After his third expedition to the vault he went back to Whyniard’s house to eat something. Then he began his steady pacing up and down again. He had no idea of the time. He listened to footsteps in the street. There were not many people about on this damp, foggy evening.
Once he heard footsteps come towards the door of Whyniard’s house and stop. He stood still, a hand on the pistol in his belt. There was a knock at the door. It was a gentle knock; it did not sound like the thundering summons of a search party of soldiers.
Guy Fawkes decided to risk opening the door. He went quietly to it and slid the bolt back. He opened the door a little way, and peered out. A man who seemed to be alone was just visible in the dark.
“Guy. It is I, Robert Keyes.”
Guy Fawkes opened the door wider. “Come in, Robert.”
“No, I cannot stay. But Thomas Percy sent you his watch so that you might know the time.” Robert Keyes disappeared into the night. Guy Fawkes bolted the door again, took the watch into a far corner of the room where no light could shine out of the window, lit his tinder box and looked at the time.
It was only ten o’clock. He had thought that it must be near midnight. He smiled grimly at his mistake. He had kept vigil often enough in a besieged town. He should have remembered how the hours drag. But he was very glad to have Percy’s watch. It would be helpful to know how the night was passing. His plan was to go round just before dawn and settle himself with his match and fuse in the vault. He would be able to hear the voices and footsteps of the Lords and Commons assembling overhead and he would know by the sound of trumpets when the King and Queen and the young Prince took their places.
It struck him that it might be sensible to get some sleep. He thought that he would walk up and down for another hour, then pay a last visit to the vault. If there were still no signs of a search, he would come back to Whyniard’s house, and rest for an hour or two on his bed upstairs without taking off his doublet or his boots.
He began to walk up and down again. He guessed that it must be near midnight, and was taking out his tinder box again when he heard a faint sound from the street outside. It was not a footstep; it sounded like a clink of metal. He went to the door and listened. Now he heard footsteps, quiet footsteps as though several men were stealthily approaching the house.
Guy Fawkes waited a minute, expecting a knock. No one knocked. His instinct was always to go forward to meet danger, and the long wait had tried his nerves more than he realized. He opened the door and peered out into the dark.
His arms were seized and pinned to his sides. Men were all round him, pressing upon him, holding him. He tried to struggle but there were too many of them. A rope was flung round his arms, the knot was pulled tight.
A voice called out, “Have you trussed the fellow firmly? Then bring him with us to the Parliament House. Quick march.”
By Tom Percy’s watch it was just after midnight. The long-awaited day of November 5th had begun.
Chapter 16
The Second Search
Leaving four of the soldiers outside to guard Guy Fawkes, Sir Thomas Knyvet led the rest of his men into the vault below Parliament House, and ordered them to make a thorough search. Their lanterns flashed this way and that in the dark.
Sir Thomas pointed to the great pile of wooden logs. “See if there is anything under those.”
As the men scattered the logs and threw aside the stone and iron bars, the round shapes of the barrels hidden beneath them began to appear.
“Bring one of those here to me. Open it.”
A soldier rolled one of the barrels across to Sir Thomas. When they had prized it open he thrust his hand in, brought out a handful and sniffed. “Gunpowder. I thought so.
He turned to the sergeant. “Send one of your men to the barracks for a cart or two. Have these taken to the yard behind the barracks, and set a strong guard over them. Be careful. There is enough gunpowder here to blow up a regiment.”
When all the barrels had been rolled out, Sir Thomas went outside to where the four men waited with Guy Fawkes bound between them.
“Search the prisoner.”
The sergeant shone his lantern onto Guy Fawkes as two of the soldiers turned out his pockets and tore open his doublet. One of them found the slow match and the fuse hidden beneath it. He handed them to Sir Thomas.
“You had intended to use these to set off the gunpowder and blow up Parliament House, fellow?”
“If you had found me in the vault,” Guy Fawkes replied, “I would have set a light to the powder at once and blown all of you up with me.”
Sir Thomas, without troubling himself to answer, swung round on his heel.
“Bring him to the Palace.”
The Earl of Salisbury and the Lord Chamberlain had been so anxious to know the result of the search that neither of them had gone to bed. When they heard that a store of gunpowder had been discovered in the vault, and that Percy’s servant had been taken with a fuse and slow match hidden on him, they decided to rouse all those members of the King’s Council who were sleeping in the Palace.
Everyone thought that there was urgent need for prompt action. They guessed that the plot to blow up the Parliament House must be part of a wider design. Who could tell what else the Catholics were planning for this day which had already begun. There might be an insurrection all over England! They decided, after consultation among themselves, to rouse the King and to bring the captured servant, John Johnson, before him.
At four o’clock in the morning, they led Guy Fawkes, bound, into the King’s bedchamber. The servants, hastily roused from sleep, were blowing up the ashes of the fire and piling on more wood. The King, wrapped in a short fur-lined coat with an embroidered nightcap on his head, was sitting up in bed, propped by a heap of pillows.
