While the discomfited conspirators were thus speeding on their weary way, in hope of yet gathering recruits enough to raise the standard of rebellion in the interests of that Church on whose behalf they counted everything lawful, Lord Harrington, at Combe Abbey, heard the news, and hurried the little Princess off to Coventry, as a safer place than his own house, for Coventry was determinately Protestant and loyal. Elizabeth, afterwards well known as the Queen of Bohemia, was deeply impressed and horrified with the terrible discovery.
“What sort of a queen should I have been,” said the true-hearted child, “when I had won to my throne through the blood of my father and my brothers? Thanked be God that it was not so!”
The metropolis was passing through a ferment of delight, amazement, and activity. Everywhere in the streets bonfires were blazing,—the first of those Gunpowder Plot bonfires which every fifth of November has seen after them.
A watch was set on Percy’s house in Holborn, and his wife was guarded. A priest named Roberts was taken in the house. Mrs Martha Percy appears to have been a fitting mate for a conspirator. She put on an affectation of the sublimest innocence. How should she know anything? she who lived so quietly, and was entirely occupied in teaching her own and other children. As to her husband, she had not seen him since Midsummer. He was attendant on my Lord of Northumberland, and lodged, as she supposed, in his house. Having thus lulled to sleep the suspicions of those set to watch her, the next morning Mrs Percy was not to be found. Whether she slipped through a door, or climbed out of a window, or went up the chimney on a broomstick, there was no evidence to show; but three days later she made her appearance at Norbrook House in Warwickshire, the residence of her eldest brother, John Wright, and was affectionately received by her sister-in-law.
At Westminster, Lord Chief-Justice Popham and Sir Edward Coke sat in judicial ermine, and summoned before them two prisoners—Gideon Gibbons the porter, and the clever gentleman who called himself John Johnson, and whose real name was Guy Fawkes.
Gibbons was soon disposed of, for he was as innocent as he seemed to be. All that he could say was that he had been hired, in his usual way of business, with two other porters, to carry three thousand billets of wood to the Parliament House, and that Mr Percy’s servant Johnson had stacked them in the cellar. The key of the house next door had been at times left in charge of his wife. So much he knew, and no more.
The examination of “John Johnson” was another matter. The King himself had drawn up a paper containing questions to be put to him, and he answered these and all others with an appearance of perfect frankness and wish to conceal nothing. His replies were in reality a mixture of truth and falsehood, which was afterwards proved.
The catechism began as usual, “What is your name?”
“John Johnson.” To this he adhered through two more examinations.
“How old are you?”