tain was in great haste, what, shall we have a war with France? sir, answered one of my friends, men's opinions are various as their interests; but here is his majesty's speech, which, it may be, is news to you; and, if you please to read it, you may make your conjecture. Cousin, said I, you mistake, if you think it news, or if, in less than a week's time, we do not see in Paris every thing of moment that passes at London: the French trade in Aleppo pigeons; nay, if we will believe them, they would persuade us, that they tell before-hand what will be done. That is an excellent way of intelligence, said the other gentleman; but, for my part, I look upon it as a French artifice; and I am confident, that that trick of pretending to know every thing, amongst us, has done them considerable service; for, certainly, it has given occasion for those jealousies, which now break out amongst us, as if there were a secret intrigue betwixt the French and us, in order to some strange design; and nothing will beat it out of some people's heads, but that this war is only for a colour. Sir, said the captain, here came over with us one of their whisperers, pistole-droppers, news-makers, and away he is posted for London, to fill some people's heads with proclamations of peace, popery, arbitrary government, &c. and others pockets with French money to swear it is true, they have letters from France that confirm it. Cousin, said 1, if the French can accomplish this either way, they have done their business. I assure you, there is nothing they dread like a war with England. I saw, upon several posts in Paris, a severe prohibition, so much as to mention such a war; but, if they can drive it off with these reports, by disuniting the king and his subjects, they are lucky people, and safe enough; and, if they can make a peace underhand, though they give as much money for it, as would almost main. tain the war, yet they have their aim. Well, said the captain, I doubt nothing; I am assured from a good hand, that, before I get to London, some resolution will be taken. I told you some stories of the French, but I have more of their pranks to acquaint the people with. Honest captain, and fellow-traveller, said I, God send you good luck; I dare say you will bestow your skill upon the French with a good will; but cousin, said I, pray what's the matter? Sir, replied he, they were wise that could tell you; and, for my part, I have little curiosity, and less acquaintance with state affairs; but some people, I find, are displeased: but, prithee, what's that to us? let us drink and be merry, and let the world go which way it will. By your favour, sir, said the captain, there are some people that are displeased, because they resolved before-hand to be so with every thing; but I presume, that you, and every Englishman, are so far concerned, that if you do not look about you, the French will before long spoil both your mirth and drinking; what mean you? (answered the other) I hope they will not spoil our drinking, by cutting our throats, as they say the Danes did, which brought in the custom of pledging, or being pledged when one drank. Sir, said the captain, you may live and drink, and be merry in that hope; but, for my part, I do not intend to trust them: I had rather cut some of theirs fairly, for I hate to have my weasand slit, unless it be in the field. Well, honest, brave captain, said I, your ill usage makes you in a rage against the French, and you think the quarrel moves too slow; but, sir, you must consider, this is an affair of great weight, and it is not good to make more haste than speed. Sir, said he, the greater weight should make the motion more quick; you do not seem to understand the worth of time, nor the brisk humour of the French, and, therefore, I have nothing to say to you; but, I hope, other people do, and will consider it. Come, come, says my cousin, what have we to do with these matters? it was never well since there were so many little states. men, and polite politicians. I believe most people are satisfied of the necessity of a war, to reduce the world to the old balance, and France amongst the rest, that so she may be easy to her neighbours, and they safe from her; and what would any body desire more? It is true, there have been some jealousies, which have clogged the wheels of this great affair; but I can assure you, when I came out of town, it was generally hoped, that a little time would bring all people to a good understanding, councils to unity, and the affair to a happy period. Sir, said the captain, this is a word of comfort, for I dare assure you, that the great hopes of France are grounded upon our divisions, which they are not so ill husbands, but they know how to improve: I heard one of them the other day say, that, he thought that of the great Turk, Solyman, might be applied to the English, who will be of one mind (as he said, the Christian princes would) when all the fingers of his hand were united into one. Come, captain, said I, unity, secrecy, and expedition, added to our courage and power, may do much; and I doubt not, but the necessity, which seems to be upon us, will make