The King looked yellow, fretful and nervous. His hands were trembling at the thought of the danger he had escaped by only a few hours, but his mind was alert. He had already given an order that the Opening of Parliament should be postponed for a few days. He looked on and listened with close attention as Salisbury questioned the prisoner.
“What is your name?”
“John Johnson, servant to Master Thomas Percy.”
“You have been in charge of the vault below Parliament House, where we have discovered a great store of gunpowder hidden beneath firewood. Do you deny that your intention was to blow up the King, the Lords and the Commons at the Opening of Parliament.
“No,” Guy Fawkes replied calmly. “That was my intention.”
“Why did you intend this?”
“For one thing, I wanted to blow the beggarly Scots back to their native mountains.”
There was a gasp of indignation from the assembled Councillors.
The King leaned forward and pointed a shaking forefinger at the captive. He said, like a nurse speaking to a naughty child, “Come now, are you not sorry for such a desperate purpose?”
“A desperate disease requires a desperate remedy,” the prisoner replied.
Sir Thomas Knyvet came forward and handed a letter to Salisbury.
“The fellow says, my Lord, that his name is John Johnson, but we found in his pocket an opened letter from a gentlewoman addressed to ‘Master Guy Fawkes’. He is no peaceful servant, he bears on his breast the scars of old wounds. It is likely that he has served in the foreign wars.”
The King suddenly asked Guy Fawkes in French if this was true. As it was not worth while to lie about it, Guy Fawkes answered in French that he had been in the foreign wars.
They could get nothing else out of him. He would only repeat when questioned that his name was John Johnson, that he had intended to blow up Parliament House during the Opening, and that he did not repent of his intention. He would not say if anybody else knew what he was planning to do. He would not say if his master, Thomas Percy, had any hand in it. He would not give the names of any other conspirators. He seemed to be neither ashamed nor afraid. He let most of their questions go unanswere
d and confronted them with what appeared to be indifference.
In the end the King ordered him to be taken to the Tower. Sir Thomas Knyvet went with him to commit him to the care of the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Wade.
It was still early but the King could not go to sleep again. His mind was too much disturbed by images of what might so easily have happened. He saw plainly enough that this man John Johnson or Guy Fawkes or whatever his name was, could not have been in this gunpowder plot alone. Who were the others and where were they? Who was behind them? What else were they planning, perhaps even for the day that was just dawning?
“This John Johnson,” the King muttered to himself, “is all the clue we have. Except that he calls himself servant to Thomas Percy—but does Percy know anything of him or not? If we can only find out about this man it may lead to the discovery of the other conspirators.”
Sitting up in bed and pulling down the fur-lined sleeves of his coat over his chilled wrists, the King called for his tablets. He wrote out a rough draft of a list of questions that should be asked of this John Johnson, or whoever he might be.
1. As to what he is. For I cannot hear of any man that knows him.
2. Where was he born? And when?
3. What were the names of his friends?
4. What is his age?
5. Where has he lived?
6. How has he lived, by what trade?
7. How did he receive the wounds in his breast?
8. If he was ever in service with any other before Percy?
9. How came he in Percy’s service and when?
10. Why was the house held by Percy?
11. How soon after getting it, did he begin his devilish practices?
12. When did he learn to speak French?
13. What gentlewoman’s letter was it that was found on him?
14. Why does she call him by another name?
15. If he was ever a priest?
16. When he was converted and by whom?
The King felt a little better. It seemed to him that by this list he had covered nearly everything. He sent the questions to the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, with orders that if John Johnson could not or would not answer them, he was to be tortured to make him answer. “But,” wrote James, “the gentler tortures to be used on him first.” He ended the letter, “And so God speed you in your good work.”
Chapter 17
Bonfire Night
By the middle of that cold winter’s morning, a great many of the citizens of London knew that the Opening of Parliament was postponed because, at the last minute, a Catholic plot to blow up the King, Lords and Commons had been discovered.
Everybody was out in the streets, exchanging stories about it. Some said that a general Catholic Rising had been planned; that many other parts of the city would have been blown up; that thousands of honest citizens would have been burned in their beds; and that the Catholics had intended to burn down all the Protestant churches.
Of course, many people said, Spain was behind it, Spain who only seventeen years before had sent her great Armada with the blessing of the Pope of Rome to try and conquer England. Perhaps, some nervous citizens suggested, Spain was sending another Armada now! After all, the militia had been called out, which showed how immediate the danger was. Only those who could remember the year of the great Armada had seen so many steel breastplates and morions, or helmets, in the streets of London before. Yes, undoubtedly Spain was behind the plot.
A number of young men were so strongly convinced of this that they rushed off to the Spanish Embassy and with the help of the beggars and vagabonds who were always hanging about the streets, created a noisy demonstration in front of the barred gates. Then, feeling that they had done something useful to help to preserve their country and the Church of England, they scattered and went to the various taverns to talk about it all with their friends.
Ambrose Rookwood was the first of the conspirators in London to ask what he should do.
