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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2007
This article seeks to develop our understanding of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot by asking a number of elementary questions. Were the plotters terrorists in any meaningful sense? Were they religious fanatics, as the Jacobean state understandably chose to portray them after the event? Was their plan built on a misguided fantasy of widespread support for a Catholic insurrection, or does the Plot perhaps have a practical coherence that lies obscured by the drama of the projected strike against Westminster? How does evidence for coherent planning square with the strong desire for revenge, running through so much of the surviving testimony? Through answers to these questions, we begin to see the Gunpowder plotters as men engaged in a calculated and demonstrably pragmatic attempt to engineer a change in regime. Their planning was robust, and to the point, while the emotional power of revenge was channelled creatively by the ringleaders. The article concludes that the odds against success were long, but not impossible.
1 Fiona Bengtsen, Sir William Waad: lieutenant of the Tower and the Gunpowder Plot (Victoria, BC, 2005); Brenda Buchanan et al., Gunpowder Plots: a celebration of 400 years of bonfire night (London, 2005); Alice Hogge, God's secret agents: Queen Elizabeth's forbidden priests and the hatching of the Gunpowder Plot (London, 2005); James Sharpe, Remember, remember the fifth of November: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot (London, 2005); James Travers, Gunpowder: the players behind the Plot (London, 2005). Anticipating the anniversary, but of particular interest, is Okines, A. W. R. E., ‘Why was there so little government reaction to the Gunpowder Plot?’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 55 (2004), pp. 275–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 J. Hurstfield, ‘A retrospect, Gunpowder Plot and the politics of dissent’, in Hurstfield, Freedom, corruption and government in Elizabethan England (London, 1973), pp. 327–51, at pp. 340–1.
3 H. R. Trevor-Roper, Historical essays (London, 1957), p. 109.
4 A declaration of the practises & treasons attempted and committed by Robert late earle of Essex and his complices (London, 1601), sig. br–v.
5 Coke's words in Les reportes del cases in Camera Stellata, 1593–1609, from the original manuscript of John Hawarde, ed. W. P. Baildon (London, 1894), p. 254. For Winter's misogyny see his slightly ambiguous letter to John Grant, 31 Aug. [1605], National Archives, State Papers (SP) 14/15/44.
6 Winter had to compose a quarrel between Wright and an unidentified gentleman, see the declaration by Henry Garnett, 13 Mar. 1606, SP 14/19/41.
7 On Percy's earlier career see Mark Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot (Manchester, 1991), pp. 97–103, 113–14.
8 Details of the ‘mine’ are given in an anonymous contemporary list at British Library, Egerton MS 2877, fo. 163.
9 Fawkes served as steward to Lord Montagu and Sir William Stanley. See Montagu to the earl of Dorset, 13 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/86; Sir Thomas Edmondes to Cecil, 25 Nov. 1605, MSS of the marquess of Salisbury at Hatfield House MS 227, p. 131. For his grasp of theology see, for example, Waad's letter to Cecil of 7 Nov. 1605, Hatfield MS 112/164. Perhaps this was acquired through Fawkes's ‘kinsman’ Harrington, a northerner, and a soldier turned priest, mentioned by Edmondes in his letter.
10 Notably young Everard Digby. Digby's letters smuggled out of the Tower, and discovered after the death of his son, are printed in Thomas Barlow, ed., The Gunpowder-treason, with a discourse of the manner of its discovery (London, 1679), pp. 229–63; see especially p. 250. See also an information touching Fawkes, n.d., SP 14/16/25.
11 Interrogatories for ‘John Johnson’ compiled by the king, 6 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/17, 18.
12 Examination of Ambrose Rookwood, 2 Dec. 1605, SP 14/216/136.
13 Digby to Cecil, n.d., SP 14/17/10. Travers, Gunpowder, pp. 114–17.
14 A true and perfect relation of the whole proceedings against the late most barbarous traitors, Garnet a Iesuite, and his confederats (London, 1606), sig. n3r–n3v.
15 See Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, p. 214. The original letter is SP 14/216/2.
16 Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, pp. 150–1.
