The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which James's nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was to be installed as the Catholic head of state. Catesby may have embarked on the scheme after hopes of securing greater religious tolerance under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed.
Introduction
Gunpowder Plot
Gunpowder Plot | Introduction
A group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. Robert Catesby Robert Catesby Robert Catesby.
where did the gunpowder come from in the gunpowder plot
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They were discovered hidden under piles of faggots and coal.
assistant
what was the main aim of this plot?
user
To kill King James.
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this plot was led by whom?
user
The conspirators' principal aim was to kill King James, but many other important targets would also be present at the State Opening, including the monarch's nearest relatives and members of the Privy Council. The senior judges of the English legal system, most of the Protestant aristocracy, and the bishops of the Church of England would all have attended in their capacity as members of the House of Lords, along with the members of the House of Commons. Another important objective was the kidnapping of the King's daughter, Elizabeth. Housed at Coombe Abbey near Coventry, she lived only ten miles north of Warwick—convenient for the plotters, most of whom lived in the Midlands.
Gunpowder Plot | Plot
The Gunpowder Plot was a failed assassination attempt against King James VI of Scotland and I of England by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The conspirators' aim was to blow up the House of Lords at the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, while the king and many other important members of the aristocracy and nobility were inside. The conspirator who became most closely associated with the plot in the popular imagination was Guy Fawkes, who had been assigned the task of lighting the fuse to the explosives.
Gunpowder Plot in popular culture | Introduction
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in earlier centuries often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605, as the prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which James's nine-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was to be installed as the Catholic head of state. Catesby may have embarked on the scheme after hopes of securing greater religious tolerance under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed.
Gunpowder Plot | Introduction
The Main Plot was an alleged conspiracy of July 1603 by English courtiers to remove King James I from the English throne and to replace him with his cousin Lady Arabella (or Arbella) Stuart. The plot was supposedly led by Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, and funded by the Spanish government. In a state trial, the defendants accused of involvement in the Main Plot were tried along with those of the Bye Plot. It is referred to as the "main" plot, because at the time it was presented as the principal ("main") plot of which the secondary (or "bye") plot was a minor component.
Main Plot | Introduction
On November 5, 1605, a group of conspirators led by Robert Catesby attempted to destroy the English Parliament on its State Opening by King James I. They planned in secret to detonate a large quantity of gunpowder placed beneath the Palace of Westminster. The gunpowder was procured and placed by Guy Fawkes. The group intended to enact a coup by killing King James I and the members of both houses of Parliament. The conspirators planned to make one of the king's children a puppet monarch and then restore the Catholic faith to England. The conspirator leased a coal cellar beneath the House of Lords and began stockpiling gunpowder in 1604.
History of terrorism | Gunpowder Plot
Fawkes, using the pseudonym "John Johnson", took charge of the building, posing as Percy's servant. The building was occupied by Scottish commissioners appointed by the King to consider his plans for the unification of England and Scotland, so the plotters hired Catesby's lodgings in Lambeth, on the opposite bank of the Thames, from where their stored gunpowder and other supplies could be conveniently rowed across each night. Meanwhile, King James continued with his policies against the Catholics, and Parliament pushed through anti-Catholic legislation, until its adjournment on 7 July. The conspirators returned to London in October 1604, when Robert Keyes, a "desperate man, ruined and indebted", was admitted to the group.
Gunpowder Plot | Further recruitment
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England and VI of Scotland. Gunpowder Plot may also refer to:
Gunpowder Plot (disambiguation) | Introduction
The Plot was the attempted assassination of King James I of England and VI of Scotland, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack, by exploding the Houses of Parliament. Another Jesuit, Oswald Tesimond, managed to escape arrest for his involvement in this plot.
Society of Jesus | Political intrigue
The Gunpowder Plot was an attempt by a small party of provincial English Catholics to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, thereby killing James I and his court, as the prelude to a revolt during which a Catholic monarchy would be restored to the English throne. It was after the failure of the plot that the fugitives took shelter in Holbeche House, owned by Stephen Lyttelton. They had taken supplies from Warwick Castle on 6 November and weapons and gunpowder from Hewell Grange on 7 November, but the powder became damp in the rain.
Holbeche House | Gunpowder Plot
The failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a conspiracy among a group of Roman Catholic gentry to re-establish Catholicism in England by assassinating the Protestant King James I and replacing him with a Catholic monarch. To this end, they placed large quantities of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords, which one of the conspirators, Guy Fawkes, would detonate during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605. If successful, the explosion would have destroyed the Palace, killing the King, his family and most of the aristocracy. However, the plot was discovered and most of the conspirators were either arrested or killed while trying to evade capture.
Palace of Westminster | Incidents
In his speech to both Houses on 9 November, James expounded on two emerging preoccupations of his monarchy: the divine right of kings and the Catholic question. He insisted that the plot had been the work of only a few Catholics, not of the English Catholics as a whole, and he reminded the assembly to rejoice at his survival, since kings were divinely appointed and he owed his escape to a miracle. Salisbury wrote to his English ambassadors abroad, informing them of what had occurred, and also reminding them that the King bore no ill will to his Catholic neighbours.
Gunpowder Plot | Reaction
James ordered a ceasefire in the conflict with Spain, and even though the two countries were still technically at war, King Philip III sent his envoy, Don Juan de Tassis, to congratulate James on his accession. In the following year both countries signed the Treaty of London.
Gunpowder Plot | Succession
English Catholics had hoped that the persecution of their faith would end when the apparently more tolerant King James I succeeded Queen Elizabeth I, but Robert Catesby, a Catholic zealot from Ashby St Ledgers, remained unimpressed by the new royal dynasty. He therefore planned to kill James by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder, following which he would help incite a popular revolt to install James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, as titular Queen. His role being to guard the gunpowder and other items stored at Catesby's house in Lambeth, Keyes joined the conspiracy in October 1604. The Jesuit priest John Gerard described Keyes as "a grave and sober man, and of great wit and sufficiency".