them all meet the cause is good, for it is not for sovereignty, but for safety; not for glory, but security, and to preserve the Protestant religion, our lives, liberties, and estates, from the rapine and ambition of the French; and he is no true Englishman, who will not heartily venture his life and fortune, in such a lawful war. Upon which, supper came in, and, having talked ourselves into a good opinion of eating, we gratified our palates, as well as the place would afford; and, not long after, every one retired to his apartment, where, I believe, the captain dreamed of drums, and trumpets, and cannons, and Granado's storms, and battles, for he made a horrible noise in his sleep, lying in the next room to me; for my part, like a person not much concerned, I slept as heartily as the soldier would permit me, who gave me several alarms; and I can no more tell, what I dreamed, than I can tell certainly what all men long so much to know, that we shall have a war with France, or such a peace as shall be safe and honourable for England, and all Christendom. THE HISTORY OF THE GUNPOWDER TREASON: COLLECTED FROM APPROVED AUTHORS, AS WELL POPISH AS PROTESTANT.* Sæpe divinitatis opera hæc sunt, et furias in ipso jam successu securas subita ultio excipiat; ne vel unquam improbis timor, vel spes absit calamitosæ virtuti. Jo. Barclaii Conspiratio Anglicana. Printed at London, in 1678. Quarto, containing thirty-two pages. THER HERE are no conspiracies and insurrections more dangerous to states and governments, than those, that the name of religion is made to patronise; for, when that doth head and manage the party, as it makes it look somewhat considerable in itself, so it doth inspire those, that are concerned, with a certain furious and intemperate zeal, and an ungovernable violence: they then rebel with authority, and kill with a safe conscience, and think they cannot do amiss, as long as it is to do God service. The brother will then deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death;' and the laws of nature, which are of themselves sacred and inviolable, shall, in such a case, be despised, and lose their authority. This, this is it, which, in these latter ages more especially, hath disturbed governments, disposed of the crowns of princes, and troubled the peace of the world: from hence spring all those mischiefs, that threatened and perpetually alarmed this nation, during the long and fortunate reign of Queen Elisabeth from hence proceeded that barbarous and bloody design of the Gun-powder Treason, in 1605: such a design, as the world before never heard of, and which posterity will hardly believe, for the horror of it, say the soberer of their own § authors: such a design, as even some of the Jesuits, after it miscarried, and they saw how ill it was resented by the rest of mankind, professed their detestation of ||; but how little to their own vindication, and the satisfaction of the world, will easily appear to any one, that doth impartially inquire into the history and the process of it. For this design was not taken up of a sudden, and what a small company of rash and hot-headed persons did without consideration attempt, but what proceeded from the same original, and was carried on by the same counsels and endeavours, that were in being in the time + The authors, from whence this narrative hath been collected, are, Thuanus; Jo. Barclaii Conspiratio Anglicana. Proceedings against the Traitors, printed in 1606; Historia Missionis Anglicara, Societatis Jesu, Collectore Henrico Moro, printed at St. Omers 1660. Andrea EudæmonJoannis Apologia pro Garnetto. Rob. Abboti Antilogia adversus Apologiam Andreæ Eudæmon-Joannis. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu, Thuanus. Barclay. Rog, Widdrington, in his Apolog. pro Jure Principum, pag. 1. of Queen Elisabeth; the principals in which, for their time, were, Garnet, the provincial of the Jesuits in England, Baldwin in Flanders, and Creswel in Spain: these were the great projectors and encouragers of that which was called the Spanish Treason, in the last year of Queen Elisabeth; and which when defeated in by her death, and the peace that issued upon it betwixt the crowns of England and Spain, they were put upon new counsels, and forced to take other measures for the prosecution of it. It was in December, in the year 1601, that Thomas Winter was sent into Spain, by the joint advice of Henry Garnet and Oswald Tesmond, Jesuits, and of Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham, gentlemen of good quality and reputation, to try what could be done for their assistance, that were ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for the Catholick cause; and to assure the King of Spain, that, could they but prevail with him to send over an army, they would have in readiness fifteen hundred or two thousand horses for the service. With Winter was sent over Oswald Tesmond, and by them a letter to Creswel, the Jesuit, then residing there; by whose mediation the motion was readily hearkened to, and Don Pedro Francesa, second secretary of state, and the Duke of Lerma did assure them of the king's furtherance and help; and, in