The Powder Plot. IV. [(p. 227).]
This is the portion on the left of a composite picture [British Museum, Political and Personal Satires, 63], on the right being represented the catastrophe known as the "Blackfriars Downfall." On Sunday, October 26th, 1623, many Catholics having assembled in an upper room of the French ambassador's house, in Blackfriars, to hear a sermon from the Jesuit, Father Drury, the floor collapsed, and many, including the preacher, were killed. As October 26th, O.S., corresponded to November 5th, N.S., it was ingeniously discovered that the accident was meant to signalize Gunpowder Plot day, though this fell on November 5th, O.S., or November 15th, N.S.
In our illustration the Parliament House is represented by a nondescript edifice, the wall of which is partially removed, showing King James and some of the Peers. An oven-like vault beneath represents the "cellar," well stored with barrels, which Faukes is preparing to light with a torch fanned by a crowned fiend with a pair of bellows. A company of halberdiers approaches under the guidance of an angel. In the background is a royal funeral procession.
A Latin inscription is attached which runs thus:
"Anno 1623, Quinto Novembris, eo scripto die quo Angliæ Parliamentum, ao 1605, proditione et insidiis Jesuitarum, pulvere nitreo inflammari et in æthera spargi debuit, Jesuitarum conventus Londini, ... ad missam et conciones audiendas congregatus, fatali providentia, ædium ruina præcipitatus et dissipatus est, oppressis centum et plus totidem vulneratis.
Loiolides sanctos efflare volebat ad astra;
Astra repercutiunt fulmine Loiolidem.
Loiolides, sine te penetrabit astra fidelis:
Tu fato ad Stygias præcipitaris aquas."
The Powder Plot. V. [(p. 229).]
This is an edition of Samuel Ward's print described above, improved and embellished by a "Transmariner" in 1689. [British Museum, Political and Personal Satires, i. 43.]
The tent in which the council table stands is ornamented at the four corners with figures of a wolf, a parrot, an owl, and a dragon: a cockatrice is on the table; on the top lie a gun, a sword, and a brace of pistols. A demon, bearing behind him a Papal Bull, accompanies Faukes, beneath whose lantern, as a play on his name, is written Fax. At the door of the cellar are scorpions and a serpent. On the top of the barrels within are seen the "yron barres," placed there to make the breach the greater.