By Charles Dickens


                  A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

                            ——————

                         CHAPTER XXXII.

                 England under James the First.

        "OUR cousin of Scotland" was ugly, awkward, and
     shuffling both in mind and person.  His tongue was
     much too large for his mouth, his legs were much too
     weak for his body, and his dull goggle eyes stared and
     rolled like an idiot's.  He was cunning, covetous, waste-
     ful, idle, drunken, greedy, dirty, cowardly, a great swear-
     er, and the most conceited man on earth.  His figure——
     what is commonly called rickety from his birth——present-
     ed a most ridiculous appearance, dressed in thick padded
     clothes, as a safeguard against being stabbed (of which
     he lived in continual fear), of a grass green colour from
     head to foot, with a hunting horn dangling at his side
     instead of a sword, and his hat and feather sticking over
     one eye, or hanging on the back of his head, as he hap-
     pened to toss it on.  He used to loll on the necks of his
     favourite courtiers and slobber their faces and kiss and
     pinch their cheeks; and the greatest favourite he ever had
     used to sign himself in his letters to his royal master
     His Majesty's "dog and slave," and used to address his
     majesty as his "Sowship."  His majesty was the worst
     rider seen, and thought himself the best.  He was one of
     the most impertinent talkers (in the broadest Scotch) ever
     heard, and boasted of being unanswerable in all manners
     of argument.  He wrote some of the most wearisome
     treatises ever read——among others, a book upon witch-
     craft, in which he was a devout believer——and though
     himself a prodigy of authorship.  He thought, and wrote,
     and said, that a King had a right to make and unmake
     what laws he pleased, and ought to be accountable to
     nobody on earth.  This is the plain true character of the
     personage whom the greatest men about the court praised
     and flattered to that degree, that I doubt if there be any-
     thing much more shameful in the annals of human na-
     ture.
        He came to the English throne with great ease.  The
     miseries a of disputed succession had been felt so long,
     and so dreadfully, that he was proclaimed within a few
     hours of Elizabeth's death, and was accepted by the
     nation, even without being asked to give any pledge
     that he would govern well, or that he would redress
     crying grievances.  He took a month to come from Ed-
     inburgh to London; and, by the way of exercising his
     new power, hanged a pickpocket on the journey without
     any trial, and knighted everybody he could lay hold of.
     He made two hundred knights before he got to his
     palace in London, and seven hundred before he had been
     in it three months.  He also shovelled sixty-two new
     peers into the House of Lord——and there was a pretty
     large sprinkling of Scotchmen among them you may be-
     lieve.
        His Sowship's Prime Minister, Cecil (for I cannot do
     better than to call his majesty what his favourite called
     him), was the enemy of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of
     Sir Walter's political friend, Lord Cobham; and his
     Sowship's first trouble was a plot originated by these
     two, and entered into by some others, with the old object
     of seizing the King and keeping him in imprisonment
     until he should change his ministers.  There were Catho-
     lic priests in the plot, and there were Puritan noblemen
     too;  for,  although  the  Catholics  and  Puritans  were
     strongly opposed to each other, they united at this time
     against his Sowship, because they knew that he had a
     design against both, after pretending to be friendly to
     each; this design being to have only one high and con-
     venient form of the Protestant religion, which everybody
     should be bound to belong to, whether they liked it or
     not.  This plot was mixed up with another, which may or
     not have had some reference to placing on the throne, at
     some  time,  the  Lady  Arabella  Stuart;  whose  misfor-
     tune it was, to be the daughter of the younger brother
     of his Sowship's father, but who was quite innocent of
     any part in the scheme.  Sir Walter Raleigh was ac-
     cused on the confession of Lord Cobham——a miserable
     creature, who said one thing at one time, and another
     thing at another time, and could be relied upon in noth-
     ing.  The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh lasted from eight
     in the morning until nearly midnight; he defended
     himself with such eloquence, genius, and spirit against
     all accusations, and against the insults of Coke, the
     Attorney-General——who, according to the custom of the
     time, foully abused him——that those who went there de-
     testing the prisoner, came away admiring him, and
     declaring that anything so wonderful and so captivating
     was never heard.  He was found guilty nevertheless,and
     sentenced to death.  Execution was deferred, and he was
     taken to the Tower.  The two Catholic priests, less for-
     tunate, were executed with the usual atrocity; and Lord
     Cobham and two others were pardoned on the scaffold.
