proposed reforms were carried, or even pushed; but as the court did not seem inclined to yield anything, the Commons resolved not to be over generous with the people's money. They passed the usual bill, granting tonnage and poundage for the king's life, and there they stopped, without hinting at any further supplies. James, though in great want of money, was anxious to preserve his dignity, and apprehending that a demand on his part would be met with a flat refusal, he sent down a message to the Commons, begging them not to enter upon the business of a subsidy. The Commons having a fearful eye to a relapse into Popery, against Catholics. As the bishops, into whose arms James had thrown himself, united with the Puritans in these demands, no opposition was encountered, and the rivalry of the two divisions of Protestants increased the severity of the existing laws. On the 7th of July the parliament was prorogued to the 7th of February of the following year. dience, that will be the question." It was at length resolved to confer with the judges in presence of the king and council, and the Commons named a select committee for the purpose. In this conference the king, after some wheedling, gently suggested that both Goodwin and Fortescue should be excluded, and a new writ issued. The Commons, who had been disputing the point for nearly three weeks, accepted the compromise with joy, being anxious "to remove all impediments to their worthy and weighty causes." This joy, however, was not universal; and some members said that, by giving up Goodwin's election, they had drawn on themselves the reproach of incon-urgently pressed for execution of the penal statutes stancy and levity. But James felt as if they had gained a victory over his absolute prerogative, and, in the course of the session, he was vexed by other demonstrations.* The Commons instituted an inquiry into monopolies, which, in spite of James's proclamation, seem to have flourished as much as, or more than, ever. They also attacked the monstrous abuses of purveyance, and the incidents of feudal tenure, by which, among other things, the king Meanwhile the new king spent most of his time became guardian to wards, and received the pro- in hunting, his love of field-sports increasing with ceeds of their estates till they came of age, without his means of gratifying it. Whitehall, London, accounting for the money. The Commons asserted the scenes of business and ceremony, were all that, notwithstanding the six and thirty statutes deserted for Royston and Newmarket. The affairs which had been made to check the evil, the pracof the state might wait, but James would not lose tice of purveyance was enforced by the Board of his sport. Men first wondered, and then began to Green-Cloth, who punished and imprisoned on complain and to satirise. Towards the end of the their own warrant; that the royal purveyors did year a reasonable pretty jest" was played off at what they list in the country, seizing carts, car- Royston. "There was one of the king's special riages, horses, and provisions; felling trees with-hounds, called Jowler, missing one day. out the owners' consent, and exacting labour from the people, which they paid for very badly, or not at all. On the subject of wardships they were equally cogent, and the disgust at this lucrative tyranny was increased by the popular belief that Cecil derived a good part of his enormous income from this particular branch of the prerogative. This grievance, with others, was referred to a committee, in which the rising Francis Bacon played a conspicuous part, trying to unite the opposite characters of a patriot and courtier, a reformer and sycophant. Speaking before the king in council, he said that the king's was the voice of God in man, the good spirit of God in the mouth of man. But in the House of Commons he could speak boldly of the abuses of government and the sufferings of the people. The Lords refused to go with the Commons, and, in the end, and by their advice, the matter was dropped as premature, and somewhat unseasonable in the king's first parliament. None of the other At their first meeting, the Commons, who were fully aware of James's high pretensions, took care to tell him, by the mouth of their Speaker, that he could not be a law-giver by himself," that new law's could not be instituted, nor imperfect laws reformed, nor inconvenient laws abrogated by any other power than that of the high court of parliament,-that is, by the agreement of the commons, the accord of the lords, and the assent of the sovereign." And at the end of the session they told him,-" Your majesty would be misinformed if any man should deliver that the kings of England have any absolute power in themselves either to alter religion, or make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than as in temporal causes, by consent of parliament." 