Summoned by an usher, the conspirators were conducted to a platform covered with black cloth, which had been erected at the lower end of the Hall. A murmur of indignation, vainly sought to be repressed by the grave looks of the Commissioners, burst from the immense assemblage, as they one by one ascended the steps of the platform. Guy Fawkes was the last to mount, and his appearance was followed by a deep groan. Supporting himself against the rail of the scaffold, he surveyed the assemblage with a stern and undaunted look. As he gazed around, he could not help marvelling at the vast multitude before him. The whole of the peers and all the members of the House of Commons were present, while in a box on the left, though screened by a lattice, sat the Queen and Prince Henry; and in another on the right, and protected in the same way, the King and his courtiers.
Silence being peremptorily commanded, the indictment was read, wherein the prisoners were charged with conspiring to blow up the King and the peers with gunpowder, and with attempting to incite the Papists, and other persons, to open rebellion; to which all the conspirators, to the no small surprise of those who heard them, and were aware that they had subscribed their confessions, pleaded not guilty.
“How, sir!” cried the Lord Chief Justice, in a stern tone to Fawkes. “With what face can you pretend to deny the indictment, when you were actually taken in the cellar with the powder, and have already confessed your treasonable intentions?”
“I do not mean to deny what I have confessed, my lord,” replied Fawkes. “But this indictment contains many matters which I neither can nor will countenance by assent or silence. And I therefore deny it.”
“It is well,” replied the Lord Chief Justice. “Let the trial proceed.”
The indictment being opened by Sir Edward Philips, sergeant-at-law, he was followed by Sir Edward Coke, the attorney-general, who in an eloquent and elaborate speech, which produced an extraordinary effect upon the assemblage, expatiated upon the monstrous nature of the plot, which he characterised as “the greatest treason that ever was plotted in England, and against the greatest king that ever reigned in England;" and after narrating the origin and progress of the conspiracy, concluded by desiring that the confessions of the prisoners should be openly read. This done, the jury were ordered by the Lord Chief Justice to retire, and the injunction being obeyed, they almost instantly returned with a verdict of guilty.
A deep, dread silence then prevailed throughout the Hall, and every eye was bent upon the conspirators, all of whom maintained a composed demeanour. They were then questioned by the Lord Chief Justice whether they had anything to say why judgment of death should not be pronounced against them.
“All I have to crave of your lordships,” said Thomas Winter, “is, that being the chief offender of the two, I may die for my brother and myself.”
“And I ask only that my brother's request may not be granted,” said Robert Winter. “If he is condemned, I do not desire to live.”
“I have nothing to solicit—not even pardon,” said Keyes, carelessly. “My fortunes were always desperate, and are better now than they have ever been.”