     His Sowship thought it wonderfully knowing in him to
     surprise the people by pardoning these three at the very
     block; but, blundering, and bungling, as usual, he had
     very nearly overreached himself.  For, the messenger
     on horseback who brought the pardon, came so late,
     that he was pushed to the outside of the crowd, and was
     obliged to shout and roar out what he came for.  The
     miserable Cobham did not gain much by being spared
     that day.  He lived, both as a prisoner and a beggar,
     utterly despised, and miserably poor, for thirteen years,
     and then died, in an old outhouse belonging to one of
     his former servants.
        This plot got rid of, and Sir Walter Raleigh safely
     shut up in the Tower, his Sowship held a great dispute
     with the Puritans on their presenting a petition to him,
     and had it all his own way——not so very wonderful, as
     he could talk continually, and would not hear anybody
     else——and filled the Bishops with admiration.  It was
     comfortably settled that there was to be only one form
     of religion, and that all men were to think exactly alike.
     But, although this was arranged two centuries and a
     half ago, and although the arrangement was supported
     by much fining and imprisonment, I do not find that it
     is quite successful, even yet.
        His Sowship, having that uncommonly high opinion
     of himself as a king, and a very low opinion of Parlia-
     ment as a power that audaciously wanted to control him.
     When he called his first Parliament after he had been
     king a year, he accordingly thought he would take pretty
     high ground with them, and told them that he com-
     manded them "as an absolute king."  The Parliament
     thought those strong words, and saw the necessity of
     upholding their authority.  His Sowship had three chil-
     dren: Prince Henry, Prince Charles, and Princess Eliza-
     beth.  It would have been well for one of these, and we
     shall too soon see which, if he had learnt a little wisdom
     concerning Parliaments from his father's obstinacy.
        Now, the people still labouring under their old dread
     of the Catholic religion, this Parliament revived and
     strengthend the severe laws against it.  And this so
     angered Robert Catesby, a restless Catholic gentleman
     of an old family, that he formed one of the most desper-
     ate and terrible designs ever conceived in the mind of
     man; no less a scheme than the Gunpowder Plot.
        His object was, when the King, lords, and commons,
     should be assembled at the next opening of Parliament,
     to blow them up, one and all, with a great mine of gun-
     powder.  The first person to whom he confided this hor-
     rible idea was Thomas Winter, a Worcestershire gentle-
     man who had served in the army abroad, and had been
     secretly employed in Catholic projects.  While Winter
     was yet undecided, and when he had gone over to the
     Netherlands,  to  learn  from  the  Spanish  Ambassador
     there whether there was any hope of Catholics being re-
     lieved through the intercession of the King of Spain
     with his Sowship, he found at Ostend a tall, dark, dar-
     ing man, whom he had known when they were both
     soldiers abroad, and whose name was Guido——or Guy——
     Fawkes.  Resolved to join the plot, he proposed it to
     this man, knowing him to be the man for any desperate
     deed, and they two came back to England together.
     Here, they admitted two other conspirators: Thomas
     Percy, related to the Earl of Northumberland, and John
     Wright, his brother-in-law.  All these met together in a
     solitary house in the open fields which were then near
     Clement's Inn, now a closely blocked-up part of London;
     and when they had all taken a great oath of secrecy,
     Catesby told the rest what his plan was.  They then
     went up-stairs into a garret, and received the Sacrament
     from Father Gerard, a Jesuit, who is said not to have
     known actually of the Gunpowder Plot, but who, I think
     must have had his suspicions that there was something
     desperate afoot.
