laid in more powder and wood into it. I returned about the beginning of September next, and, then, receiving the key again of Percy, we brought in more powder and billets to cover the same again, and so I went for a time into the country, till October 30.

'It was further resolved amongst us that the same day that this action should have been performed, some other of our confederates should have surprised the person of the Lady Elizabeth, the King's eldest daughter, who was kept in Warwickshire, at the Lord Harrington's house, and presently have proclaimed her for Queen, having a project of a proclamation ready for the purpose; wherein we made no mention of altering of religion, nor would have avowed the deed to be ours until we should have had power enough to make our party good, and then we would have avowed both.

'Concerning Duke Charles, the King's second son, we had sundry consultations how to seize on his person, but because we found no means how to compass it, the duke being kept near London, where we had not forces enough, we resolved to serve our turn with the Lady Elizabeth.

The Names of other principal persons that were made privy afterwards to this horrible conspiracy.1

CHAPTER XII

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE CONSPIRATORS

Ο

UT of the original number of thirteen, only eight of the conspirators survived to be committed for trial. These eight, namely, Thomas Winter, Guy Faukes, John Grant, Robert Winter, Ambrose Rookewood, Thomas Bates, Robert Keyes, and Digby, were arraigned at Westminster Hall, on January 27, 1606, before a Commission consisting of the Lord Chief Justice (Sir John Popham), the Lord Chief Baron (Sir Thomas Fleming), Sir Peter Warburton (a Judge), and the Earls of Salisbury, Northampton,' Nottingham, Suffolk, Worcester, and Devonshire. Sir Everard Digby was separately arraigned, and tried and sentenced immediately after the conclusion of the case against his friends. The Counsel for the Crown were Sir Edward Philips and Sir Edward Coke.

The prisoners were not represented by counsel. All of them, however, with the sole exception of Sir Everard Digby, pleaded 'Not Guilty.' This bold policy of refusing to plead 'Guilty' was

Northampton was a Roman Catholic, although by no means a strict or devout member of that religion.

apparently taken by them on account of the manner in which the indictment had been framed, the absent priests (Garnet, Greenway, and Gerard) all being mentioned by name as participators in the plot. When asked, therefore, 'why he pleaded Not Guilty,' Faukes only voiced the opinion of his confederates, when he replied, 'That he had done so in respect of certain conferences mentioned in the indictment, which he said that he knew not of which were answered to have been set down according to course of law, as necessarily presupposed before the resolution of such a design.'

The trial from beginning to end was a mere farce. The prisoners, after having to listen to a very long, by no means truthful, and very violent speech from Sir Edward Coke, and having heard 'their several Examinations, Confessions, and voluntary Declarations, as well of themselves, as of some of their dead Confederates,' read out, were merely asked, 'What they could say, wherefore Judgment of Death should not be pronounced against them?'' and the trial was virtually over, so far as the hearing of their case was concerned.

Thomas Winter, on being asked what he had to answer for himself, ' only desired that he might be hanged both for his brother and himself.'

Robert Keyes said, 'That his estate and fortune were desperate, and as good now as at another time, and for this cause rather than for another.'

1 State Trials, vol. ii., edited by Cobbett.