17 Examination of Ambrose Rookwood, 10 Dec. 1605, SP 14/17/30.
18 For Geoffrey Elton, the Plot was simply ‘absurd’ (The English (Oxford, 1992), p. 148). Barry Coward pointedly asks ‘What were the motives of the conspirators?’ before arguing that ‘the extant historical evidence does not support conclusive answers’ (The Stuart age: England, 1603–1714 (3rd edn, London, 2003), p. 129). In the course of one of the most important reassessments of the Plot in recent years, Jenny Wormald suggests that the plotters ‘hardly seem to have known what would have happened’ after the explosion, ‘Gunpowder, treason, and Scots’, Journal of British Studies, 24 (1985), pp. 164–5.
19 Northumberland to the privy council, n.d. [10 Nov. 1605], SP 14/216/225.
20 Winter's account of the domestic treason, dated 23 Nov. 1605, and surviving in autograph draft as Hatfield MS 113/54, is significantly supplemented by his subsequent disclosure of the Spanish dimension, dated 26 Nov., in Hatfield MS 112/91.
21 S. R. Gardiner in What Gunpowder Plot was (London, 1897), p. 74n. For Winter's motives in writing his confessions in the Tower see Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, pp. 27–9; Nicholls, , ‘Discovering Gunpowder Plot: the King's Book and the dissemination of news’, Recusant History, 28 (2007), pp. 397–415CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 As detailed graphically in Thomas Winter's principal confession, Hatfield MS 113/54.
23 Examination of William Handye, 9 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/67.
24 Examination of John Myles, 7 Nov. 1605, SP 14/16/28i.
25 Examination of Sir Everard Digby, 2 Dec. 1605, SP 14/216/135.
26 See Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, chs. 11–13.
27 For example Rookwood's examination on 2 Dec. 1605, SP 14/216/136.
28 Interrogatories for Guy Fawkes, n.d. [?7 Nov. 1605], SP 14/16/38.
29 Examination of Guy Fawkes, 7 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/37.
30 Examination of Guy Fawkes, 8 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/49, and in Fawkes's confession as printed in His majesties speach in this last session of Parliament … (London, 1605), sig. h3v.
31 Barlow, Gunpowder-treason, p. 250.
32 Croft, Pauline, ‘Wardship in the parliament of 1604’, Parliamentary History, 2 (1983), pp. 39–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
33 I am grateful to Michael Questier for pointing out the possible connection with Persons's discourse.
34 SP 14/216/37, 49.
35 Examination of Thomas Maunder, 26 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/119.
36 Fawkes was well aware of the potential complications in a kidnapping plot, SP 14/216/49. See also Nicholls, Mark, ‘Treason's reward: the punishment of conspirators in the Bye Plot of 1603’, Historical Journal, 38 (1995), pp. 821–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 SP 14/216/49.
38 Examination of Robert Keyes, 30 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/126.
39 SP 14/216/49.
40 List of suspects compiled by Sir John Popham, 6 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/20A; True and perfect relation, sig. k4v.
41 Hatfield MS 113/54. Fawkes says almost the same thing in his confession published in His majesties speach, sig. h2v, cf. SP 14/216/49.
42 Hatfield MS 113/54.
43 Confession of Robert Winter, 21 Jan. 1606, SP 14/216/176.
44 The events following the delivery of the Monteagle letter, seen from the plotters' perspective, are best described by Thomas Winter in Hatfield MS 113/54.
45 Hatfield MS 113/54.
46 SP 14/216/126.
47 Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, p. 67.
48 SP 14/216/136.
49 Barlow, Gunpowder-treason, p. 251.
50 Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot (London, 1996), p. 112.
51 For a recent, sympathetic treatment of Garnett's dilemma see Hogge, God's secret agents. See also Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, pp. 62–73.
