[164] Used as such, Father Gerard notes, till the Union with Ireland in 1800.
[165] This was true of the general line of the bank, but, as will be seen at pp. 81, 83, there was a kind of dock which brought the water within about thirty yards of the house.
[166] Gerard, pp. 59, 60.
[167] G. P. B. No. 129.
[168] This is clearly a slip. The cellar was not under the house hired by Percy.
[169] For its possible situation see p. 91; or it may have been erected in the courtyard shown in the plans at pp. 82, 83.
[170] See pp. 34, 65. The difficulty of measuring the thickness of the wall was not so great as Father Gerard fancies. In 1678 Sir Christopher Wren reported that ‘the walls are seven feet thick below’ (Hist. MSS. Com. Report XI. App. ii. p. 17). As he did not dig below the surface this must mean that they were seven feet thick at the level of the floor of the so-called cellar, and this measurement must have been known to the conspirators after they had access to it. I am informed that in the case of a heavy wall, especially when it is built on light soil, as was the case here, the foundations are always constructed to be broader than the wall itself. The diggers, observing the angle of the face they attacked, might roughly calculate that a foot on each side might be added, thus reaching the nine feet.
[171] Father Gerard (p. 64, note 2) writes: “There is, as usual, hopeless confusion between the two witnesses upon whom, as will be seen, we wholly depend for this portion of the story. Fawkes (November 17, 1605) makes the mining operations terminate at Candlemas, and Winter (November 23) says that they went on to ‘near Easter’ (March 31). The date of the hiring the ‘cellar’ was about Lady Day (March 25).” I can see no contradiction. The resumption of work for a third time in March was, from Winter’s mode of referring to it, evidently for a very short time. “And,” he says, “near to Easter, as we wrought the third time, opportunity was given to hire the cellar.” Fawkes, though less clear and full, implicitly says much the same thing. He says that ‘about Candlemas we had wrought the wall half through,’ and then goes on to describe how he stood sentinel, &c. Then at the beginning of another paragraph we have “As they were working upon the wall they heard a rushing in a cellar, &c.” Fawkes gives no dates, but he says nothing to contradict the third working spoken of by Winter.
[172] Gerard, pp. 65, 66.
[173] Goodman, i. 104.