The King returned from Royston on the 31st of October. The next morning, Salisbury requested a private audience, and in the Long Gallery of Whitehall Palace, laid before his Majesty the mysterious letter. The astute Salisbury, and also the Lord Chamberlain, had already fathomed the meaning of the “terrible blow,” and the means by which it was to be effected; but the former would scarcely have been a Cecil had he not also read his royal master. His Majesty must have the matter so communicated to him that he should be able to believe that his own supernatural sagacity had solved a mystery impenetrable to the commonplace brains of the Lords of the Council. It might be reasonably anticipated that such a warning should be no mystery to the son of Lord Darnley—that his thoughts would fly rapidly to that house in the Kirk o’ Field, where his own father had received his death-blow, and had not seen who hurt him. That the one word “Gunpowder!” should drop from white, stern lips was to be expected. But do people ever do what is expected of them by others? In this case, at any rate, nothing half so dramatic took place.
“His Majesty made a short reply,”—which it may be was then thought such, but which now would assuredly be set down as long, wordy, and sententious.
“The incertainty of the writer, and the generality of the advertisement,” began the royal orator, “besides the small likelihood of any such conspiracy on the general body of any realm, gives me less cause to apprehend it as a thing certain to be put in execution. Considering that all conspiracies commonly distinguish of men and persons, yet seeing the words do rather seem (as far as they are to be regarded) to presage danger to the whole Court of Parliament (over whom my care is greater than over mine own life), and because the words describe such a form of doing as can be no otherwise interpreted than by some stratagem of fire and powder,—I wish that there may be special consideration had of the nature of all places yielding commodity for those kinds of attempts: and I will then deliver my further judgment.”
The man who could deliver his judgment in this stilted style of pompous word-building, in such circumstances as were then existing, would have required a powdered footman in spotless plush to precede him out of a house on fire. I must confess to a little misgiving as to the authenticity of this speech. It looks much more likely to have been deliberately penned by my Lord Salisbury in the calm of his official study, when the smoke had cleared away from the battlefield, than to have been fired off by King James in haste and trepidation—which he was sure to feel—at the moment when the letter was laid before him. The evidence that the Government account of the circumstances was drawn up with due regard to what they might and should have been to produce the proper effect on the docile public, and not very much as to what they were, is irresistible. But as no other narrative exists, we can but have recourse to the stained-glass article before us.
His Sacred Majesty having thus exhibited his incomparable wisdom, and been properly complimented and adored on account thereof, my Lord Salisbury left the gallery with a grave face, and hastily summoning the Lords of the Council, went through the farce of laying the letter before them.
“Sire,” said he, when he returned to the King, “the Lords of the Council, subject to your Majesty’s gracious pleasure, advise that my Lord Chamberlain shall straitly view the Parliament House, and my Lord Monteagle beseecheth leave to be with him.”
“Gude!” said his Majesty, who to the day of his death never lost his Scottish accent. “I wad ha’e ye likewise, my Lord Salisbury, ta’e note o’ such as wad without apparent necessity seek absence frae the Parliament, because ’tis improbable that among a’ the nobles, this warning should be only gi’en to ane.”
“Sire, your Majesty’s command shall be obeyed.”
“Atweel, let the search be made, and report to me,” said the King, as he left the gallery.
The following Monday, which was the day before the opening of Parliament, was appointed for the search.