6 The king was much displeased that he was wanted; notwithstanding, went a hunting. The next day, when they were on the field, Jowler came in amongst the rest of the hounds; the king was told of him, and was very glad; and, looking on him, spied a paper about his neck, and in the paper was written: Good Mr. Jowler, we pray you speak to the king (for he hears you every day, and so doth he not us) that it will please his majesty to go back to London, for else the country will be undone: all our provision is spent already, and we are not able to entertain him longer.' It was taken for a jest, and so passed over, for his majesty intends to lie there yet a fortnight." Except the Earl of Worcester, none of the council,-no not a clerk of the council nor privy signet,—was with his majesty the while. A little later, Matthew Hutton, Archbishop of York, in writing to Cecil, then Lord Cranborne, against Papists and recusants, took the liberty to offer some advice about the king's long absences. "I confess," says the prelate," that I am not to deal in state matters, yet, as one that honoureth and loveth his most excellent majesty with all my heart, I wish less Lodge, Illustrations. The letter containing the anecdote about the hound, or "Mr. Jowler" (as old Shrewsbury indorsed it), was written to the Earl of Shrewsbury by Mr. Edmund Lascelles, who appears to have lost the king's favour by his jokes. He wasted the whole of his small fortune at court without gaining preferment; and in 1609 he was obliged to fly to the continent from his creditors, leaving a wife and three children behind i'm in absolute want. as it wasting of the treasure of the realm, and more moderation in the lawful exercise of hunting, both that poor men's corn may be less spoiled and other his majesty's subjects more spared." Cecil wrote a truly courtier-like reply to the archbishop, telling him that, as for the toleration in religion, which he seemed to fear, he well knew that no creature living durst propound it to his religious sovereign; and that, as for the hunting, was a praise in the good Emperor Trajan to be disposed to such man-like and active recreations, so ought it be a joy to him to behold the king of so able a constitution, promising long life and a plentiful posterity." Cecil caused both letters to be laid before his majesty by the Earl of Worcester, who presently reported to his ally the impression they had produced on the royal mind. "He was merry at the first," says the earl, "till, as I guessed, he came to the wasting of the treasure, and the immoderate exercise of hunting. He began, then, to alter countenance, and, in the end, said it was the foolishest letter that he ever read, and yours an excellent answer, paying him soundly, but in good and fair terms."'* In the same epistle Worcester informed his friend that his majesty meant to go from Royston to Newmarket, to hunt there for three or four days, and then from Newmarket to hunt at Thetford. Whither he would have gone hunting after this is not known; but, in the month of March, Worcester entreated Sir James Hay not to urge the king any further, and Hay considerately promised that he would not. During these ambulatory proceedings the Puritan ministers, whom the new primate, Bancroft, (quaintly described as a man of a rough temper and a stout foot-ball player,")† had been active in expelling from their livings in the church, gave James some disturbance by waiting upon him to present petitions, and their party caused him further trouble by writing and printing certain letters. Against the authors of these papers, and against others who had ventured to remonstrate, James let loose Cecil, whom he was accustomed to call his "little beagle." Upon quitting the sports of the field his serious attention was devoted to solve the problem, whether a man could preach good sermons and speak exceeding good Hebrew and Greek in his sleep, being, when awake, no divine, and ignorant of both those learned languages. "The king took delight, by the line of his reason, to sound the depths of such impostors. The man, who practised physic in the day and preached by night, was Richard Haddock, of New College, Oxford, and all the fellows and scholars of the college were wont to go and hear him preach in his sleep, as they would go to any regular sermon; and though some of his auditory were willing to silence him, by pulling, hauling, and pinching him, yet would he pertinaciously persist to the end of his discourse, sleeping all the Lodge, Illustrations, † Coke, Delection. while." And, to complete the miraculous story, when he awoke he knew nothing of what he had said, but wondered to see so many persons around him. All this was told the king by two or three persons that had heard him, and the king, thinking it a very strange thing, sent for him to court. There Haddock was put into a room to preach and sleep to the king, who summoned Lord Pembroke, Lord Chandos, Lord Danvers, Lord Marr and others to assist him in the weighty business. This conclave sate up a whole night to hear him. "And when the time came in which the preacher thought it was fit for him to be asleep, he began very orderly with a prayer, then took a text of Scripture and divided it into heads, which he explained significantly enough, but afterwards he