What Gunpowder Plot Was

by Samuel Rawson Gardiner

We now come to the alleged discrepancies between various accounts of Fawkes’s seizure. Father Gerard compares three documents—(a) what he terms ‘the account furnished by Salisbury for the information of the King of France, November 6, 1605,’ (b) the letter sent on November 9 to Edmondes and other ambassadors,[203] and (c) the King’s Book. On the first, I would remark that there is no evidence, I may add, no probability, that, as it stands, it was ever despatched to France at all. It is a draft written on the 6th, which was gradually moulded into the form in which it was, as we happen to know, despatched on the 9th to Edmondes and Cornwallis. If the despatches received by Parry had been preserved, I do not doubt but that we should find that he also received it in the same shape as the other ambassadors.

Having premised this remark as a caution against examining the document too narrowly, we may admit that the three statements differ about the date at which the Monteagle letter was received—(a) says it was some four or five days before the Parliament; (b) that it was eight days; (c) that it was ten days. The third and latest statement is accurate; but the mistakes of the others are of no importance, except to show that the draft was carelessly drawn up, probably by Munck, Salisbury’s secretary, in whose handwriting it is; and that the mistake was corrected with an approach to accuracy three days later, and made quite right further on.

With respect to the more important point raised by Father Gerard that—while (a) does not mention Suffolk’s search in the afternoon, (b) does not mention the presence of Fawkes at the time of the afternoon visit—it is quite true that the hurried draft does not mention Suffolk’s visit; but it is not true that it in any way denies the fact that such a visit had taken place.

Father Gerard abbreviates the story of (a) as follows:—

“It was accordingly determined, the night before, ‘to make search about that place, and to appoint a watch in the Old Palace to observe what persons might resort thereunto.’

“Sir T. Knyvet, being appointed to the charge thereof, going by chance, about midnight, into the vault, by another door,[204] found Fawkes within. Thereupon he caused some few faggots to be removed, and so discovered some of the barrels, ‘merely, as it were, by God’s direction, having no other cause but a general jealousy.’”[205]

The italics are Father Gerard’s own, and I think we are fairly entitled to complain, so far as the first phrase thus distinguished is concerned, because being printed in this manner it looks like a quotation, though as a matter of fact is not so. This departure from established usage is the more unfortunate, as the one important word—‘chance’—upon which Father Gerard’s argument depends, is a misprint or a miswriting for the word ‘change,’ which is to be seen clearly written in the MS. The whole passage as it there stands runs as follows:—

“This advertisement being made known to his Majesty and the Lords, their Lordships found not good, coming as it did in that fashion, to give much credit to it, or to make any apprehension of it by public show, nor yet so to contemn it as to do nothing at all in it, but found convenient the night before under a pretext that some of his Majesty’s wardrobe stuff was stolen and embezzled to make search about that place, and to appoint a watch in the old palace to observe what persons might resort thereabouts, and appointed the charge thereof to Sir Thomas Knyvet, who about midnight going by change into the vault by another door, found the fellow, as is said before,[206] whereupon suspicion being increased, he caused some few faggots to be removed, and so discovered some of the barrels of powder, merely, as it were, by God’s direction, having no other cause but a general jealousy.”[207]

If the word ‘chance’ had been found in the real letter, it could hardly be interpreted otherwise than to imply a negative of the earlier visit said to have been followed by a resolve on the King’s part to search farther. As the word stands, it may be accepted as evidence that an earlier visit had taken place. How could Knyvet go ‘by change’ into the vault by another door, unless he or someone else had gone in earlier by some other approach? It is, however, the positive evidence which may be adduced from this letter, which is most valuable. The letter is, as I said, a mere hurried draft, in all probability never sent to anyone. It is moreover quite inartistic in its harking back to the story of the arrest after giving fuller details. Surely such a letter is better calculated to reveal the truth than one subsequently drawn up upon fuller consideration. What is it then, that stares us in the face, if we accept this as a genuine result of the first impression made upon the writer—whether he were Munck or Salisbury himself? What else than that the Government had no other knowledge of the plot than that derived from the Monteagle letter, and that not only because the writer says that the discovery of the powder was ‘merely as it were, by God’s direction, having no other cause but a general jealousy,’ but because the whole letter, and still more the amplified version which quickly followed, is redolent with uncertainty. Given that Suffolk’s mission in the afternoon was what it was represented to be, it becomes quite intelligible why the writer of the draft should be inclined to leave it unnoticed. It was an investigation made by men who were afraid of being blown up, but almost as much afraid of being made fools of by searching for gunpowder which had no existence, upon the authority of a letter notoriously ambiguous.

“And so,” wrote Salisbury, in the letter despatched to the ambassadors on the 9th,[208] “on Monday in the afternoon, accordingly the Lord Chamberlain, whose office is to see all places of assembly put in readiness when the King’s person shall come, took his coach privately, and after he had seen all other places in the Parliament House, he took a slight occasion to peruse that vault, where, finding only piles of billets and faggots heaped up, which were things very ordinarily placed in that room, his Lordship fell inquiring only who ought[209] the same wood, observing the proportion to be somewhat more than the housekeepers were likely to lay in for their own use; and answer being made before the Lord Monteagle, who was there present with the Lord Chamberlain, that the wood belonged to Mr. Percy, his Lordship straightway conceived some suspicion in regard of his person; and the Lord Monteagle also took notice that there was great profession between Percy and him, from which some inference might be made that it was a warning from a friend, my Lord Chamberlain resolved absolutely to proceed in a search, though no other materials were visible, and being returned to court about five o’clock took me up with him to the King and told him that, although he was hard of belief that any such thing was thought of, yet in such a case as this whatsoever was not done to put all out of doubt, was as good as nothing, whereupon it was resolved by his Majesty that this matter should be so carried as no man should be scandalised by it, nor any alarm taken for any such purpose.”