FOOTNOTES:
[423] Criminal Trials, ii. I.
[424] Nugæ Antiquæ, i. 374.
[425] Harleian Miscellany, iv. 249.
[426] This terrible state of things was alleged as a principal reason for the prorogation of the Parliament for two months and a half. As a matter of fact, the rebels had been overthrown and captured the day before that on which the king's speech was delivered, and news of that event was received that same evening.
[427] Commons' Journals.
[428] In the preamble of the Act so passed we read: "Forasmuch as it is found by daily experience, that many his Majesty's subjects that adhere in their hearts to the popish religion, by the infection drawn from thence, and by the wicked and devilish counsel of jesuits, seminaries, and other like persons dangerous to the church and state, are so perverted in the point of their loyalties and due allegiance unto the King's majesty, and the Crown of England, as they are ready to entertain and execute any treasonable conspiracies and practices, as evidently appears by that more than barbarous and horrible attempt to have blown up with gunpowder the King, Queen ..." etc., etc.
[429] Negotiations, p. 256.
[430] "Our parliament is prorogued till the 18th of next November. Many things have been considerable in it, but especially the zeal of both Houses for the preservation of God's true religion, by establishing many good laws against Popery and those firebrands, Jesuits, and Priests, that seek to bring all things into confusion. His Majesty resolveth once more by proclamation to banish them all; and afterwards, if they shall not obey, then the laws shall go upon them without any more forbearance."—Cecil to Winwood, June 7th, 1606 (Winwood, Memorials, ii. 219).
[431] In the Dictionary of National Biography, and Doyle's Official Baronage, this installation is erroneously assigned to 1605.
[432] Chronicle, p. 408.
[433] Continuation of Stowe's Annals, p. 883.
[434] Letter iii.
[435] At Northumberland's trial Lord Salisbury thus expressed himself: "I have taken paines in my nowne heart to clear my lord's offences, which now have leade me from the contemplation of his virtues; for I knowe him vertuous, wyse, valiaunte, and of use and ornamente to the state.... The cause of this combustion was the papistes seekinge to restore their religion. Non libens dico, sed res ipsa loquitur."—Hawarde, Les Reportes, etc.
[436] History, vii. 84, note. On this subject Mr. Sawyer, the editor of Winwood (1715), has the following remark: "We meet with some account of his [Northumberland's] offence, though couched in such tender terms, that 'tis a little difficult to conceive it deserved so heavy a punishment as a fine of £30,000 and perpetual imprisonment." (Memorials, iii. 287, note.)
[437] To Winwood, Memorials, iii. 287.
[438] Traditional Memoirs, p. 214.
[439] An Answere to certaine Scandalous Papers, scattered abroad under colour of a Catholicke Admonition. "Qui facit vivere, docet orare." Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the King's most Eccellent Majestie. Anno 1606.
This was published in January, 1605-6, on the 28th of which month Sir W. Browne, writing from Flushing, mentions that "my lord of Salisbury hath lately published a little booke as a kynd of answer to som secrett threatning libelling letters cast into his chamber." (Stowe MSS., 168, 74, f. 308.)
[440] On this subject Cornwallis wrote to Salisbury (Winwood, ii. 193): "Many reports are here spread of the Combination against your Lordship, and that five English Romanists would resolve your death. It seems that since they cannot be allowed Sacrificium incruentum, they will now altogether put in use their sacrifices of blood. But I hope and suppose that their hearts and their hands want much of the vigour that rests in their wills and their pens. Your Lordship doth take especial courage in this, that they single you out as the chief and principal watch Tower of your Country and Commonwealth, and turn the strength of their malice to you whom they hold the discoverer of all their unnatural and destructive inventions against their prince and country," etc.
[441] P.R.O. Dom. James I. xviii. 97, February 27th, N.S., 1606. The original, which is in Latin, has been utterly misunderstood by the Calendarer of State Papers.
[442] Stonyhurst MSS., Anglia, iii. 72.
[443] Thomas Howard, cr. 1603.
[444] To the ambassadors.
[445] Father Blount's account is undoubtedly in keeping with what we know of the Earl, and especially of his Countess, who was a sister of Sir Thomas Knyvet, the captor of Guy Faukes. Suffolk, in 1614, became Lord High Treasurer, but four years afterwards grave irregularities were discovered in his office; he was accused of embezzlement and extortion, in which work his wife was proved to have been even more active than himself. They were sentenced to restore all money wrongfully extorted, to a fine of £30,000, and to imprisonment during pleasure.
[446] In this letter all proper names are in cipher, as well as various other words.
[447] Church History, x. 40.
[448] We have four Latin epigrams of Milton's, In proditionem Bombardicam, which, though pointless, are bitterly anti-Catholic. A longer poem, of 226 lines, In quintum Novembris, is still more virulent.
It is somewhat remarkable that the universal Shakespeare should make no allusion to the Plot, beyond the doubtful reference to equivocation in Macbeth (ii. 3). He was at the time of its occurrence in the full flow of his dramatic activity.
[449] See Appendix L, Myths and Legends of the Powder Plot.
[450] Brit. Mus. Print Room, Crace Collection, portf. xv. 28. This is reproduced, as our frontispiece.
[451] There was a new moon at 11.30 p.m. on October 31st.
[452] The reasons assigned in the proclamation for this prorogation are plainly insufficient: viz., "That the holding of it [the Parliament] so soone is not convenient, as well for that the ordinary course of our subjects resorting to the citie for their usuall affaires at the Terme is not for the most part till Allhallowtide or thereabouts." Why, then, had the meeting been fixed for so unsuitable a date?
[453] November 7th, 1605. (Dom. James I.)
[454] Tanner MSS. lxxv. 44.
[455] Ibid.
[456] On his arrival in England, as Osborne tells us (Memoirs, p. 276), King James "brought a new holiday into the Church of England, wherein God had publick thanks given him for his majestie's deliverance out of the hands of Earle Goury;" but the introduction was not a success, Englishmen and Scots alike ridiculing it. Gunpowder Plot Day was more fortunate.
[457] Harleian Miscellany, iv. 251.