom Winter called for his horse and rode out to White Webbs, where Catesby and Fawkes were together.
Tom Winter told his story. “So we are betrayed,” he concluded. “But who can have written the letter?”
Catesby, who had immediately thought “Tresham” did not answer. He believed it would be better to deal with Francis Tresham himself. He did not want the other young men to make themselves conspicuous at this moment by fighting Tresham.
“We must give up the plot now,” Tom Winter cried. “We must fly overseas. There is nothing left for us but to get out of England. I shall offer my sword to the Spanish army in the Netherlands.”
“You go too fast, Tom,” Catesby said. “This letter tells nothing of our plot. It is only a shot in the dark. It does not mention a single name. It does not speak of gunpowder nor of the vault. There is nothing to lead Cecil’s spies to us.”
“They will learn from this that something sudden is intended for the day of the Opening of Parliament. Anyone who was not a complete fool – and Salisbury is not that – would examine the Parliament House and all its surroundings at once. Probably by now they have searched the vault and Whyniard’s house.”
“If so, they may have seen nothing but a large stock of fuel for Master Percy’s use. But we can find out if they have
searched. Here is John Johnson the caretaker, who has the keys of Whyniard’s and of the vault. He will ride back to London with you and will look round the house and the vault and make sure that all is well.”
“If the King and Salisbury have guessed the truth and found the gunpowder, they will have posted soldiers in the vault. You are asking Guy to ride straight into a trap.”
“If I had been playing the part of John Johnson,” Catesby said, “I would ride in myself. I ask no man to do what I would not dare to do. Are you willing, Guy?”
Guy Fawkes nodded. Of course he would go, it was a necessary part of what he had undertaken.
“I will ride alone,” he said to Catesby. “Tom had better stay here with you. We do not want to show any more of ourselves than we need in Westminster.”
Guy Fawkes rode into London at a steady pace. He dismounted at the door of Whyniard’s house, tethered his horse to the iron ring by the door, unlocked the door and stepped inside with the ordinary manner of a caretaker entering a house that he was looking after.
The house was empty and everything was just as he had left it. The conspirators had rolled a chest up against the place in the cellar where they had, with so much difficulty, made a hole in the wall. The chest was covered with dust, so it had not been moved. During the summer and autumn, grass and weeds had grown over the top of the pits where they had buried the rubble in the garden.
Guy Fawkes went out of Whyniard’s house and round to the Parliament House. He would not have been human if he had not felt a shiver of fear. Here was the real clue to their secret. Here, if anything had been discovered, soldiers would be waiting for him. He had lately oiled the big key. He fitted it into the lock and opened the door.
It would be obvious at once if any searcher had discovered the hidden gunpowder, since he had arranged the logs of wood over it in a certain pattern.
He walked boldly across the cellar towards the piles of fuel, which he could only just see in the dim light from two gratings high up in the wall. He showed no sign of nervousness or hesitation. He was John Johnson, doing his proper duty by inspecting his master’s stock of firewood. But Guy knew very well that if the cellar had been searched, if there were soldiers standing back in the darkness, he had no chance of escape.
His footsteps rang on the stone floor. He heard their echo from the far end of the vault. He waited for a spring or a shot. Nobody moved, nothing stirred. Guy Fawkes came up to the stack of firewood.
Even in the dim light he knew that it had not been touched. The logs were arranged in just the same pattern as he had left them. Nobody had disturbed them.
The cellar was empty; no soldiers were lying in wait for him. This meant that so far neither Salisbury nor anybody else had guessed that whatever danger the unsigned letter referred to might come from the vault below Parliament House. John Johnson carefully arranged the billets in a slightly different pattern, then went out and locked the door again.
He rode back to White Webbs to tell Robin Catesby and Tom Winter that so far all was well.
Chapter 11
The King’s Command
On October 31st, King James arrived back at his Palace of Whitehall. He had enjoyed a good day’s hunting, and only returned in the evening just in time for dinner, which was always served to him with great ceremony. The King, who had been poor as King of Scotland, still kept some notions of economy. He had cut down the number of meat dishes at one meal from thirty to twenty four, but he liked these dishes to be served to him by noblemen who knelt to offer them to him. These noblemen were always richly dressed in velvet and satin, but the King himself preferred to dress plainly, often no more finely than any simple country gentleman. He frequently wore a plain grey suit, and a long black cloak lined with crimson. Only in his jewels he had no taste for austerity. He liked to wear a necklace of diamonds below his plain starched ruff, and he generally had a magnificent diamond or some other jewel in his hatband.
On this evening of October 31st, James talked to the courtiers round him about the hunt, which was his passion. Lord Salisbury was far too experienced to try and discuss the business of the nation, until the King had followed every deer to the kill. Cecil knew how to wait; but he also knew that he could not afford to wait too long before showing the letter Mounteagle had brought to the King. There were only five days before the Opening of Parliament.