Robert Keyes | Gunpowder Plot
Measuring devices placed in the chamber to calculate the force of the blast were recorded as going off the scale just before their destruction by the explosion; a piece of the head of the dummy representing King James, which had been placed on a throne inside the chamber surrounded by courtiers, peers and bishops, was found a considerable distance from its initial location. According to the findings of the programme, no one within of the blast could have survived, and all of the stained glass windows in Westminster Abbey would have been shattered, as would all of the windows in the vicinity of the Palace.
Gunpowder Plot | Reconstructing the explosion
On that date, a group of English Catholics (including Guy Fawkes) attempted to assassinate the King and destroy Parliament in the Palace of Westminster. However, the Gunpowder Plot was exposed and prevented, and the convicted plotters were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Historians have long debated the curious characteristics of the king's ruling style. Croft says:
Jacobean era | James as King of England
Three days later, he ordered all Jesuits and all other Catholic priests to leave the country, and reimposed the collection of fines for recusancy. James changed his focus from the anxieties of English Catholics to the establishment of an Anglo-Scottish union. He also appointed Scottish nobles such as George Home to his court, which proved unpopular with the Parliament of England. Some Members of Parliament made it clear that in their view, the "effluxion of people from the Northern parts" was unwelcome, and compared them to "plants which are transported from barren ground into a more fertile one". Even more discontent resulted when the King allowed his Scottish nobles to collect the recusancy fines.
Gunpowder Plot | Early plots
English Catholics hoped that the years of persecution they had suffered during Elizabeth's reign would end when James I came to the throne, as his attitude appeared moderate, even tolerant towards Catholics. In Robert Catesby's view however, James had reneged on his promises, and he quickly lost patience with the new dynasty. He therefore planned to kill James by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder, and inciting a popular revolt during which a Catholic monarch would be restored to the throne. Catesby enlisted the help of six fellow Catholics, and by 25 March 1605 he had recruited three others: Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, and Grant.
John Grant (Gunpowder Plot) | Plot
In the absence of any sign that James would move to end the persecution of Catholics, as some had hoped for, several members of the clergy (including two anti-Jesuit priests) decided to take matters into their own hands. In what became known as the Bye Plot, the priests William Watson and William Clark planned to kidnap James and hold him in the Tower of London until he agreed to be more tolerant towards Catholics. Cecil received news of the plot from several sources, including the Archpriest George Blackwell, who instructed his priests to have no part in any such schemes.
Gunpowder Plot | Early plots
The conspirators aimed to cause an uprising in the Midlands to coincide with the explosion in London and at this point secure Elizabeth's accession as a puppet queen. She would then be brought up as a Catholic and later married to a Catholic bridegroom. The plot failed when the conspirators were betrayed and Guy Fawkes was caught by the King's soldiers before he was able to ignite the powder.
Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia | Gunpowder Plot
The Jesuit Juan de Mariana's 1598 "On Kings and the Education of Kings" explicitly justified the assassination of the French king Henry III—who had been stabbed to death by a Catholic fanatic in 1589—and until the 1620s, some English Catholics believed that regicide was justifiable to remove tyrants from power. Much of the "rather nervous" James's political writing was "concerned with the threat of Catholic assassination and refutation of the [Catholic] argument that 'faith did not need to be kept with heretics'".
Gunpowder Plot | Early reign of James I
The list of traitors' names was read aloud, beginning with those of the priests: Garnet, Tesimond, and Gerard. The first to speak was the Speaker of the House of Commons (later Master of the Rolls), Sir Edward Philips, who described the intent behind the plot in lurid detail. He was followed by the Attorney-General Sir Edward Coke, who began with a long speech—the content of which was heavily influenced by Salisbury—that included a denial that the King had ever made any promises to the Catholics. Monteagle's part in the discovery of the plot was welcomed, and denunciations of the 1603 mission to Spain featured strongly.
Gunpowder Plot | Trials
While there he met Robert Catesby, who at some point asked him to swear an oath of secrecy before introducing him to what later became known as the Gunpowder Plot. English Catholics had hoped that the years of persecution they suffered during Elizabeth's reign would end when James I came to the throne, as his attitude appeared moderate, even tolerant towards Catholics. In Catesby's view, however, James had reneged on his promises, and he had quickly lost patience with the new dynasty. He therefore planned to kill James by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder, and then inciting a popular revolt during which a Catholic monarch would be restored to the throne.
Everard Digby | Robert Catesby
As Catesby added three more to the conspiracy, the last few details were worked out; Fawkes was to light the fuse that would set off the explosion, and then escape to the continent, while the others would incite the Midlands uprising, and capture James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Thus, as the plot moved closer to fruition, on Monday 4 November Grant and a friend were to be found in Dunchurch at the Red Lion inn, with the newly recruited Everard Digby and his "hunting party". The group attended a Mass the next morning, before moving on.
John Grant (Gunpowder Plot) | Plot
Following James's accession to the English throne in 1603, Percy became disenchanted with the new king, who he supposed had reneged on his promises of toleration for English Catholics. His meeting in June 1603 with Robert Catesby, a religious zealot similarly unimpressed with the new royal dynasty, led the following year to his joining Catesby's conspiracy to kill the king and his ministers by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder. Percy helped fund the group and secured the leases to certain properties in London, one of which was the undercroft directly beneath the House of Lords, in which the gunpowder was finally placed.
Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot) | Introduction
At about the same time, Lord Cobham, Lord Grey de Wilton, Griffin Markham and Walter Raleigh hatched what became known as the Main Plot, which involved removing James and his family and supplanting them with Arbella Stuart. Amongst others, they approached Henry IV of France for funding, but were unsuccessful. All those involved in both plots were arrested in July and tried in autumn 1603; Sir George Brooke was executed, but James, keen not to have too bloody a start to his reign, reprieved Cobham, Grey, and Markham while they were at the scaffold. Raleigh, who had watched while his colleagues sweated, and who was due to be executed a few days later, was also pardoned.
