GUNPOWDER PLOT, the name given to a conspiracy for blowing up King James I. and the parliament on Nov. 5, 1605. Organized as a reply to the anti-Roman Catholic laws, which, after a temporary relaxation, were being applied by James with renewed vigour, it originated at a meeting, probably in Jan. 1604, at a house in Lambeth, between Robert Catesby, Robert Winter his cousin, and John Wright. Later, several other persons were included in the plot, Winter's brother Thomas, Thomas Percy, John Grant, Ambrose Rokewood, Robert Keyes, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham, a cousin of Catesby, and Thomas Bates, Catesby's servant, all, with the exception of the last, being men of good family and all Roman Catholics. Father Greenway and Father Garnet, the Jesuits, were both cognizant of the plot. Guy Fawkes was brought over from Flanders in April 1605. In March a vault immediately under the House of Lords was hired by Percy and 36 barrels of gunpowder (amounting to about I ton 12 cwt.), concealed there under coal and faggots. The preparations being completed in May the conspirators separated.
On Oct. 26 Lord Monteagle, a brother-in-law of Francis Tres ham, who had engaged in Romanist plots against the government, but who had given his support to the new king, was seated at supper at Haxton when the following letter was brought to him : "My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care for your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance of this Parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightly of this ad vertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow, the Parlia ment, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be contemned, because it may do you good and can do you no harm, for the danger is past as soon as you hive burnt the letter : and I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you." The authorship of the letter has never been disclosed or proved, but all evidence seems to point to Tresham and to the probability that he had some days before warned Monteagle and agreed with him as to the best means of making known the plot and prevent ing its execution, and at the same time of giving the conspirators time to escape.
Monteagle at once showed the letter to Salisbury and other ministers, but the cellar under the House of Lords was not searched till Nov. 4. The whole plot was then discovered; Fawkes was arrested and tortured, while Catesby and others fled into the country, rejoining each other in Warwickshire, as had been agreed in case the plot had been successful. Catesby, who with some others had covered the distance of 8om. between London and his mother's house at Ashby St. Legers in eight hours, in formed his friends in Warwickshire of the failure of the plot, but succeeded in persuading Sir Everard Digby, by an unscrupu lous falsehood, further to implicate himself in his hopeless cause by assuring him that both James and Salisbury were dead. They failed to rally any of the support that they had expected from the countryside, and their small party was run to earth by the sheriff at Hewell Grange on Nov. 8. Catesby, Percy and the two Wrights were killed, Winter and Rokewood wounded and taken prisoners with the men who still adhered to them. In all eight of the conspirators, including the two Winters, Digby, Fawkes, Rokewood, Keyes and Bates, were executed, while Tresham died in the Tower. Of the priests involved, Garnet was tried and executed, while Greenway and Gerard succeeded in escaping. The allegation that the whole affair was an agent-provocateur's plot for which Salisbury was responsible is now generally regarded as baseless.
In England, the anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder plot is still celebrated on Guy Fawkes' day (Nov. 5) by bonfires, fireworks, and the carrying of "guys" through the streets.
great controversy of last century concerning the nature of the plot can be followed in: What was the Gunpowder Plot? by John Gerard, S.J. (1897) ; What the Gunpowder Plot was, by S. R. Gardiner (a rejoinder) (1897) ; The Gunpowder Plot . . . in reply to Professor Gardiner, by John Gerard, S.J. (1897) ; Thomas Winter's Confession and the Gunpowder Plot, by John Gerard, S.J. (with facsimiles of his writing) (1898) ; Eng. Hist. Rev., iii. 5io and xii. 791 ; Edinburgh Review, clxxxv. 183 ; Athenaeum, 1897, ii. 149, 785, 855; 1898, i. 23, ii. 352, 42o; Academy, vol. 52, p. 84; The Nation, vol. 65, p. 400. See also: D. Jardine, The Gunpowder Plot (1857) ; the official account, A True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings against the late most Barbarous Traitors (1606), and the collection of letters and papers in the State Paper Office called the Gunpowder Plot Book (1819) .