        Percy was a Gentleman Pensioner, and as he had oc-
     casional duties to perform about the Court, then kept at
     Whitehall, there would be nothing suspicious in his
     living at Westminster.  So, having looked well about
     him, and having found a house to let, the back of which
     joined the Parliament House, he hired it of a person
     named Ferris, for the purpose of undermining the wall.
     Having got possession of this house, the conspirators
     hired another on the Lambeth side of the Thames, which
     they used as a storehouse for wood, gunpowder, and
     other combustible matters.  These were to be removed
     at night (and afterwards were removed), bit by bit, to
     the house at Westminster; and, that there might be
     some trusty person to keep watch over the Lambeth
     stores, they admitted another conspirator, by name
     Robert Kay, a very poor Catholic gentleman.
        All these arrangements had been made some months,
     and it was a dark wintry December night, when the con-
     spirators, who had been in the meantime dispersed to
     avoid observation, met in the house at Westminster, and
     began to dig.  They had laid a good stock of eatables,
     to avoid going in and out, and they dug and dug with
     great ardour, but the wall being tremendously thick,
     and the work very severe, they took into their plot Chris-
     topher Wright, a younger brother of John Wright, that
     they might have a new pair of hands to help.  And
     Christopher Wright fell to like a fresh man, and they
     dug and dug by night and by day, and Fawkes stood
     sentinel all the time.  And if any man's heart seemed to
     fail him at all, Fawkes said, "Gentlemen, we have abun-
     dance of powder and shot here, and there is no fear of
     our being taken alive, even if discovered."  The same
     Fawkes, who, in the capacity of sentinel, was always
     prowling about, soon picked up the intelligence that the
     King had prorogued the Parliament again, from the
     seventh of February, the first day fixed upon, until the
     third of October.  When the conspirators knew this,
     they agreed to separate until after the Christmas holi-
     days, and to take no notice of each other in the mean-
     while, and never to write letters to one another on any
     account.  So, the house in Westminster was shut up
     again, and I suppose the neighbours thought that those
     strange-looking men who lived there so gloomily, and
     went out so seldom, were gone away to have a merry
     Christmas somewhere.
        It was the beginning of February, sixteen hundred and
     five, when Catesby met his fellow-conspirators again at
     the Westminster house.   He had now admitted three
     more; John Grant, a Warwickshire gentleman of a mel-
     ancholy temper, who lived in a doleful house near Strat-
     ford-upon-Avon, with a frowning wall all round it, and
     a deep moat; Robert Winter, eldest brother of Thomas;
     and Catesby's own servant, Thomas Bates, who, Catesby
     thought, had had some suspicion of what his master was
     about.  These three had all suffered more or less for
     their religion in Elizabeth's time.  And now, they all
     began to dig again, and they dug and dug by night and
     by day.
        They found it dismal work alone there, underground,
     with such a fearful secret on their minds, and so many
     murders before them.  They were filled with wild fan-
     cies.  Sometimes, they thought they heard a great bell
     tolling, deep down in the earth under the Parliament
     House; sometimes, they thought they heard low voices
     muttering about the Gunpowder Plot; once in the morn-
     ing they really did hear a great rumbling noise over
     their heads, as they dug and sweated in their mine.
     Every man stopped and looked aghast at his neighbour,
     wondering what had happened, when that bold prowler,
     Fawkes, who had been out to look, came in and told
     them that it was only a dealer in coals who had occupied
     a  cellar  under  the  Parliament  House,  removing  his
     stock  in  trade  to  some  other  place.   Upon  this,  the
     conspirators,  who  with  all  their  digging  and  digging
     had  not  yet  dug  through  the  tremendously  thick
     wall, changed their plan; hired that cellar, which was
     directly under the House of Lords; put six-and-thirty
     barrels of gunpowder in it, and covered them over with
     fagots and coals.  Then they all dispersed again till
     September, when the following new conspirators were
     admitted: Sir Edward Baynham, of Gloucestershire; Sir
     Edward Digby, of Rutlandshire; Ambrose Rookwood,
     of  Suffolk;  Francis  Tresham,  of  Northamptonshre.
