View of the River Front of the House occupied by Whynniard The words ‘Prince’s Chamber, House of Lords,’ in the foreground can only mean that those buildings are behind the house. BY SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L., LL.D. FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1897 All rights reserved WORKS BY SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L. LL.D. HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War, 1603-1642. 10

( Political events in italics )...

In ‘What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story tested by Original Evidence,’ [1] Father Gerard has set forth all the difficulties he found while sifting the accessible evidence, and has deduced from his examination a result which, though somewhat vague in itself, leaves upon his readers a very distinct impression that the celebrated conspiracy was mainly, if not altogether, a fiction devised by the Earl of Salisbury for the purpose of maintaining or strengthening his position in the gove

First of all, let us restrict ourselves to the story told by Guy Fawkes himself in the five [15] examinations to which he was subjected previously to his being put to the torture on November 9, and to the letters, proclamations, &c., issued by the Government during the four days commencing with the 5th. From these we learn, not only that Fawkes’s account of the matter gradually developed, but that the knowledge of the Government also developed; a fact which fits in very well with the ‘tr

Having thus, I hope, established that the story of the mine and cellar is borne out by Fawkes’s own account, I proceed to examine into the objections raised by Father Gerard to the documentary evidence after November 8, the date of Fawkes’s last examination before he was subjected to torture. In the declaration, signed with his tortured hand on the 9th, before Coke, Waad and Forsett, [71] and acknowledged before the Commissioners on the 10th, Fawkes distinctly refers to the examination of the 8t

From a study of the documentary evidence, I pass to an examination of those structural conditions which Father Gerard pronounces to be fatal to the ‘traditional’ story. The first step is obviously to ascertain the exact position of Whynniard’s house, part of which was rented by Percy. The investigator is, however, considerably assisted by Father Gerard, who has successfully exploded the old belief that this building lay to the southwest of the House of Lords. His argument, which appears to me to

In one way the evidence on the discovery of the plot differs from that on the plot itself. The latter is straightforward and simple, its discrepancies, where there are any, being reducible to the varying amount of the knowledge of the Government. The same cannot be said of the evidence relating to the mode in which the plot was discovered. If we accept the traditional story that its discovery was owing to the extraordinary letter brought to Monteagle at Hoxton, there are disturbing elements in t

Having thus disposed of Father Gerard’s assaults on the general truth of the accepted narrative of the Plot, we can raise ourselves into a larger air, and trace the causes leading or driving the Government into measures which persuaded such brave and constant natures to see an act of righteous vengeance in what has seemed to their own and subsequent ages, a deed of atrocious villainy. Is it true, we may fairly ask, that these measures were such as no honourable man could in that age have adopted

It was unavoidable that the persecution to which Catholics were subjected should bear most hardly on the priests, who were held guilty of disseminating a disloyal religion. It is therefore no matter for surprise that we find, about April 1604, [259] an informer, named Henry Wright, telling Cecil that another informer named Davies, was able to set, i.e. to give information of the localities of above threescore more priests, but that he had told him that twenty principal ones would be enough. Davi