Gunpowder Plot | Early plots
Henry Douthwaite as Guy Fawkes Stuart Liddle as King James I Matt Rozier as Robert Catesby Jonathan Dunstan as Thomas Winteur Daniel Hoadley as Thomas Percy Toby Knight as John Wright Tallulah Boote Bond as Princess Elizabeth John Joyce as Father Henry Garnet
The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend | Historical dramatization
In the Bye Plot of 1603, two Catholic priests planned to kidnap King James and hold him in the Tower of London until he agreed to be more tolerant towards Catholics. Most dramatic was the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. It was discovered in time with eight conspirators executed, including Guy Fawkes, who became the iconic evil traitor in English lore.
Elizabethan era | Plots, intrigues and conspiracies
Salisbury exploited this to extract higher subsidies from the ensuing Parliament than any but one granted to Elizabeth. Fawkes and others implicated in the unsuccessful conspiracy were executed.
James VI and I | Gunpowder Plot
A dissident Catholic, Guy Fawkes, was discovered in the cellars of the parliament buildings on the night of 4–5 November 1605, the eve of the state opening of the second session of James's first English Parliament. He was guarding a pile of wood not far from 36 barrels of gunpowder with which Fawkes intended to blow up Parliament House the following day and cause the destruction, as James put it, "not only ... of my person, nor of my wife and posterity also, but of the whole body of the State in general". The sensational discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, as it quickly became known, aroused a mood of national relief at the delivery of the king and his sons.
James VI and I | Gunpowder Plot
The letter was shown to the King on Friday 1 November following his arrival back in London. Upon reading it, James immediately seized upon the word "blow" and felt that it hinted at "some strategem of fire and powder", perhaps an explosion exceeding in violence the one that killed his father, Lord Darnley, at Kirk o' Field in 1567. Keen not to seem too intriguing, and wanting to allow the King to take the credit for unveiling the conspiracy, Salisbury feigned ignorance. The following day members of the Privy Council visited the King at the Palace of Whitehall and informed him that, based on the information that Salisbury had given them a week earlier, on Monday the Lord Chamberlain Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk would undertake a search of the Houses of Parliament, "both above and below".
Gunpowder Plot | Discovery
Catholicism became marginalised, but despite the threat of torture or execution, priests continued to practise their faith in secret.
Gunpowder Plot | Religion in England
Once the King and his Parliament were dead, the plotters intended to install Elizabeth on the English throne as a titular Queen. The fate of her brothers, Henry and Charles, would be improvised; their role in state ceremonies was, as yet, uncertain. The plotters planned to use Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, as Elizabeth's regent, but most likely never informed him of this.
Gunpowder Plot | Plot
Garnet wrote to a colleague in Rome, Claudio Acquaviva, expressing his concerns about open rebellion in England. He also told Acquaviva that "there is a risk that some private endeavour may commit treason or use force against the King", and urged the pope to issue a public brief against the use of force. According to Fawkes, 20 barrels of gunpowder were brought in at first, followed by 16 more on 20 July. The supply of gunpowder was theoretically controlled by the government, but it was easily obtained from illicit sources. On 28 July, the ever-present threat of the plague again delayed the opening of Parliament, this time until Tuesday 5 November.
Gunpowder Plot | Undercroft
Northumberland, although not a Catholic himself, planned to build a strong relationship with James I in order to better the prospects of English Catholics, and to reduce the family disgrace caused by his separation from his wife Martha Wright, a favourite of Elizabeth I. Thomas Percy's meetings with James seemed to go well. Percy returned with promises of support for the Catholics, and Northumberland believed that James would go so far as to allow Mass in private houses, so as not to cause public offence. Percy, keen to improve his standing, went further, claiming that the future King would guarantee the safety of English Catholics.
Gunpowder Plot | Initial recruitment
By then, the king knew about the letter. James felt that it hinted at "some strategem of fire and powder", perhaps an explosion exceeding in violence the one that killed his father, Lord Darnley, in 1567. The following day, the Privy Council told him that they had decided to undertake a search of Parliament, "both above and below". The first, headed by Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, was made on 4 November. In the undercroft beneath the House of Lords he noticed a tall man who appeared to be a servant, and a large pile of faggots—far too large to serve the small house Percy had subleased from Henry Ferrers.
Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot) | Failure and death
James received an envoy from Albert VII, ruler of the remaining Catholic territories in the Netherlands after over 30 years of war in the Dutch Revolt by English-supported Protestant rebels. For the Catholic expatriates engaged in that struggle, the restoration by force of a Catholic monarchy was an intriguing possibility, but following the failed Spanish invasion of England in 1588 the papacy had taken a longer-term view on the return of a Catholic monarch to the English throne. During the late 16th century, Catholics made several assassination attempts on Protestant rulers in Europe and in England, including plans to poison Elizabeth I.
Gunpowder Plot | Early reign of James I
Robert Wintour and other conspirators devised a plan to blow up the new Scottish Protestant King James I at the Wintour's home at Huddington Court. Robert Catesby, the main figure behind the Gunpowder Plot, was from Northampton, but most of the plotters were from Worcestershire's Catholic families.
History of Worcestershire | Gunpowder Plot
Thomas Wintour (1571–1606) was chosen as the emissary, but the Spanish king, although sympathetic to the plight of Catholics in England, was intent on making peace with James. Wintour had also attempted to convince the Spanish envoy Don Juan de Tassis that "3,000 Catholics" were ready and waiting to support such an invasion. Concern was voiced by Pope Clement VIII that using violence to achieve a restoration of Catholic power in England would result in the destruction of those that remained. According to contemporary accounts, in February 1604 Catesby invited Thomas Wintour to his house in Lambeth, where they discussed Catesby's plan to re-establish Catholicism in England by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament.
Gunpowder Plot | Initial recruitment
His defence was in vain; his arguments were rebuked by Coke and Northumberland, and along with his seven co-conspirators, he was found guilty by the jury of high treason. Digby shouted "If I may but hear any of your lordships say, you forgive me, I shall go more cheerfully to the gallows." The response was short: "God forgive you, and we do."
Gunpowder Plot | Trials
Fawkes left the country for a short time. The King, meanwhile, spent much of the summer away from the city, hunting. He stayed wherever was convenient, including on occasion at the houses of prominent Catholics. Garnet, convinced that the threat of an uprising had receded, travelled the country on a pilgrimage.
