It Might Have Been: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot

by Emily Sarah Holt

Raising himself from the hurdle as well as he could, Rookwood answered, “My dear, pray for me.”

“I will, I will!” she cried. “And do you offer yourself with a good heart to God and your Creator. I yield you to Him, with as full an assurance that you will be accepted of Him as when He gave you to me.” And so the procession passed on.

The first to suffer of these was Thomas Winter. He was extremely pale, and seemed sorry for his offence “after a sort;” but he spoke little, merely protesting that he died “a true Catholic.”

Rookwood, who came next, made a long speech. He said that he asked forgiveness of God, whom he had offended in seeking to shed blood, of the King, and of the people. He prayed for the King and Royal Family, entreating that the King might become a “Catholic:” (Note 1) and he besought the King’s goodness to his Elizabeth and her children. He was spared the worst, for he drew his last breath ere it began.

The next to follow was Keyes. He had said on the trial that his fortunes being desperate, his fate was “as good now as another time, and for this cause rather than another.” In this hardened, reckless spirit, he flung himself from the ladder, with such force as to break the halter.

Last came “the great devil of all,” Guy Fawkes, who, “being weak with torture and sickness, was scarce able to go up the ladder.” He made no long speech, but “after a sort, seemed to be sorry” and asked forgiveness: and “with his crosses and his idle ceremonies” was cast-off, dying instantaneously.

So ended the awful scenes which were the reward of the Gunpowder Plot.

But not yet had justice overtaken all the perpetrators of this villainy. Three important traitors were yet at large, and they were all Jesuit priests. Greenway, who had fled from Holbeach with Robert Winter, had not continued in his company. For ten days he hid in barns and cottages in Worcestershire; but when the proclamation was made for his arrest, thinking it safest to be lost in a crowd in the metropolis, he came to London. Here he was one day seized by a man, as they stood among others reading the proclamation for his arrest. Greenway, with artful composure, denied the identity, but went quietly with his captor till they reached an unfrequented street, when the priest, who was a very powerful man, suddenly set upon his companion, and escaping from him, after a few days’ concealment fled to the coast, whence he safely crossed to the Continent. He afterwards wrote for his superiors a narrative of the plot, wherein all the conspirators are impeccable heroes of the romantic novel type, and the plot—which during its existence he upheld and fervently encouraged—is condemned as a “rash, desperate, and wicked” piece of business. He succeeded so well in deceiving his superiors (or else they were equally hypocritical with himself), that he was appointed Penitentiary to the Pope, and ended his life in the full favour of that potentate.

Gerard, also, who had originally assisted the plotters in taking their oath of secrecy, had now disappeared. So excellent an opinion had the Roman Catholics of him, that many refused to believe “that holy, good man” could have had any share in the conspiracy. The description of this worthy, as given in the proclamation for his arrest, is curious in its detail, and the better worth quoting since it has apparently not been printed:—

“John Gerrarde the Jesuit is about thirty years old, of a good stature, something higher than Sir Thomas Leighton (this name is crossed out, and replaced by the word) ordinary, and upright in his pace and countenance; somewhat staring in his looke and Eyes, curled headed by Nature, and blackish, and not apt to have much hair on his beard. His Nose somewhat wide, and turning up; blebberd lipped (thick-lipped), turning outward, especially the upper lip, upward toward the Nose. Curious in speech, if he do continue his custom, and in his speech he flewreth (Note 2) and smiles much, and a faltering, lisping, or doubling of his tongue in his speech.” (Note 3.) What a picture of a Jesuit! This is the type of man who practises an art which I never saw to such perfection as once in the Principal of a Jesuit College—that of: