“2. Fawkes, in his examination of November 5, 1605, speaks of the window in his chamber near the Parliament House towards the water-side.

“3. It is said that when digging their mine the conspirators were troubled by the influx of water from the river, which would be impossible if they were working at the opposite side of the Parliament House.”[130]

I think, however, that a still closer identification is possible. On page 80 will be seen a frontage towards the river, marked ‘very old walls, remaining in 1795 & 1800,’ of which the line corresponds fairly with that of the house in the view given as the frontispiece to this volume.

On part of the site behind it is written ‘Very Old House,’ and the remainder is said to have been occupied by a garden for many years. It may, however, be gathered from the view that this piece of ground was covered by part of the house in 1799, and I imagine that the ‘many years’ must have commenced in 1807, when the house was demolished (see view at p. 89). If any doubt remains as to the locality of the front it will be removed by Capon’s pencilled note on the door to the left,[131] stating that it led to Parliament Place.[132]

The house marked separately to the right in the plan, as Mrs. Robe’s house, 1799, is evidently identical with the more modern building in the frontispiece, and therefore does not concern us.

With this comparatively modern plan should be compared the three which follow in succession (pp. 81, 82, 83), respectively dated 1685, 1739, and 1761. They are taken from the Crace Collection of plans in the Print Room of the British Museum, Portfolio xi. Nos. 30, 45, 46.

The first of these three plans differs from the later ones in two important particulars. In the first place, the shaded part indicating buildings is divided by dark lines, and, in the second place, this shaded part covers more ground. I suppose there can be little doubt that the dark lines indicate party walls, and we are thus enabled to understand how it is that, whilst in writing to Parry[133] Salisbury speaks of Percy as having taken a part of Whynniard’s house, Percy is spoken of in all the remaining evidence that has reached us as taking a house. Salisbury, no doubt, was thinking of the whole tenement held by Whynniard as a house, whilst others gave that name to such a part of it as could be separately held by a single tenant. The other difference between the plans is less easy to explain. Neither of the later ones show that excrescence towards the river-bank, abutting on its northern side on Cotton Garden, which is so noted a feature in the plan of 1685. At one time I was inclined to think that we had here the ‘low room new builded,’ that in which Percy at first stored his powder; but this would be to make the house rented by him far larger than it is likely to have been. A more probable explanation is given by the plan itself. It will be seen that the shading includes the internal courtyard, perceptible in the two later plans, and it does not therefore necessarily indicate the presence of buildings. May not the shaded part reaching to the river mean no more than that in 1685 there was some yard or garden specially attached to the House?

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