Gunpowder Plot | Undercroft
Arbella Stuart denied any knowledge of the Main Plot. The two priests, condemned and "very bloodily handled", were executed. The Catholic community responded to news of these plots with shock. That the Bye Plot had been revealed by Catholics was instrumental in saving them from further persecution, and James was grateful enough to allow pardons for those recusants who sued for them, as well as postponing payment of their fines for a year. On 19 February 1604, shortly after he discovered that his wife, Queen Anne, had been sent a rosary from the pope via one of James's spies, Sir Anthony Standen, James denounced the Catholic Church.
Gunpowder Plot | Early plots
The details of the plot were finalised in October, in a series of taverns across London and Daventry. Fawkes would be left to light the fuse and then escape across the Thames, while simultaneously a revolt in the Midlands would help to ensure the capture of the King's daughter, Elizabeth. Fawkes would leave for the continent, to explain events in England to the European Catholic powers. The wives of those involved and Anne Vaux (a friend of Garnet who often shielded priests at her home) became increasingly concerned by what they suspected was about to happen. Several of the conspirators expressed worries about the safety of fellow Catholics who would be present in Parliament on the day of the planned explosion.
Gunpowder Plot | Monteagle letter
On 15 January a proclamation named Father Garnet, Father Gerard, and Father Greenway (Tesimond) as wanted men. Tesimond and Gerard managed to escape the country and live out their days in freedom; Garnet was not so lucky. Several days earlier, on 9 January, Robert Wintour and Stephen Littleton were captured. Their hiding place at Hagley, the home of Humphrey Littleton (brother of MP John Littleton, imprisoned for treason in 1601 for his part in the Essex revolt) was betrayed by a cook, who grew suspicious of the amount of food sent up for his master's consumption. Humphrey denied the presence of the two fugitives, but another servant led the authorities to their hiding place.
Gunpowder Plot | Jesuits
Measuring devices placed in the chamber to calculate the force of the blast were themselves destroyed by the blast, while the skull of the mannequin representing King James, which had been placed on a throne inside the chamber surrounded by courtiers, peers and bishops, was found far from the site. According to the findings of the programme, no one within 100 metres of the blast would have survived, and all windows within a large distance of the palace would have been shattered, including the stained glass windows of Westminster Abbey. The power of the explosion would have been heard at least five miles away, and seen from much further.
The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend | Synopsis
On the eve of the state opening of the next parliamentary session on 5 November 1605, a soldier called Guy Fawkes was discovered in the cellars of the parliament buildings guarding a pile of slaves, not far from about twenty barrels of gunpowder with which he intended to blow up Parliament House the following day and cause the destruction, as James put it, "not only...of my person, nor of my wife and posterity also, but of the whole body of the State in general". A Catholic conspiracy led by a disaffected gentleman called Robert Catesby, the Gunpowder Plot, as it quickly became known, had in fact been discovered in advance of Fawkes's arrest and deliberately allowed to mature in order to catch the culprits red-handed and the plotters unawares.
James VI and I and the English Parliament | King and Parliament
Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot's discovery, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House; in the ensuing battle, Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on 27 January 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Gunpowder Plot | Introduction
As Elizabeth's health deteriorated, the government detained those they considered to be the "principal papists", and the Privy Council grew so worried that Arbella Stuart was moved closer to London to prevent her from being kidnapped by papists. Despite competing claims to the English throne, the transition of power following Elizabeth's death went smoothly. James's succession was announced by a proclamation from Cecil on 24 March, which was generally celebrated. Leading papists, rather than causing trouble as anticipated, reacted to the news by offering their enthusiastic support for the new monarch. Jesuit priests, whose presence in England was punishable by death, also demonstrated their support for James, who was widely believed to embody "the natural order of things".
Gunpowder Plot | Succession
The Bye Plot of 1603 was a conspiracy, by Roman Catholic priests and Puritans aiming at tolerance for their respective denominations, to kidnap the new English King, James I of England. It is referred to as the "bye" plot, because at the time it was presented as a minor component of a larger plot (the so-called "main" plot).
Bye Plot | Introduction
"By this prearranged manoeuvre Francis Tresham sought at the same time to prevent the Plot and forewarn his friends" (H Trevor-Roper).
Gunpowder Plot | Monteagle letter
The foreign powers largely distanced themselves from the plotters, calling them atheists and Protestant heretics.
Gunpowder Plot | Reaction
The following day, Thomas Wintour, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes, and Guy Fawkes were hanged, drawn and quartered, opposite the building they had planned to blow up, in the Old Palace Yard at Westminster. Keyes did not wait for the hangman's command and jumped from the gallows, but he survived the drop and was led to the quartering block. Although weakened by his torture, Fawkes managed to jump from the gallows and break his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the gruesome latter part of his execution. Steven Littleton was executed at Stafford. His cousin Humphrey, despite his co-operation with the authorities, met his end at Red Hill near Worcester.
Gunpowder Plot | Executions
Queen Elizabeth, unmarried and childless, steadfastly refused to name an heir. Many Catholics believed that her Catholic cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, was the legitimate heir to the English throne, but she was executed for treason in 1587. The English Secretary of State, Robert Cecil, negotiated secretly with Mary's son and successor, King James VI of Scotland. In the months before Elizabeth's death on 24 March 1603, Cecil prepared the way for James to succeed her. Some exiled Catholics favoured Philip II of Spain's daughter, Isabella, as Elizabeth's successor. More moderate Catholics looked to James's and Elizabeth's cousin Arbella Stuart, a woman thought to have Catholic sympathies.
Gunpowder Plot | Succession
On 1 November 1980, BBC Radio 4 broadcast "Gunpowder Treason and Plot", written by A. J. Walton and directed by Margaret Etall and featuring Michael Spice as Guy Fawkes, Christopher Scott as Thomas Wintour, Anthony Hyde as Robert Catesby, Fraser Kerr as James I, Robert Lang as Walter Raleigh and John Moffatt as Robert Cecil. On 6 November 2005, to mark the 400th anniversary of the plot, BBC Radio 3 broadcast "The Gunpowder Plot" written by Jonathan Davidson and directed by David Hunter, with David Calder as Cecil, Sean Arnold as Lord Popham, Cal Macaninch as King James I, John Henshaw as Father Henry Garnet, Hugh Dickson as Father Oldcorn and Helen Longworth as Anne Vaux.
