What Gunpowder Plot Was

by Samuel Rawson Gardiner

“At either end the building abutted upon another running transversely to it; that on the north being the ‘Painted Chamber,’ probably erected by Edward the Confessor, and that on the south the ‘Prince’s Chamber,’ assigned by its architectural features to the reign of Henry III. The former served as a place of conference for Lords and Commons, the latter as the robing-room of the Lords. The royal throne stood at the south end of the House, near the Prince’s Chamber.”[166]

According to the story told by Fawkes this place was let to Mrs. Skinner by Whynniard to store her coals in. In an early draft of the narrative usually known as the ‘King’s Book,’[167] we are told that there was ‘some stuff of the King’s which lay in part of a cellar under those rooms’—i.e. the House of Lords, and ‘that Whynniard had let out some part of a room directly under the Parliament chamber to one that used it for a cellar.’ This statement is virtually repeated in the ‘King’s Book’ itself, where Whynniard is said to have stated ‘that Thomas Percy had hired both the house and part of the cellar or vault under the same.’[168] That part was so let is highly probable, as the internal length of the old kitchen was about seventy-seven feet, and it would therefore be far too large for the occupation of a single coalmonger. We must thus imagine the so-called vault divided into two portions, probably with a partition cutting off one from the other. If, therefore, the conspirators restricted their operations to the night-time, there was little danger of their being overheard. There was not much likelihood either that Whynniard would get out of bed to visit the tapestry or whatever the stuff belonging to the King may have been, or that Mrs. Skinner would want to examine her coal-sacks whilst her customers were asleep. The only risk was from some belated visitor coming up the quiet court leading from Parliament Place to make his way to one of the houses in Whynniard’s block. Against this, however, the plotters were secured by the watchfulness of Fawkes.

The precautions taken by the conspirators did not render their task easier. It was in the second fortnight, beginning after the middle of January, when the hard work of getting through the strong and broad foundation of the House of Lords tried their muscles and their patience, that they swore in Christopher Wright, and brought over Keyes from Lambeth together with the powder which they now stored in ‘a low room new-builded.’[169] After a fortnight’s work, reaching to Candlemas (Feb. 2), they had burrowed through about four feet six inches into the wall, after which they again gave over working.[170] Some time in the latter part of March they returned to their operations, but they had scarcely commenced when they found out that it would be possible for them to gain possession of a locality more suited to their wants, and they therefore abandoned the project of the mine as no longer necessary.[171]

Before passing from the story of the mine, the more important of Father Gerard’s criticisms require an answer. How, he asks, could the conspirators have got rid of such a mass of earth and stones without exciting attention?[172] Fawkes, indeed, says that ‘the day before Christmas having a mass of earth that came out of the mine, they carried it into the garden of the said house.’ Then Goodman declares that he saw it,[173] but, even if we assume that his memory did not play him false, it is impossible that the whole of the produce of the first fortnight’s diggings should be disposed of in this way. The shortest length that can be ascribed to the mine before the wall was reached is eight feet, and if we allow five feet for height and depth we have 200 cubical feet, or a mass more than six feet every way, besides the stones coming out of the wall after Christmas. Some of the earth may have been, as Fawkes said, spread over the garden beds, but the greater part of it must have been disposed of in some other way. Is it so very difficult to surmise what that was? The nights were long and dark, and the river was very close.

We are further asked to explain how it was that, if there was really a mine, the Government did not find it out for some days after the arrest of Fawkes. Why should they? The only point at which it was accessible was at its entrance in Percy’s own cellar, and it is an insult to the sharp wits of the plotters, to suppose that they did not close it up as soon as the project of the mine was abandoned. All that would be needed, if the head of the mine descended, as it probably did, would be the relaying of a couple or so of flagstones. How careful the plotters were of wiping out all traces of their work, is shown by the evidence of Whynniard’s servant, Roger James, who says that about Midsummer 1605, Percy, appearing to pay his quarter’s rent, ‘agreed with one York, a carpenter in Westminster, for the repairing of his lodging,’ adding ‘that he would send his man to pay the carpenter for the work he was to do.’[174] Either the mine had no existence, or all traces of it must have been effectually removed before a carpenter was allowed to range the house in the absence of both Percy and Fawkes. I must leave it to my readers to decide which alternative they prefer.

According to the usually received story, the conspirators, hearing a rustling above their heads, imagined that their enterprise had been discovered, but having sent Fawkes to ascertain the cause of the noise, they learnt that Mrs. Skinner (afterwards Mrs. Bright) was selling coals, and having also ascertained that she was willing to give up her tenancy to them for a consideration, they applied to Whynniard—from whom the so-called ‘cellar’ was leased through his wife, and obtained a transfer of the premises to Percy. All that remained was to convey the powder from the house to the ‘cellar,’ and after covering it with billets and faggots, to wait quietly till Parliament met.

Father Gerard’s first objection to this is, that whilst they were mining, ‘ridiculous as is the supposition, the conspirators appear to have been ignorant of the existence of the “cellar,” and to have fancied that they were working their way immediately beneath the Chamber of Peers.’ The supposition would be ridiculous enough if it were not a figment of Father Gerard’s own brain. He relies on what he calls ‘Barlow’s Gunpowder Treason,’[175] published in 1678, and on a remark made by Tierney in 1841, adding that it is ‘obviously implied’ by Fawkes and Winter. What Fawkes says on November 17 is:—

“As they were working upon the wall, they heard a rushing in a cellar of removing of coals; whereupon we feared we had been discovered, and they sent me to go to the cellar, who finding that the coals were a selling, and that the cellar was to be let, viewing the commodity thereof for our purpose, Percy went and hired the same for yearly rent.”[176]

What Winter says is that, ‘near to Easter ... opportunity was given to hire the cellar, in which we resolved to lay the powder and leave the mine.’ What single word is there here about the conspirators thinking that there was no storey intervening between the foundation and the House of Lords? The mere fact of Percy having been in the house close to the passage from which there was an opening closed only by a grating into the ‘cellar’ itself,[177] would negative the impossible supposition. Father Gerard, however, adds that Mrs. Whynniard tells us that the cellar was not to let, and that Bright, i.e. Mrs. Skinner, had not the disposal of the lease, but one Skinner, and that Percy ‘laboured very earnestly before he succeeded in obtaining it.’ What Mrs. Whynniard says is that the cellar had been already let, and that her husband had not the disposal of it. Percy then ‘intreated that if he could get Mrs. Skinner’s good-will therein, they would then be contented to let him have it, whereto they granted it.’[178] Is not this exactly what one might expect to happen on an application for a lease held by a tenant who proves willing to remove?

Father Gerard proceeds to raise difficulties from the structural nature of the cellar itself. Mr. William Capon, he says, examined the foundations of the House of Lords when it was removed in 1823, and did not discover the hole which the conspirators were alleged to have made. His own statement, however, printed in the fifth volume of Vetusta Monumenta,[179] says nothing about the foundations; and besides, as Father Gerard has shown, he had a totally erroneous theory of the place whence he supposes the conspirators to have had access to the ‘cellar.’ Nothing—as I have learnt by experience—is so likely as a false theory to blind the eyes to existing evidence.