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During his journey to London he rode on horseback, but he was such a bungling equestrian that he was thrown by a sagacious animal intent on having his fling at the expense of the sovereign. Besides being ungainly in his person, he did not set it off to the best advantage, for he was exceedingly dirty; and thus he appeared to be looking black at everybody, for his face was encrusted in dust, and though his predecessor, Elizabeth, was very objectionable, he could not boast of coming to the throne with clean hands. Power was such a new toy to him that he could not use it in moderation, and he made knights at the rate of fifty a day, which caused Bacon so far to forget himself as to utter the silly sarcasm, that there would be a surfeit of Sirs, if James proceeded in the manner in which he was beginning.
Conspiracies were soon formed against a monarch so weak, and the ambitious. Raleigh, who had been in his youth a mere street adventurer, thought he could vault over official posts as easily as he had vaulted, over those in the public thoroughfares. His designs being detected, he was deprived of some of the offices he possessed, and among others his monopoly of licensing taverns, and retailing, wines, for which his knowledge of the tobacco business had well fitted him. He plotted with Grey, a Puritan, Markham, a Papist, and Cobham, a Nothingarian, to seize the person of the king; but the tables were turned upon them by the seizure of themselves and their committal to the Tower. Grey, Cobham, and Markham were condemned to die; but just as they had laid their heads on the block, they were axed if they would rather live, and having answered in the affirmative, they were committed to the Tower with Raleigh for the remainder of their lives.
The Puritans having complained of ecclesiastical abuses. James ordered a meeting at Hampton Court between the bishops and their opponents, to talk over their differences. The bishops were allowed the first innings, and they continued running on for several hours, when James took the matter up on the same side, and the Puritans were not allowed to utter a word. After the king had talked himself out of breath, and his hearers out of patience, Doctor Reynolds was permitted to take a turn on behalf of the Puritans; but he was insulted, interrupted, and regularly coughed down before he had spoken twenty words. The king then exclaimed, "Well, Doctor, is that all you have to say?" Upon which the Doctor, being abashed by the unfairness shown towards him, admitted that he was unwilling to proceed. James boasted that he had silenced the Puritans; and so he had, but it was by intimidation and bluster alone that he had succeeded in doing so.
Encouraged by his triumph over a few trembling sectarians, the king called Parliament together, expecting to overcome that body; but he found he had to deal with some very awkward customers. They questioned his rights, refused his salary, and turned coldly from a proposition to unite England with Scotland, which they resisted with a sneering assertion that oil and vinegar would never agree. Doubting whether he would get much good out of Parliament in the temper in which he found it, he abruptly closed the session.
The Catholics, who were subjected to much persecution, became very angry under it, and a gentleman of the name of Catesby, who had changed his opinions some three or four times, stuck to the last set with such fury, that he resolved to assist them at all hazards. His principles had been a mere matter of toss up, but he had settled down into a Papist at last; and conceiving the idea of destroying King, Lords, and Commons, at one blow, he expressed himself on the subject avec explosion, as the French dramatists have it, to Thomas Winter, a gentleman of Worcestershire, who, having been worsted in all his prospects, cottoned at once to the scheme. The Catholics had solicited the mediation of the King of Spain, and Winter passed over to the Netherlands to hear how matters were going on, when he made himself acquainted at Ostend with a fellow named Guido Fawkes, who has been equally misinterpreted by "the boys" and the historians. It has been usual to describe him as a low mercenary who got his name of Fawkes or Forks, from his way of brutally demanding everybody to fork out; but however etymology may encourage such an interpretation of his name, we must denounce it as a cruel libel on his character. * The eagerness of the juvenile mind to adopt any malicious absurdity that is proposed to it, has been exhibited in the boyish extravagance of making Guido Fawkes a man of straw, though there is little doubt that he was a man of substance, and not the mere Will-o'-the-Wisp that constitutes his portrait as we see him drawn on stone along the paved streets of the metropolis. Guido, whose pretended ugliness has made his abbreviated name of Guy synonymous with a frightful object, was a gentleman, though a fanatic, and it is not true that had Fawkes been invited to dinner, it would have been necessary to look after the spoons as well as the Fawkes with unusual vigilance. Catesby invited Winter and Guido to his lodgings, where they were met by Thomas Percy, a distant relation of the Earl of Northumberland, and by John Wright, an obstinate fellow, who would never own himself wrong. Grog and cigars—the latter being a novelty recently imported by Raleigh—were liberally provided, when Catesby suggested that before business could be regularly gone into, an oath of secresy must be administered. With a melodramatic desire to give the affidavit all the advantages of appropriate scenery, it was suggested that a lone house in the fields beyond Clement's Inn should be the spot where the oath should be administered.
* Some monster or punster in human form, declares he was
called Fawkes or Forks, because he was ready to con-knive in
anything sanguinary. The atrocity of this assertion needs no
comment.
In the course of a few days the affidavit had been drawn, perused, settled, and engrossed, when the parties met at the place appointed, and were all sworn in, with due formality. Catesby, acting as a sort of chairman, then proceeded to explain to the meeting his views.