Gunpowder Plot in popular culture | On radio
The foiling of the Gunpowder Plot initiated a wave of national relief at the delivery of the King and his sons, and inspired in the ensuing parliament a mood of loyalty and goodwill, which Salisbury astutely exploited to extract higher subsidies for the King than any (bar one) granted in Elizabeth I's reign. Walter Raleigh, who was languishing in the Tower owing to his involvement in the Main Plot, and whose wife was a first cousin of Lady Catesby, declared he had had no knowledge of the conspiracy. The Bishop of Rochester gave a sermon at St. Paul's Cross, in which he condemned the plot.
Gunpowder Plot | Reaction
Some Catholic widows tried to ensure their safety by marrying Anglican widowers. The House of Commons was searched – without result – in the expectation of a second Gunpowder Plot. Anyone even suspected of being Catholic was driven out of London and forbidden to be within ten miles (16 km) of the city. William Staley, a young Catholic banker, made a drunken threat against the King and within 10 days was tried, convicted and executed for plotting to kill him. Oates, for his part, received a state apartment in Whitehall and an annual allowance. He soon presented new allegations, claiming assassins intended to shoot the King with silver bullets so the wound would not heal.
Popish Plot | Height of the hysteria
He tried but failed to prevent the rise of hawkish elements in the English Parliament who wanted war with Spain.
James VI and I | Introduction
Father John Gerard was secreted at the home of Elizabeth Vaux, in Harrowden. Vaux was taken to London for interrogation. There she was resolute; she had never been aware that Gerard was a priest, she had presumed he was a "Catholic gentleman", and she did not know of his whereabouts. The homes of the conspirators were searched, and looted; Mary Digby's household was ransacked, and she was made destitute. Some time before the end of November, Garnet moved to Hindlip Hall near Worcester, the home of the Habingtons, where he wrote a letter to the Privy Council protesting his innocence.
Gunpowder Plot | Reaction
James's attitude towards Catholics was more moderate than that of his predecessor, perhaps even tolerant. He swore that he would not "persecute any that will be quiet and give an outward obedience to the law", and believed that exile was a better solution than capital punishment: "I would be glad to have both their heads and their bodies separated from this whole island and transported beyond seas." Some Catholics believed that the martyrdom of James's mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, would encourage James to convert to the Catholic faith, and the Catholic houses of Europe may also have shared that hope.
Gunpowder Plot | Early reign of James I
However, on the eve of the planned explosion, Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the explosives the plotters had positioned in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and arrested. As the government searched for Fawkes's accomplices, Grant and the others engaged in a futile mission for support for the uprising. They stole horses from Warwick Castle, and further supplies from Hewell Grange, before stopping at Holbeche House. The plotters laid in front of the fire some of the gunpowder they had collected, to dry out, but a stray spark ignited the powder, and in the resultant conflagration Grant was blinded.
John Grant (Gunpowder Plot) | Introduction
By an edict of 22 February 1604, King James ordered all Roman Catholic clergy ("Jesuits, Seminaries and other Priests") to leave his kingdom by 19 March. This edict had been drafted in July 1603 on the discovery of the plots. Anthony Copley was condemned to death; but he was pardoned on 18 August 1604, having made a full confession on the history of the plot.
Bye Plot | Aftermath
Robert Keyes(1565 -1606) was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a conspiracy to assassinate King James I by blowing up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5 November 1605. He was the sixth man to join the plot. Unlike several other conspirators Keyes was not a particularly wealthy man. He was trusted by Robert Catesby, the plot's author, with guarding the explosives stored at the latter's lodgings in London. When the plot was uncovered he fled the city, and was captured several days later in Warwickshire.
Robert Keyes | Introduction
Part of the intent of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was to assassinate Elizabeth's father and the Protestant aristocracy, kidnap the nine-year-old Elizabeth from Coombe Abbey, and place her on the throne of England – and presumably the thrones of Ireland and Scotland – as a Catholic monarch. The conspirators chose Elizabeth after considering the other available options. Prince Henry, it was believed, would perish alongside his father. Charles was seen as too feeble (having only just learnt to walk) and Mary too young. Elizabeth, on the other hand, had already attended formal functions, and the conspirators knew that "she could fulfil a ceremonial role despite her comparative youth".
Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia | Gunpowder Plot
The Protestant James I, who became King of England in 1603, was less tolerant of Catholicism than his followers had hoped. Catesby therefore planned to kill him by blowing up the House of Lords with gunpowder during the State Opening of Parliament, the prelude to a popular revolt during which a Catholic monarch would be restored to the English throne. Early in 1604 he began to recruit other Catholics to his cause, including Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes. Described latterly as a charismatic and influential man, over the following months he helped to bring a further eight conspirators into the plot, which was planned to be carried out on 5 November 1605.
Robert Catesby | Introduction
Between 1533 and 1540, King Henry VIII took control of the English Church from Rome, the start of several decades of religious tension in England. English Catholics struggled in a society dominated by the newly separate and increasingly Protestant Church of England. Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, responded to the growing religious divide by introducing the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which required anyone appointed to a public or church office to swear allegiance to the monarch as head of the Church and state. The penalties for refusal were severe; fines were imposed for recusancy, and repeat offenders risked imprisonment and execution.
Gunpowder Plot | Religion in England
36 barrels of gunpowder were discovered hidden under piles of faggots and coal. Fawkes was taken to the King early on the morning of 5 November.
Gunpowder Plot | Discovery
Robert Catesby (1573–1605), a man of "ancient, historic and distinguished lineage", was the inspiration behind the plot. He was described by contemporaries as "a good-looking man, about six feet tall, athletic and a good swordsman". Along with several other conspirators, he took part in the Essex Rebellion in 1601, during which he was wounded and captured. Queen Elizabeth allowed him to escape with his life after fining him 4,000 marks (equivalent to more than £6 million in 2008), after which he sold his estate in Chastleton. In 1603 Catesby helped to organise a mission to the new king of Spain, Philip III, urging Philip to launch an invasion attempt on England, which they assured him would be well supported, particularly by the English Catholics.
Gunpowder Plot | Initial recruitment
James's difficulties with the Commons and his waning public popularity notwithstanding, the sensational discovery of the Gunpowder Plot aroused a potent wave of national relief at the delivery of the king and his sons and inspired in the ensuing parliament a mood of loyalty and goodwill which Salisbury astutely exploited to extract higher subsidies for the king than any but one granted in Elizabeth's reign. In his speech to both houses on 9 November, James expounded on two emerging preoccupations of his monarchy: the divine right of kings and the Catholic question. He insisted that the plot had been the work of a few Catholics and not of the English Catholics as a whole.
James VI and I and the English Parliament | King and Parliament
The early modern period in Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the recusancy that emerged in opposition to it. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a failed attempt by a group of English Catholics to assassinate the Protestant King James I, and to blow up the Palace of Westminster, the English seat of government. Although the modern concept of religious terrorism, or indeed terrorism at all, had not yet come into use in the seventeenth century, David C. Rapoport and Lindsay Clutterbuck point out that the Plot, with its use of explosives, was an early precursor of nineteenth century anarchist terrorism.
Christian terrorism | Gunpowder Plot
Brooke led the Main Plot against James, and Raleigh soon lost his freedom. Northumberland, on the other hand, was appointed to the Privy Council. Thomas Percy went on to become one of the five conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The goal of this plot was to overthrow the Parliament under King James I. When the plot was discovered, Percy fled and was besieged at Holbeche House in Warwickshire. On 8 November 1605, a marksman shot dead both Robert Catesby and Thomas Percy with a single bullet.
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland | Catholic sympathiser
Catholic Emancipation took another 200 years, but many important and loyal Catholics retained high office during King James I's reign. Although there was no "golden time" of "toleration" of Catholics, which Father Garnet had hoped for, James's reign was nevertheless a period of relative leniency for Catholics, and few were subject to prosecution. The playwright William Shakespeare had already used the family history of Northumberland's family in his "Henry IV" series of plays, and the events of the Gunpowder Plot seem to have featured alongside the earlier Gowrie conspiracy in "Macbeth", written some time between 1603 and 1607. Interest in the demonic was heightened by the Gunpowder Plot.
Gunpowder Plot | Aftermath
On 20 January the local Justice and his retainers arrived at Thomas Habington's home, Hindlip Hall, to arrest the Jesuits. Despite Thomas Habington's protests, the men spent the next four days searching the house. On 24 January, starving, two priests left their hiding places and were discovered. Humphrey Littleton, who had escaped from the authorities at Hagley, got as far as Prestwood in Staffordshire before he was captured. He was imprisoned, and then condemned to death at Worcester. On 26 January, in exchange for his life, he told the authorities where they could find Father Garnet. Worn down by hiding for so long, Garnet, accompanied by another priest, emerged from his priest hole the next day.
Gunpowder Plot | Jesuits
Early the next morning they attended a Mass conducted by Father Nicholas Hart, who also heard their confessions—a sign that in Fraser's opinion demonstrates that none of them thought they had long to live. Riding through pouring rain, the fugitives helped themselves to arms, ammunition and money from the vacant home of Lord Windsor at Hewell Grange. Any hopes they harboured of a larger uprising were dashed by the locals, who on hearing that the party stood for "God and Country", replied that they were for "King James as well as God and Country". The group finally reached Holbeche House, on the border of Staffordshire, at about 10:00 pm.
John Grant (Gunpowder Plot) | Failure
The conspirators also planned to instigate an uprising in the Midlands and to simultaneously kidnap James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Percy was to remain in London and secure the capture of her brother, Prince Henry. When the plot was exposed early on 5 November 1605, Percy immediately fled to the Midlands, catching up with some of the other conspirators "en route" to Dunchurch in Warwickshire. Their flight ended on the border of Staffordshire, at Holbeche House, where they were besieged early on 8 November by the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men. Percy was reportedly killed by the same musketball as Catesby, and was buried nearby.
Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot) | Introduction
The Gunpowder Plot is the central theme of the second part of "Gunpowder, Treason & Plot", a 2004 TV miniseries, with Robert Carlyle as King James and Michael Fassbender as Guy Fawkes. On 22 October 2014, BBC Two broadcast "Gunpowder 5/11: The Greatest Terror Plot" written/produced/directed by Adam Kemp. The story is a dramatization, using the actual words of Thomas Wintour (Jamie Thomas King), Guy Fawkes and state interrogators, of the events from Wintour's recruitment of both Fawkes and his own brother to his capture on 8 November and of the final days of the conspirators after 5/11. The story uses "5/11" for the Gunpowder Plot in the same way "9/11" is used for the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Gunpowder Plot in popular culture | On film and television
Gunpowder, Treason & Plot is a 2004 BBC miniseries based upon the lives of Mary, Queen of Scots and her son James VI of Scotland. The writer Jimmy McGovern tells the story behind the Gunpowder Plot in two parts, each centred on one of the monarchs. Directed by Gillies MacKinnon and filmed in Romania with a Scottish crew, the first film dramatizes the relationship between Mary (Clémence Poésy) and her third husband, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (Kevin McKidd). Scottish actor Robert Carlyle stars as James VI in the second part, which concentrates on the Gunpowder Plot, planned by Guy Fawkes, to blow up the Houses of Parliament in order to rid the nation of a Protestant monarch.
Gunpowder, Treason &amp; Plot | Introduction
He planned to make up for his family's disgrace by building a strong relationship with James, but also wished to counter the influence of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, whose father (it was rumoured) James believed had been responsible for Mary's death.
Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot) | Life before 1604
On 25 March 1605 Percy also obtained the lease for the undercroft directly underneath the first-floor House of Lords. It was into this room that the plotters moved 36 barrels of gunpowder from Catesby's lodgings on the opposite side of the River Thames. The plan was that during the State Opening of Parliament, at which the king and his ministers would be present, the plotters would blow up the House of Lords, killing all those within it. James's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, would be captured during a Midlands uprising, and installed as a titular queen. Percy spent that Autumn collecting Northumberland's rents, while Catesby continued to enlist support.
Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot) | Plot
By coincidence, on the same day that Garnet was found, the surviving conspirators were arraigned in Westminster Hall. Seven of the prisoners were taken from the Tower to the Star Chamber by barge. Bates, who was considered lower class, was brought from the Gatehouse Prison. Some of the prisoners were reportedly despondent, but others were nonchalant, even smoking tobacco. The King and his family, hidden from view, were among the many who watched the trial. The Lords Commissioners present were the Earls of Suffolk, Worcester, Northampton, Devonshire, and Salisbury. Sir John Popham was Lord Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Fleming was Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and two Justices, Sir Thomas Walmsley and Sir Peter Warburton, sat as Justices of the Common Pleas.
Gunpowder Plot | Trials
The Spanish Company, a trading company which claimed a monopoly on trade with Spain, was also suppressed. In reaction to the Gunpowder Plot, King James was granted subsidies then worth £400,000.
Blessed Parliament | Introduction
Early in 1604 Robert Catesby, a Catholic convert who had lost patience with King James I's lack of toleration of Catholics, invited his cousin Thomas Wintour to a meeting at which John was also present. Catesby proposed to blow up "the Parliament House with gunpowder", killing the king and his government, as in "that place, have they done us all the mischief". Catesby had not then given up hope on foreign help, and so he sent Wintour to the continent to meet with the Constable of Castille. Wintour also met with Welsh spy Hugh Owen, who introduced him to Guy Fawkes, a man with whose name Catesby was familiar.
John and Christopher Wright | Gunpowder Plot
Although Catesby and Percy escaped the executioner, their bodies were exhumed and decapitated, and their heads exhibited on spikes outside the House of Lords. On a cold 30 January, Everard Digby, Robert Wintour, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, were tied to hurdles—wooden panels—and dragged through the crowded streets of London to St Paul's Churchyard. Digby, the first to mount the scaffold, asked the spectators for forgiveness, and refused the attentions of a Protestant clergyman. He was stripped of his clothing, and wearing only a shirt, climbed the ladder to place his head through the noose. He was quickly cut down, and while still fully conscious was castrated, disembowelled, and then quartered, along with the three other prisoners.
Gunpowder Plot | Executions
Fawkes's protestations that Gerard knew nothing of the plot were omitted from Coke's speech. The foreign powers, when mentioned, were accorded due respect, but the priests were accursed, their behaviour analysed and criticised wherever possible. There was little doubt, according to Coke, that the plot had been invented by the Jesuits. Garnet's meeting with Catesby, at which the former was said to have absolved the latter of any blame in the plot, was proof enough that the Jesuits were central to the conspiracy; according to Coke the Gunpowder Plot would always be known as the Jesuit Treason. Coke spoke with feeling of the probable fate of the Queen and the rest of the King's family, and of the innocents who would have been caught up in the explosion.
Gunpowder Plot | Trials
On 6 November, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John Popham (a man with a deep-seated hatred of Catholics) questioned Rookwood's servants. By the evening he had learned the names of several of those involved in the conspiracy: Catesby, Rookwood, Keyes, Wynter , John and Christopher Wright, and Grant. "Johnson" meanwhile persisted with his story, and along with the gunpowder he was found with, was moved to the Tower of London, where the King had decided that "Johnson" would be tortured. The use of torture was forbidden, except by royal prerogative or a body such as the Privy Council or Star Chamber.
Gunpowder Plot | Investigation
When he realised the plot had been uncovered, he took his horse and made for his sister's house at Norbrook, before continuing to Huddington Court. The group of six conspirators stopped at Ashby St Ledgers at about 6 pm, where they met Robert Wintour and updated him on their situation. They then continued on to Dunchurch, and met with Digby. Catesby convinced him that despite the plot's failure, an armed struggle was still a real possibility. He announced to Digby's "hunting party" that the King and Salisbury were dead, before the fugitives moved west to Warwick. In London, news of the plot was spreading, and the authorities set extra guards on the city gates, closed the ports, and protected the house of the Spanish Ambassador, which was surrounded by an angry mob.
Gunpowder Plot | Flight
Guy Fawkes, who was born and educated in York, was a member of a group of Roman Catholic restorationists that planned the Gunpowder Plot. Its aim was to displace Protestant rule by blowing up the Houses of Parliament while King James I, the entire Protestant, and even most of the Catholic aristocracy and nobility were inside. In 1644, during the Civil War, the Parliamentarians besieged York, and many medieval houses outside the city walls were lost. The barbican at Walmgate Bar was undermined and explosives laid, but the plot was discovered. On the arrival of Prince Rupert, with an army of 15,000 men, the siege was lifted.
York | 16th to 18th centuries
In a letter of 6 November James wrote: "The gentler tortours [tortures] are to be first used unto him, "et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur" [and thus by steps extended to the bottom depths], and so God speed your good work." "Johnson" may have been placed in manacles and hung from the wall, but he was almost certainly subjected to the horrors of the rack. On 7 November his resolve was broken; he confessed late that day, and again over the following two days.
Gunpowder Plot | Investigation
There were 5,560 convicted of recusancy in 1605, of whom 112 were landowners. The very few Catholics of great wealth who refused to attend services at their parish church were fined £20 per month. Those of more moderate means had to pay two-thirds of their annual rental income; middle class recusants were fined one shilling a week, although the collection of all these fines was "haphazard and negligent". When James came to power, almost £5,000 a year (equivalent to almost £12 million in 2020) was being raised by these fines.
Gunpowder Plot | Early plots
He was stripped of all public offices, fined £30,000 (about £ in 2020), and kept in the Tower until June 1621. The Lords Mordaunt and Stourton were tried in the Star Chamber. They were condemned to imprisonment in the Tower, where they remained until 1608, when they were transferred to the Fleet Prison. Both were also given significant fines.