the conclusion, the Count of Miranda particularly told them, that his mas ter had resolved to bestow 200,000 crowns to that use, half to be paid that year, and the rest the next following; and that, at Spring, he would, without fail, set footing in England. About the latter end of the year, Thomas Winter returns with this joyful news, and they were now busy in preparing for it, and almost every day expecting the arrival of these forces, when of a sudden all was dashed by the death of Queen Elisabeth, which was March the twenty-fourth, 1602. Upon this, one of the Wrights is immediately dispatched into Spain, to give the king notice of it; and about the same time was Guy Fawkes sent, with letters and commission, from Sir William Stanley, Hugh Owen, and Baldwin the Jesuit (who were then in Flanders, and ready to attend and to prosecute the same design) but that king told them, that he was now otherwise resolved, and it became him not to hearken to such proposals, after he had sent ambassadors to the new king of England to treat of a peace. It was now, therefore, fit either to let their design fall, or to betake themselves to some other course to effect it but the former their temper and their principles would not permit; and therefore, since they could not promise themselves success therein by force, they did contrive how, without any noise, or visible and open preparations, it might be obtained. That a king or queen, who is an heretick, may be deposed or killed, was current doctrine amongst them, in the time of Queen Elisabeth, and what they had been taught from Father Creswel, or whoever was the author of the book called Philopater, and by Tresham, in his book De Officio hominis Christiani, found with them about this time. And, though the king was not formally declared and proceeded against, as such, yet it was thought sufficient, by them, that the pope on Maunday-Thursday, did censure and condemn all hereticks in the general, as Guy Fawkes and others of them did confess; and therefore the question was not so much about the lawfulness of it, as about the order that was to be observed, and the way that was fit to be taken in it. Catesby, who was no novice in these affairs, and that, from his acquaintance with Parsons, when in England, and Garnet, and the other Jesuits (to whose order he and his family, from Campian down to this time, were particularly devoted) had learned great skill and subtlety, quickly contrived this for them; and, when Percy, who was of the house of Northumberland, and at that time one of the king's pensioners, according to the bluntness of his temper, did offer himself for the service, and that he would, without any more ado, undertake to assassinate the king, this wary gentleman replied: That would be too dear a purchase, when his own life would be hazarded in it; and it was unnecessary, when it might as well be accomplished without it; and so acquaints him, in part, with what was intended. Before this was fit to be fully communicated, he thought it necessary, that there should be some care taken to oblige all to secrecy; for which purpose, an oath was devised, that every one should take, and which was accordingly administered to them by Gerard the Jesuit. The oath was: "You shall swear by the blessed Trinity, and by the sacrament you now purpose to receive, never to disclose, directly nor 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." แ This was taken, and the sacrament upon it received by Catesby, Percy, Christopher Wright, Thomas Winter, and Fawkes, in May, 1604. Upon which, Catesby communicated the whole, and told them, that, at the meeting of the parliament, which now drew on, they would have a fair opportunity to consummate all their wishes, and without being observed or discovered, by one fatal blow to destroy the king, the prince, the duke, and the parliament at once; for, as long as there were those branches of the royal family remaining, to what purpose would it be to make away the king? And, as long as there was a parliament in being, what should they get, if they could not as well destroy the branches, as the root? Therefore his design was to extirpate at once all the seeds of heresy, and, by a train of powder conveniently laid under the house, in which at that time they should all be assembled, to blow them up, and their cause together. This was what the confederates very well approved of, and now they united counsels and endeavours to carry it on. The first thing to be considered was the hiring of the house, and this Percy undertook, and, having, not without some difficulty, persuaded the present tenant, Ferris, to quit it, he became immediate tenant to Whinyard, keeper of the wardrobe; at whose disposal it was, in the intervals of parliament. The house was committed to the care of Fawkes, as being least known, who, the better to conceal himself, changed his name to Johnson, and gave himself out to be Percy's servant. Whilst they were thus busy in contriving and carrying on their plot, the parlia ment was prorogued till February the seventh, upon which they dispersed themselves into several countries; but, to lose no time, did |