52 Ralegh to Cecil, n.d. [c. Mar. 1600], Hatfield MS 90/150.
53 Broude, Ronald, ‘Revenge and revenge tragedy in Renaissance England’, Renaissance Quarterly, 28 (1975), pp. 38–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
54 A warning for faire women: containing, the most tragicall murther of master George Sanders (London, 1599), sig. a2v.
55 On the extensive literature of revenge in early modern England see, for example, John Kerrigan, Revenge tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon (Oxford, 1996); K. E. Maus, ed., Four revenge tragedies (Oxford, 1995); Jong-Hwan, Kim, ‘Waiting for justice: Shakespeare's Hamlet and the Elizabethan ethics of revenge’, Journal of English Language and Literature, 43 (1997), pp. 781–97Google Scholar.
56 See John Morrill, ‘King-killing in perspective’, in Robert von Friedeburg, ed., Murder and monarchy: regicide in European history, 1300–1800 (Basingstoke, 2004), pp. 293–5.
57 See David Cressy, ‘Binding the nation: the bonds of association, 1584 and 1696’, in DeLloyd J. Guth and John W. McKenna, eds., Tudor rule and revolution (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 217–34.
58 His majesties speach, sigs. e3v, e4r. There may be an echo here from Act iv of Ben Jonson's Sejanus, first printed in 1605.
59 See, for a recent restatement, Pauline Croft, ‘The Gunpowder Plot fails’, in Buchanan et al., Gunpowder Plots, pp. 14–19, 33.
60 James F. Larkin and Paul L. Hughes, eds., Stuart royal proclamations (2 vols., Oxford, 1973–80), i, p. 71. The king's speech to parliament in March 1604 may also be seen as a catalyst, Nina Taunton, and Valerie Hart, ‘King Lear, King James and the Gunpowder treason of 1605’, Renaissance Studies, 17 (2003), pp. 695–715, at pp. 699–704.
61 See Digby's speech at his trial, True and perfect relation, sig. l2v.
62 Memorandum from Cecil to Coke, n.d. [Jan. 1606], SP 14/19/94.
63 Loomie, Albert J., ‘Guy Fawkes in Spain: the “Spanish treason” in Spanish documents’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Special Supplement 9 (1971), pp. 45–6, 59–60Google Scholar; Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, p. 57.
64 John Morris, ed., The condition of Catholics under James I: Father Gerard's narrative of the Gunpowder Plot … with his life (London, 1872), p. 25.
65 Albert J. Loomie, The Spanish Elizabethans: the English exiles at the court of Philip II (London, 1965), p. 82.
66 Points central to the compelling argument presented in Wormald, ‘Gunpowder, treason, and Scots’, pp. 154–7.
67 On the career of Viscount Montagu, and more generally on the diversity of Catholic attitudes and fortunes in Jacobean England see Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and community in early modern England: politics, aristocratic patronage and religion, c. 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 2006); Alexandra Walsham, Church papists: Catholicism, conformity and confessional polemic in early modern England (London, 1993).
68 Wormald, ‘Gunpowder, treason, and Scots’, pp. 152–64.
69 Ibid., p. 161.
70 Diana Newton, The making of the Jacobean regime: James VI and I and the government of England, 1603–1605 (London, 2005), p. 38.
71 SP 14/216/49.
72 Hatfield MS 112/91.
73 Pauline Croft, ‘Rex pacificus, Robert Cecil, and the 1604 peace with Spain’, in Glenn Burgess et al., eds., The accession of James I: historical and cultural consequences (Basingstoke, 2006), pp. 148–9.
74 SP 14/216/176.
75 A point well made in Travers, Gunpowder, pp. 34–6.
76 On the examination process, see John Bellamy, The Tudor law of treason: an introduction (London, 1979), pp. 104–9.
77 SP 14/216/104.
78 Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, p. 64.
79 Some parallels with the 1601 investigations are detailed in ibid., pp. 33–4.
80 For example from Susan, dowager countess of Kent, on 15 Nov. 1605, Hatfield MS 113/11.
81 Richard Walshe to the privy council, 13 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/87, 88.
82 JPs of Suffolk to the privy council, 12 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/78.
83 Letter to Robert Cecil as chancellor of the University of Cambridge, 13 Nov. 1605, with the examination of Nicholas Bestwick, SP 14/216/84, 85.
84 His majesties speach, sig. g4v.
85 Ambrose Rookwood specifically gave this as his reason for entering a ‘Not Guilty’ plea (True and perfect relation, sig. k4v).