Gunpowder Plot | Interrogations
In his "What If the Gunpowder Plot Had Succeeded?", Hutton has considered what might have happened if the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 had succeeded in its aims of the death of King James I and the destruction of the House of Lords. He concluded that the violence of the act would have resulted in an even more severe backlash against suspected Catholics than was caused by its failure, as most Englishmen were loyal to the monarchy, despite differing religious convictions. England could very well have become a more "Puritan absolute monarchy", rather than following the path of parliamentary and civil reform.
Ronald Hutton | Seventeenth-Century Britain
Bates and Keyes were captured shortly after Holbeche House was taken. Digby, who had intended to give himself up, was caught by a small group of pursuers. Tresham was arrested on 12 November, and taken to the Tower three days later. Montague, Mordaunt, and Stourton (Tresham's brother-in-law) were also imprisoned in the Tower. The Earl of Northumberland joined them on 27 November. Meanwhile the government used the revelation of the plot to accelerate its persecution of Catholics. The home of Anne Vaux at Enfield Chase was searched, revealing the presence of trap doors and hidden passages. A terrified servant then revealed that Garnet, who had often stayed at the house, had recently given a Mass there.
Gunpowder Plot | Reaction
capable of intelligent argument as well as physical endurance, somewhat to the surprise of his enemies." The first meeting of the five central conspirators took place on Sunday 20 May 1604, at an inn called the Duck and Drake, in the fashionable Strand district of London. Catesby had already proposed at an earlier meeting with Thomas Wintour and John Wright to kill the King and his government by blowing up "the Parliament House with gunpowder". Wintour, who at first objected to the plan, was convinced by Catesby to travel to the continent to seek help. Wintour met with the Constable of Castile, the exiled Welsh spy Hugh Owen, and Sir William Stanley, who said that Catesby would receive no support from Spain.
Guy Fawkes | Gunpowder Plot
Walsh invited the conspirators to surrender, and upon their refusal ordered an assault of the building. All of the conspirators were either captured or killed. Catesby was killed, as were the John and Christopher Wright and Thomas Percy, but Ambrose Rookwood was captured alive and later held in Worcester gaol.
Richard Walsh (English politician) | Gunpowder Plot
After Guy Fawkes was captured in the basement of the Houses of Parliament, many of his fellow plotters, under the leadership of Robert Catesby, fled to the Midlands. Walsh and his 200-strong force began following the conspirators after they entered Worcestershire and caught up with them at Holbeche House in Staffordshire on 8 November. Among those in Walsh's force was John Streete, the noted marksman from Worcester, who at one point killed two plotters with a single shot. The conspirators made two major errors: they got their gunpowder wet and then tried to dry it in front of the fire, causing it to blow up.
Richard Walsh (English politician) | Gunpowder Plot
King James moved south at a leisurely pace, having reached Theobalds House in Hertfordshire on 3 May. The scheme, such as it was, depended on Markham's view in May that there was a "Scottish precedent" for seizing the person of the king for political advantage. It was in late May or early June (on Gerard's own account) that someone (probably Markham) tried to recruit the Jesuit John Gerard. Gerard's reaction was negative, and he wrote to Henry Garnet and George Blackwell asking them to put a spoke in the wheels of the plot.
Bye Plot | Events of 1603
In 1604 Fawkes became involved with a small group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate the Protestant King James and replace him with his daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth. Fawkes was described by the Jesuit priest and former school friend Oswald Tesimond as "pleasant of approach and cheerful of manner, opposed to quarrels and strife ... loyal to his friends". Tesimond also claimed Fawkes was "a man highly skilled in matters of war", and that it was this mixture of piety and professionalism that endeared him to his fellow conspirators. The author Antonia Fraser describes Fawkes as "a tall, powerfully built man, with thick reddish-brown hair, a flowing moustache in the tradition of the time, and a bushy reddish-brown beard", and that he was "a man of action ...
Guy Fawkes | Gunpowder Plot
Following their oath, the plotters left London and returned to their homes. The adjournment of Parliament gave them, they thought, until February 1605 to finalise their plans. On 9 June, Percy's patron, the Earl of Northumberland, appointed him to the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, a mounted troop of 50 bodyguards to the King. This role gave Percy reason to seek a base in London, and a small property near the Prince's Chamber owned by Henry Ferrers, a tenant of John Whynniard, was chosen. Percy arranged for the use of the house through Northumberland's agents, Dudley Carleton and John Hippisley.
Gunpowder Plot | Further recruitment
To the extent that these matters can be clarified, the Main Plot that had been laid in parallel wished also for regime change, with James replaced on the throne by Arbella Stuart.
Bye Plot | The plotters
The story is based on The Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The Catholics were persecuted by James I, so they plotted to blow up the Palace of Westminster. The story is narrated by the elusive Father Garnet, leader of the Jesuits.
Bang! (opera) | Synopsis
Thomas Bates confessed on 4 December, providing much of the information that Salisbury needed to link the Catholic clergy to the plot. Bates had been present at most of the conspirators' meetings, and under interrogation he implicated Father Tesimond in the plot. On 13 January 1606 he described how he had visited Garnet and Tesimond on 7 November to inform Garnet of the plot's failure. Bates also told his interrogators of his ride with Tesimond to Huddington, before the priest left him to head for the Habingtons at Hindlip Hall, and of a meeting between Garnet, Gerard, and Tesimond in October 1605.
Gunpowder Plot | Jesuits
The first meeting between the five conspirators took place on 20 May 1604, probably at the Duck and Drake Inn, just off the Strand, Thomas Wintour's usual residence when staying in London. Catesby, Thomas Wintour, and John Wright were in attendance, joined by Guy Fawkes and Thomas Percy. Alone in a private room, the five plotters swore an oath of secrecy on a prayer book. By coincidence, and ignorant of the plot, Father John Gerard (a friend of Catesby's) was celebrating Mass in another room, and the five men subsequently received the Eucharist.
Gunpowder Plot | Initial planning