“I cannot help you,” Percy said. “You had better shift for yourself.… as all of us must do.”
When Rookwood left him, Percy called for his horse. As he mounted at the door of his lodging he said to his servant: “I am undone.”
The servant, who had been with Percy for some time and knew all his rash ways, looked at him with dismay. “Why, what have you done, Sir, that you should say that?”
“Let it satisfy you that I have said so.” Percy nodded grimly, and rode off as fast as he could through the crowded narrow streets.
Tom Winter heard so many different stories that he was not sure whether Guy Fawkes had managed to set a light to the gunpowder at the right time or not. He set out to walk to Parliament House, but was stopped by soldiers guarding the streets all round it.
But he could see that Parliament House was still standing. The plot had failed. Tom Winter turned back to his lodging in the Strand, mounted his horse and rode North. About the same time, Robert Keyes, Kit Wright and Ambrose Rookwood rode out of the city, spurring their horses until they were in a lather of sweat even on this cold November morning.
Near Dunstable they overtook Percy. They rode on together, throwing their cloaks into a hedge to lighten the weight for their horses, so that they could travel faster.
A few miles north of Dunstable, they met Robert Catesby and Jack Wright, who were waiting for the first news of the explosion before riding to summon the Catholics of the Midlands to rise. They were hoping to see Guy Fawkes who, if the slow match had as he expected given him time to escape, should have been the first to bring the news that the Parliament House had gone up into the air.
Instead, Catesby and Jack Wright saw Ambrose Rookwood and Kit Wright on their panting horses. Rookwood called out, “Guy Fawkes is taken and the plot discovered.”
Catesby and Jack Wright waited to hear no more, but rode hard after the other two. They were held back because Catesby’s horse cast a shoe, and he was obliged to stop and find a blacksmith to shoe him. This delayed them all, for although he urged the others to go on, they did not want to leave him too far behind. It was now pouring with rain and the tired horses slipped and stumbled on the muddy roads. It was evening before they arrived at the house of Catesby’s mother, near Ashby St. Leger.
In London meanwhile, the only one of the conspirators besides Guy Fawkes who had come under suspicion was Tom Percy. He had rented Whyniard’s house, and the vault under Parliament House; the mysterious John Johnson was his servant. A warrant was at once issued for Percy’s arrest. It described him as “tall with a great hoary beard, a good face, hair mingled with white hairs but the hair more white than the beard. He stoopeth somewhat in his shoulders, is well coloured in the face, long footed and small legged.”
The ostler at the tavern where Percy had lodged gave information that he had ridden off in a hurry that morning. But, whether out of good will to Percy or just because he had not been taking notice, the ostler said that he thought Percy had ridden towards the South. The King’s Council at once sent messengers to all the Channel ports with orders to the Port Authorities to stop Percy, and the Constable of Gravesend travelled at full speed to Dover, where it seemed most likely that the fugitive might try to board a ship going to the Netherlands. Meanwhile, his cousin the Earl of Northumberland felt very uneasy on his own account, and made haste to assure the King and Salisbury that he had known nothing of any plot that his kinsman and agent was engaged in.
In London, on the evening of November 5th the bells of every Protestant church rang out a joyful peal. People staggered with armfuls of broken wood and rubbish to any open space, piled up bonfires and lit them. The Spanish Ambassador, who was only too eager to show, what was indeed the truth, that he had known nothing at all about the gunpowder plot, ordered an enormous bonfire to be lit in front of the Spanish Embassy and himself came out and scattered money among the crowd. There had not been such rejoicing in London since the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Then the news had come on a summer evening;
on this cold night, anyone who could get near a heap of burning wood was not only eager to celebrate but glad to keep warm.
People sang psalms in the streets, and all those who could afford it feasted. It was not because they loved the Scottish King so much. After all, he had only been on the throne for two years. Besides, he did not, as Queen Elizabeth had done, enjoy showing himself to the people. He was afraid of them and they laughed at him, at his shambling movements, his dreary clothes, at the way his mouth was always open because his tongue was too large. No, the people did not love him and as Parliament had now been prorogued for a year and a half, they could not help feeling that they were no worse off without it. But they did feel, and those of them who were better at expressing themselves said, that King and Parliament were the chosen government of the British nation just as the Church of England was the chosen religion. It was not for a handful of men, probably, they thought, in the pay of foreigners, to destroy what England had chosen to set up for herself. Besides, what a horrible thing to use gunpowder to blow up the King and the Queen and the young Prince as well as so many lusty men who had wives and children of their own at home!
“Who were they then, these gunpowder plotters?” somebody shouted.
“All I know is that one was called John Johnson, or some say, Guy Fawkes.”
“I should like to see this John Johnson or Guy Fawkes blown up himself.”
“Let’s burn him!” somebody yelled.
One of the many young apprentices who were dancing round the fires picked up a bundle of straw, rolled it in some rags and clapped his own hat on top of the bundle.
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot Page 7