On the next day, November 1st, Lord Salisbury came as early as he dared to the Private Gallery where the King did most of his business. It was a long gallery, beautifully decorated. Here the King generally received ambassadors, or other visitors from foreign countries; here he assembled his Council. This morning he was alone with his chief Minister. The small, pale, hunchbacked Cecil, dressed as always in black though his doublet was of rich material, carried a pile of state papers which had been waiting for the King’s attention. On top of the pile was the unsigned letter addressed to Lord Mounteagle.
“There is something here which I think Your Majesty should see at once.”
“Well, what is it?” the King asked in a peevish tone. It always took him a day to settle down to his royal business after a good hunt.
“It is an unsigned letter addressed to Lord Mounteagle. It was handed to one of his servants in the village of Hoxton, after dark, by an unknown man who immediately slipped away. Mounteagle brought it to me at once the night before last … as he was right to do,” Cecil added grudgingly. It was not so much that he wanted to do justice to Mounteagle as that he wanted to impress the importance of the letter on the King, who in his present mood might, Cecil thought, toss it aside.
James slowly read the letter. Having finished, he grunted, turned the paper over, examined the broken seal, then read the letter through again.
Salisbury waited in silence. He had made up his own mind that the letter indicated a Catholic plot to set fire to the Parliament House at the Opening or to blow it up. After working with the King for two years, he understood his master. James liked to be the one who knew, the one who pointed out to his ministers how things stood and what to do about them. It would all go more easily if he could tell Salisbury what the letter meant, much better than if Salisbury had to tell him. And the King was no fool, he had a scholar’s mind, he was quick to see the meaning of any written word. Salisbury waited with real interest for his master’s opinion.
James frowned at the letter and handed it back. In the broad Scotch accent which he had not lost in two years on the throne of England he said, “This is no joke.”
“I am of your opinion, Sire.”
“It is a serious matter to be considered seriously. Listen to this, my Lord. They shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament, and yet shall not see who hurts them. The meaning of that is plain,” the King said. “Do you understand it?”
Salisbury, who thought he did, looked doubtful.
“Why, man, use your wits. It’s plain enough. They mean to blow us all up with gunpowder.”
“I believe you may be right, Sire.”
“It would not be the first time such a thing has been perpetrated against my family. Mr father, Lord Darnley, was, you will remember, blown up with gunpowder by the Scottish Lords.”
“I remember well, Sire.”
“This then is the meaning of the letter. You see the writer says, the danger is passed as soon as you have burnt the letter, which is the same as to say that the danger is as swift as the burning of a piece of paper. Indeed, my Lord, we have been very near to destruction. Let us be thankful that our good Mounteagle brought the letter to you.”
Cecil nodded. He did not like Mounteagle but he never contradicted the King except on a matter of great importance.
James said thoughtfully, “There must be cellars or vaults of some kind underneath the Parliament House. Otherwise these people, whoever they are, could not hide enough gunpowder, and lay a mine. Will you find out and have the whole place most thoroughly searched before the Opening?”
“I will, Sire.”
; The next day, the Earl of Salisbury came again to the King in the Private Gallery. He brought with him the Lord Chamberlain.
“We have come to consult with you, Sire, as to when the cellars under the Parliament House should be searched. We have to think first of preserving Your Majesty and the Houses of Parliament on this occasion. But we shall best serve that purpose by finding out who the men are who have dared to plan this wickedness. It is important to take them in the act so that they cannot do any further harm. I think, Sire, and the Lord Chamberlain agrees with me, that we should not make a full search of Parliament House before the evening of November 4th. If there is a plot to use gunpowder, all preparations must be finished by then, and it is likely that the plotters will be in their places ready for action, or if not they will be near and we can set a watch and seize them when they come. Do you agree, Sire?”
“It is leaving it very late to take action,” the King said nervously, “but,” he added, “I believe you are right. It is of no use to discover the weapon without finding the men who planned to use it. Order a thorough search of the whole building of the Parliament House for the evening of November 4th, and see that I am informed at once if anything dangerous is found there.”
Chapter 12
A Second Warning
The conspirators knew more about what was going on than the King or Lord Salisbury supposed.
Somebody at Whitehall talked about the letter. It would certainly not have been Salisbury; probably the King told the Queen and she told her ladies, and one of them could not resist passing on the story. In a very short time there was gossip throughout the court; there were terrible dangers threatening; there was a Catholic Plot; Lord Mounteagle had received an unsigned letter warning him not to attend the Opening of Parliament; he had handed the letter to the Earl of Salisbury, who had shown it to the King.
Francis Tresham, who had friends at court, heard of this talk. In a way he heard it with relief; it showed that his brother-in-law Mounteagle had taken his warning seriously and probably since the King and Cecil were alerted they would act in time to prevent the slaughter of Parliament. Tresham, now that he had time to think this over, away from the stimulating company of Robin Catesby, did not really want the plot to succeed. But he loved Catesby and had other friends among the conspirators. He did not want them to be arrested and perhaps tortured before they were led to their execution.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot Page 5