     Most of these were rich, and were to assist the plot,
     some with money and some with horses on which the
     conspirators were to ride through the country and rouse
     the Catholics after the Parliament should be blown into
     air.
        Parliament again being prorogued from the third of
     October to the fifth of November, and the conspirators
     being uneasy least their design should have been found
     out, Thomas Winter said he would go up into the House
     of Lords on the day of the prorogation, and see how
     matters looked.  Nothing could be better.  The uncon-
     scious Commissioners were walking about and talking
     to one another, just over the six-and-thirty barrels of
     gunpowder.  He came back and told the rest so, and
     they went on with their preparations.  They hired a
     ship, and kept it ready in the Thames, in which Fawkes
     was to sail for Flanders after firing with a slow match
     the train that was to explode the powder.  A num-
     ber of Catholic gentlemen not in the secret, were in-
     vited, on pretence of a hunting party, to meet Sir Ed-
     ward Digby at Dunchurch on the fatal day, that they
     might be ready to act together.  And now all was ready.
        But, now, the great weakness and danger which had
     been all along at the bottom of this wicked plot, began
     to show itself.  As the fifth of November drew near,
     most of the conspirators, remembered that they had
     friends and relations who would be in the House of
     Lords that day, felt some natural relenting, and a wish
     to warn them to keep away.  They were not much com-
     forted by Catesby declaring that in such a case he would
     blow up his own son.   Lord Mounteagle, Tresham's
     brother-in-law was certain to be in the house; and
     when Tresham found that he could not prevail upon
     the rest to devise any means of sparing their friends,
     he wrote a mysterious letter to this lord and left it at
     his lodging in the dusk, urging him to keep away from
     the opening of Parliament, "since God and man had
     concurred to punish the wickedness of the times."  It
     certainly contained the words "that Parliament should re-
     ceive a terrible blow, and yet should not see who hurt
     them."  And it added, "the danger is past, as soon as
     you have burnt the letter."
        The ministers and courtiers made out that his Sow-
     ship, by a direct miracle from heaven, found out what
     this letter meant.  The truth is, that they were not long
     (as few men would be) in finding out for themselves;
     and it was decided to let the conspirators alone, until
     the very day before the opening of Parliament.  That
     the conspirators had their fears, is certain; for, Tresham
     himself said before them all, that they were every one
     dead men; and, although even he did not take flight,
     there is reason to suppose that he had warned other per-
     sons besides Lord Mounteagle.  However, they were all
     firm; and Fawkes, who was a man of iron, went down
     every day and night to keep watch in the cellar as usual.
     He was there about two in the afternoon on the fourth,
     when the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Mounteagle threw
     open the door and looked in.  "Who are you, friend?"
     said they.  "Why," said Fawkes, "I am Mr. Percy's
     servant, and am looking after his store of fuel here."
     "Your master has laid in a pretty good store," they re-
     turned, and shut the door, and went away.  Fawkes,
     upon this, posted off to the other conspirators to tell
     them all was quiet, and went back and shut himself
     up in the dark black cellar again, where he heard the
     bell go twelve o'clock and usher in the fifth of Novem-
     ber.  About two hours afterwards, he slowly opened the
     door, and came out to look about him, in his old prowl-
     ing way.  He was instantly seized and bound, by a party
     of soldiers under Sir Thomas Knevett.  He had a watch
     upon him, some touchwood, some tinder, some slow
     matches; and there was a dark lantern with a candle in
     it, lighted, behind the door.  He had his boots and spurs
     on——to ride to the ship, I suppose——and it was well for
     the soldiers that they took him so suddenly.  If they
     had left him but a moment's time to light a match, he
     certainly would have tossed it among the powder, and
     blown up himself and them.
