The king hunted in peace since the conspirators, who had so greatly alarmed him, were in the Tower. He also indulged in the pleasure of theological polemics. As long as he was King of Scotland he was obliged to accept the yoke of the Puritans. Happy to escape from them, he pursued them in his new kingdom with bitter rancor. Suddenly smitten with the episcopacy, he discussed personally with the doctors favorable to Presbyterian principles. "No bishops, no king," exclaimed James, who did not leave his adversaries time to reply. Then, making use of the prerogative which he so resolutely claimed, he gave orders to all his subjects to conform themselves to the ordinances, doctrines, and ceremonies of the Church of England, authorizing the bishops to dismiss from their livings those of the clergy who refused to obey. More than three hundred pastors were thus deprived suddenly of their functions as well as their means of subsistence. A great number proceeded abroad; others remained in their country, and the spies, formerly exclusively commissioned to ferret out the Catholics who dared to hear mass, added to this duty that of discovering the secret meetings which the dismissed pastors often held even in their former parishes. King James was preparing by religious persecution that great Puritan party which was to contribute so powerfully to the overthrow of his son.
Parliament assembled on the 19th of March, 1604, and the leaven of opposition which had already appeared under Elizabeth, was not wanting in the first relations of the new sovereign with the representatives of his people. The contested election of Mr. Goodwin marked the commencement of the struggle. The Commons had the audacity to complain of some abuses, and they did not prove themselves generous in voting supplies. King James was profoundly imbued with the doctrine which he had promulgated in a pamphlet entitled, The true Law of free Monarchies, namely, that the king has the right of commanding, and the subject the duty of obeying. He pronounced as soon as possible the dissolution of Parliament; but the Commons had, nevertheless, time to call the royal attention to the Papists, recommending them to all the rigor of the laws. The bishops and the Puritans were agreed upon this point. The enormous fines regularly imposed upon the Catholics for their absence from the established worship, were exacted with a severity that filled the coffers of the king while ruining numerous families. James had claimed all the arrears for one year. The wealthy Papists were threatened with judicial prosecutions. They knew the sentence beforehand. Many ransomed their lives by the payment of large sums. The king began to hunt again, and forbade any one to speak to him of business on the days which he devoted to that pastime. The counties which he honored with his presence groaned under the burden. One of the hounds of his Majesty appeared one morning bearing upon his neck a petition addressed to him conceived thus: "Good Medor, we beg you to speak to his Majesty, who hears you every day and does not listen to us, that he may kindly return to London to his business, for our provisions are exhausted, and we shall have nothing left to give him to eat." The king laughed and remained where he was; but matters were preparing in London to recall him.
Among the Catholics ruined by the successive exactions which they had suffered was Robert Catesby, a renegade in his youth, but who returned with zeal to the faith of his fathers, and had since then engaged in all the Catholic intrigues. Weary of persecution, and seeing no hope of relief either in the anterior promises of the king, or in the influence of Spain which had been counted upon to some extent, he conceived the atrocious project of causing all the persecutors to perish at a blow—King, Lords, and Commons, upon the opening of Parliament convoked for the 7th of February, 1605. Prudent and circumspect, he sought accomplices. Thomas Winter, a gentleman and a Catholic like himself, formerly employed by Spain in the Low Countries, only consented to enter into the plot after having asked the Spaniards if they had no longer any hope. Upon his return from Ostend, with a reply in the negative, he brought back a former comrade, Guy Fawkes, a soldier of fortune, resolute and fanatical like the two other conspirators. Seven persons in all were bound by the most solemn oath, and the plotters set to work in a house which they had taken beside Whitehall, under the name of Percy, one of the conspirators, an officer of the royal household. They reckoned upon digging a mine which was to extend beneath the Houses of Parliament. "No one set to work to dig or to transport the powder who was not a gentleman," said Fawkes, in his examination. "While the others worked I acted as sentinel, and the work was stopped if any passer-by appeared." The stores were deposited at Lambeth, on the other side of the river. They were brought in small quantities as the subterranean passage progressed.
The Gunpowder Plot Discovered.
Twice the work was suspended: the prorogation of Parliament was prolonged—at first until the month of October, then until November. The conspirators, who were no longer pressed for time, separated in order not to arouse suspicion. At the end of May the work was completed. They had been able to take a cellar which extended beneath the floor of the House of Lords. Thirty-six barrels of powder were deposited therein; but to these minds, agitated by dark designs and burdened with a weighty secret, idleness was fatal. They were, besides, nearly all without resources, and the successive delays brought about in their enterprise placed them in a great embarrassment. The want of money induced Catesby, still the prime mover in the plot, to admit among the conspirators two rich men upon whom he thought he could rely. One, Sir Everard Digby, promised to invite to a great hunting expedition all the Catholic gentlemen, members of Parliament, whose lives it was desired to save. The other, Tresham, a relative of Catesby, and already compromised with him in certain intrigues, undertook to provide the necessary funds; but scarcely had he taken the oath when the confidence with which Catesby had hitherto been animated suddenly failed him. He became dispirited: day and night he felt himself haunted by the most sinister forebodings.
All was ready; Prince Charles, the second son of King James, was to be proclaimed by Catesby at Charing Cross at the moment of the destruction of Whitehall. Tresham was to depart in a ship freighted for that purpose, and repair to Flanders to invoke the assistance of the Catholic powers. Guy Fawkes was entrusted to set fire to the mine. The general meeting-place was at Dunchurch. The uneasiness of the greater number of the accomplices was concerning their friends, whom they were afraid of making the victims of their enterprise. Catesby had, it was said, taken steps for keeping a great number of Catholics away from Whitehall. "But were they as dear to me as my own son, they should be blown up with the rest rather than cause the affair to fail," he added. Meanwhile, on the 26th of October, ten days before the opening of Parliament, Lord Monteagle, father-in-law of Tresham, received a letter in a disguised hand, enjoining him not to repair to Whitehall on the 5th of November. "The Parliament will receive a terrible blow," said the anonymous writer, "and yet they shall not see who hurts them."