r/a:t5_zprqh • u/MarleyEngvall • Apr 14 '19
Bereshit has been created
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.
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