inade an excursion against the pope, the use of the cross in baptism, and the last canons of the Church of England, and so concluded sleeping." Haddock was allowed to rest till the next morning, "when the king in private handled him so like a cunning surgeon that he found out the sore place, making him confess, not only his sin and error in the act, but the cause that urged him to it." This weighty business occupied several days, and the members of his council wrote and received long letters about it. In the end, the king forgave him graciously, upon promise that he would never do the like again, and sent him back to Oxford. The depth of his majesty's wonderful judgment was applauded by the whole court, and James was encouraged to devote more of his time to such pursuits. But he was now destined to have more serious work upon his hands. The Catholics, who had expected toleration or an approach to it, were enraged at the increased severity of the laws directed against them; and some of them were absolutely maddened by the persecutions they suffered, and by the heavy fines they were constantly called upon to pay. Among the sufferers there was one capable of the most daring deeds. This was Robert Catesby, a gentleman of an ancient family and of a good estate. During one period of his life he had recanted, but he soon returned to the ancient religion, and endeavoured to make up for his youthful back-sliding by the ardour of his zeal. He had engaged in the rash business of the Earl of Essex, who had promised liberty of conscience; he had intrigued with the court of France, and with the Spanish court; • Arthur Wilson. Edmund Lascelles wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury from court,-" I doubt not but your lordship hath heard of the mau at Oxford that preacheth in his sleep: it is very true; and he maketh very excellent and learned sermons, by the report of those that have very good judgment, and when he is awake is but a dull fellow, and known to be no great scholar. In those sermons that he maketh in his sleep he will speak exceeding good Greek and Hebrew, and when he is awake understand neither of the languages." -Lodge. + Wilson. ers. It is probable that Haddock was set on by some of the DissentWilson says, that the "cause that urged him to it" was, "that he apprehended himself as a buried man in the university, being of a low condition, and if something eminent and remarkable did not spring from him, to give life to his reputation, he should never appear anybody." "The king," adds Wilson, "finding him ingenuous in his confession, pardoned him, and, after his recantation public, gave him preferment in the church." swordsman in all England. Percy, during Eliza but, at last, seeing no hopes of assistance from those quarters, he conceived the project of destroy-beth's time, had visited Edinburgh, where James, ing, at one blow, King, Lords, and Commons. Horrible and desperate as was the plot, he soon found a few spirits as implacable and furious as his own to join in it. The first person to whom he opened his design was Thomas Winter, a gentleman of Worcestershire, who had been a soldier of fortune in the Low Countries, and a secret agent of the English Catholics in Spain. This man was, at first, overcome with horror, and, though Catesby removed his repugnance by drawing the most frightful picture of the sufferings of their coreligionists, he would not agree to the mighty murder till they had solicited the mediation of the King of Spain, who was then negociating with James. Winter passed over to the Netherlands, where he soon learned from the Spanish ambassador that his court could not get a clause of toleration inserted in the English treaty. At this moment, when he had made up his mind to co-operate with Catesby, he accidentally encountered, in the town of Ostend, another soldier of fortune, an old fellowtraveller and associate. This was Guy, or Guido, Fawkes, whom (knowing him to be the most daring of men) he carried over to England, without telling him what particular service would be required at his hands. Fawkes did not come for pay. It has been customary to represent him as a low, mercenary ruffian, but it appears, on the contrary, that he was a pure fanatic, and as much a gentleman as the others. Before Winter and Fawkes had been many days with Catesby in London, they were joined by two other conspirators, Thomas Percy, a distant relation and steward to the Earl of Northumberland, and John Wright, Percy's brother-in-law, who was reputed the best to secure what influence he could command, had promised "to tolerate mass in a corner." He was now furious at the king's broken promises, and seems to have been more headlong than any of them-more eager even than Catesby to do something, though as yet he knew not what, for the arch-conspirator was cautious in his madness. They all met at Catesby's lodgings. "Well, gentlemen," cried Percy, "shall we always talk and never do?" Catesby said that, before opening the particulars of his scheme, they must all take a solemn oath of secrecy. The condition was