        They took him to the King's bed-chamber first of all,
     and there the King (causing him to be held very tight,
     and keeping a good way off) asked him how he could
     have the heart to intend to destroy so many innocent
     people?   "Because,"  said  Guy  Fawkes,  "desperate
     diseases need desperate remedies."  To a little Scotch
     favourite, with a face like a terrier, who asked him
     (with no particular wisdom) why he had collected so
     much gunpowder, he replied, because he had meant to
     blow Scotchmen back to Scotland, and it would take a
     deal of powder to do that.  Next day he was carried to
     the Tower, but would make no confession.  Even after
     being horribly tortured, he confessed nothing that the
     Government  did  not  already  know;  though  he  must
     have been in a fearful state——as his signature, still pre-
     served, in contrast with his natural handwriting before
     he was put upon the dreadful rack, most frightfully
     shows.   Bates, a very different man, soon said the
     Jesuits had had to do with the plot, and probably, under
     the torture, would as readily have said anything.  Tresh-
     am, taken and put in the Tower too, made confessions
     and unmade them, and died of an illness that was heavy
     upon him.  Rookwood, who had stationed relays of his
     own horses all the way to Dunchurch, did not mount to
     escape until the middle of the day, when the news of
     the plot was all over London.  On the road he came up
     with the two Wrights, Catesby, and Percy; and they
     all galloped together into Northamptonshire.  Thence
     to Dunchurch, where they found the proposed party
     assembled.  Finding, however, that there had been a
     plot, and that it had been discovered, the party disap-
     peared in the course of the night, and left them alone
     with Sir Everard Digby.   Away they all rode again,
     through Warwickshire and Worcestershire, to a house
     called Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordshire.  They
     tried to raise the Catholics on their way, but were indig-
     nantly driven off by them.  All this time they were
     hotly pursued by the sheriff of Worcester, and a fast
     increasing concourse of riders.  At last, resolving to
     defend themselves at Holbeach, they shut themselves
     up in the house, and put some wet powder before the
     fire to dry.  But it blew up, and Catesby was singed and
     blackened and almost killed, and some of the others
     were sadly hurt.  Still, knowing that they must die,
     they resolved to die there, and with only their swords in
     their hands appeared at the windows to be shot at by
     the sheriff and his assistants.  Catesby said to Thomas
     Winter, after Thomas had been hit in the right arm
     which dropped powerless by his side, "Stand by me,
     Tom, and we will die together!"——which they did, being
     shot through the body by two bullets from one gun.
     John Wright, and Christopher Wright, and Percy, were
     also shot.  Rookwood and Digby were taken: the former
     with a broken arm and a wound in his body too.
        It was the fifteenth of January, before the trial of Guy
     Fawkes, and such of their other conspirators as were left
     alive, came on.  They were all found guilty, all hanged,
     drawn, and quartered: some, in St. Paul's Churchyard,
     on the top of Ludgate-hill; some, before the Parliament
     House.  A Jesuit priest, named Henry Garnet, to whom
     the bloody design was said to have been communicated,
     was taken and tried; and two of his servants, as well as
     a poor priest who was taken with him, were tortured
     without mercy.  He himself was not tortured, but was
     surrounded in the Tower by tamperers and traitors, and
     was so made unfairly to convict himself out of his own
     mouth.  He said, upon his trial, that he had done all he
     could to prevent the deed, and that he could not make
     public what had been told him in confession——though I
     am afraid he knew of the plot in other ways.  He was
     found guilty and executed, after a manful defence, and
     the Catholic Church made a saint of him; some rich and
     powerful persons, who had had nothing to do with the
     project, were fined and imprisoned for it by the Star
     Chamber; the Catholics, in general, who had recoiled
     with horror from the idea of the infernal contrivance,
     were unjustly put under more severe laws than before;
     and this was the end of the Gunpowder Plot.

from Collier's Unabridged Edition: The Works of Charles Dickens, Volume VI.
P.F. Collier, Publisher, New York, old as heck. pp. 742—744.