accepted by all, and, a few days afterwards, they met at a lonely house, in the fields, beyond St. Clement's Inn. "You shall swear by the blessed Trinity, and, by the sacrament you now propose to receive, never to disclose directly or indirectly, by word or circumstance, the matter that shall be proposed to you to keep secret, nor desist from the execution thereof until the rest shall give you leave." Such was the form of the oath which was taken, on their knees, by Catesby, Percy, Thomas Winter, John Wright, and Fawkes; and immediately after they had taken the oath, Catesby explained that his purpose was to blow up the Parliament House with gunpowder the next time the king should go to the House of Lords. He then made the means clear to their comprehension, and, ceasing this discourse, led them all to an upper room in the same lone house, where they heard mass, and received the sacrament from Father Gerard, a Jesuit missionary, who, it is said, was not admitted into the horrid secret. Percy's zeal was unabated, and an office he held about the court (he was a gentleman pensioner) gave him facilities which the others did not possess. Their first object was to secure a house adjoining the parliament building. As Percy, by his office, was obliged to live during a part of the year near to Whitehall, there would appear nothing strange in his taking a lodging in that quarter. After some search they found a house held by one Ferris, as tenant to Whinneard, the keeper of the king's wardrobe, which seemed adapted to their purpose. This Percy hired in his own name, by a written agreement with Ferris.* When they took possession they again swore to be faithful and secret. The back of the house, or an out-building, leaned against the very wall of the Parliament House. Here they resolved to commence operations by cutting away the wall in order to make a mine through it. It was an arduous task to gentlemen unaccustomed to manual labour; and before they could well begin, they learned that the king had prorogued parliament to the 7th of February, and upon this news they agreed to separate, and, after visiting their friends in the country, to meet again in November. In the interval they hired another house, situated on the Lambeth side of the river. Here they cautiously deposited wood, gunpowder, and other combustibles, which were afterwards removed, in small quantities at a time, and by night, to the house at Westminster. The custody of the house at Lambeth was committed to Robert Kay, a Catholic gentleman in indigent circumstances, who took the oath and entered into the plot. When the chief conspirators met again in the capital, they found themselves debarred of the use of their house at Westminster, for the court had thought fit to accommodate therein the commissioners that were engaged on James's premature scheme for a union between England and Scotland. While they were waiting impatiently for quiet possession of the premises, several circumstances occurred that were calculated to keep their deadly purpose alive. At the assizes held in Lancashire in the preceding summer, six seminary priests and Jesuits were tried, condemned, and executed, under the statute of the 27th of Elizabeth, for remaining within the realm. The judges who tried these victims indulged in invectives against the Catholics in general, and one of them was said to have laid it down as law to the jury, that all persons hearing mass from a Jesuit or seminary priest were guilty of felony. Mr. Pound, a Catholic gentleman then living in Lancashire, of an advanced age, who had suffered in Elizabeth's time, presented a petition to the king complaining generally of the persecution, and in particular of the recent proceedings. He was immediately seized, and carried before the privy council, and, after an examination, committed to the tender mercies of the Star Chamber. In that tribunal, on the 29th of November, the poor old gentleman, unaided and alone, was assailed by Coke the Attorney-General, The original agreement, dated May 24, 1004, may be seen in the State Paper Office. Chief Justice Popham, Chancellor Egerton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, Cecil, and several other judges and members of the privy council. Coke inveighed against the whole body of Papists, but it may be questioned whether he were so violent as the Primate Bancroft. Among them they sentenced Mr. Pound to be imprisoned in the Fleet during the king's pleasure, to stand in the pillory both at Lancaster and Westminster, and to pay a fine of one thousand pounds: nay, they were near doing worse, for an infamous proposition to nail the old man to the pillory, and cut off his ears, was negatived by a majority of only one or two. After this iniquitous sentence there was an increased activity in hunting for priests and levying fines on the recusants; and yet the zealots cried that this was not enough, and that the sword of the law ought to be sharpened at the next meeting of parliament. At last, on a dark December night, Catesby and his confederates entered the house at Westminster, and commenced operations, having previously laid in a store of hard eggs, dried meats, pasties, and such provisions as would keep, in order to avoid suspicion by going or sending abroad for food. They presently found that the wall to be penetrated was of tremendous thickness, and that more hands would be required to do the work. Kay was therefore brought over from the house at Lambeth, and the party was further reinforced by the enlisting of Christopher Wright, a younger brother of John Wright, who was already in the plot. Now, in all, they were seven. "All which seven," said Fawkes on his examination, "were gentlemen of name and blood; and not any was employed in or about this action (no, not so much as in digging and mining) that was not a gentleman. And while the others wrought I stood as sentinel to descry any man that came near; and when any man came near to the place, upon warning given by me, they ceased until they had again notice from me to proceed; and we seven lay in the house, and had shot and powder, and we all resolved to die in that place before we yielded or were taken." They lightened, or, it may be, sometimes burthened, their heavy toil with discussions of future plans. They calculated that the king's eldest son, Prince Henry, would accompany his father to the opening of parliament, and perish with him; but Percy undertook to secure Prince Charles, and carry him off to a sure place as soon as the mine should be exploded. Calculating, however, on the possibility of this scheme failing, they made arrangements for carrying off the Princess Elizabeth, who was then under the care of Lord Harrington at his mansion near Coventry. Horses and armour were to be collected in Warwickshire. They resolved if possible to save all members of the two Houses that were Catholics, but they could not agree as to the safest mode of doing this. The notion of applying to the Catholics abroad and the pope was discarded as useless and unsafe. They were working hard to cut their way through the stubborn wall, when Fawkes brought intelligence that the king, who had no great desire to meet that body again, had further prorogued parliament from the 7th of February to the 3rd of October. Hereupon they agreed to separate till after the Christmas holidays, taking good care not to associate or meet abroad, and on no account to correspond by letter on any point connected with the plot. A.D. 1605.—In the month of January, Catesby, being at Oxford, admitted two other conspirators. One of these was John Grant, an accomplished but moody gentleman of Warwickshire, who possessed at Norbrook, between the towns of Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon, a large and strong mansionhouse, walled round and moated, which seemed the best possible place for the reception of horses and ammunition. Lamentation and grief had been carried within those walls in Elizabeth's time, and Grant's melancholy disposition took its rise from the persecution he had endured. The other was Robert Winter, the eldest brother of Thomas Winter, who was already engaged, and one of whose sisters was wife to Grant of Norbrook. Shortly after, Catesby suspecting that his servant Thomas Bates had an inkling of the plot, thought it prudent to make him a full accomplice, and bind him by the oath of secrecy. This Bates was the only one not of the rank of a gentleman: he was of a mean station and of weak character; but his obscurity and timidity had not saved him from the Elizabethan persecution. About the beginning of February they all met in the house at West minster, and resumed their painful toils. Their ears were acutely sensible to the least sound, their hearts susceptible of supernatural dread. They heard, or fancied they heard, the tolling of a bell deep in the earth under the parliament-house, and the noise was stopped by aspersions of holy water. But, one morning, while working in their mine, they heard a loud rumbling noise nearly over their heads. There was a pause, -a fear that they had been discovered; but Fawkes soon brought intelligence that it was nothing but one Bright who was selling off his stock of coals, intending to remove his business from a cellar under the parliament-house to some other place. This opportunity seemed miraculous: the cellar was immediately below the House of Lords; the wall of separation was not yet cut through, and doubts were entertained whether they should be able to complete the work without discovery. Percy hired the cellar of the dealer in coals; the mine was abandoned, and they began to remove thirty-six barrels of gunpowder from the house on the opposite bank of the river. They threw large stones and bars of iron among the powder to make the breach the greater, and they carefully covered over the whole with fagots and billets of wood. All this was completed by the month of May, when they once more separated. Fawkes was dispatched into Spanish Flanders to win over Sir William Stanley and Captain Owen, who held military commands there, and who were supposed capable of collecting a good number of men, either English |