GUNPOWDER PLOT, Tile. A project for destroying the King, Lords, and Commons at the opening of Parliament on November 5, 1605. While James I. (then James VI. of Scotland) was an aspirant to the English throne, he had given the Roman Catholics reason for believing that he intended to favor them; but after his try. In the final arrangement for the execution of their plot at the assembling of Parliament on November 5th, Fawkes was to set fire to the gun powder in the cellar, and then Ilee to Flanders in a ship provided from Tresham's money, and wait ing ready on the Thames. Although they agreed to warn their Roman Catholic friends in Parlia ment of the impending danger, in this matter they hit upon no common plan of action. The in discretion (if not treachery) of one of their num ber accordingly exposed their whole scheme. Ten days before the opening of Parliament Lord Monteagle, a brother-in-law of Tresham, was at supper in his country house at Boxton, when a page handed him a letter received from a stran ger, advising him "to devise some excuse to shift off your attendance at this Parliament, for God and man bath concurred to punish the Wicked ness of this time." That this letter was written by or for Tresham there can be little doubt, though Tresham himself when accused by Cates by positively denied it. That he desired to save his friend would be of itself a sufficient reason for writing it; but it is not altogether improbable that Tresham wished to expose the plot, and at the same time allow his fellow-conspirators an opportunity to escape. That they might have escaped but for the unreasonable hopes of Cates by is all but certain. On the evening of the fourth the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Monteagle vis ited Parliament House, and entering the cellar in a casual way, told Guy Fawkes, whom they found there, and who passed as Percy's servant, that his master had laid in plenty of fuel. In spite of this direct warning Fawkes clung to his post, though escape was still possible; and on the morning of the fifth, a little after midnight, he was arrested as he came from the cellar dressed for traveling.
On his person the magistrate found slow matches, and in the cellar a lantern burning, and a hogshead and thirty-six barrels of gunpowder. Examined under torture, Fawkes confessed his own guilt, and after long obstinacy revealed the names of his associates. Nearly all the others were killed on being taken, or died with him on the scaffold. Tresham, who at first went about openly, was finally arrested, and died of sickness in the Tower. Fawkes was a man of some ex cellent qualities; his aim was unselfish, but his zeal was wholly misdirected. SO far from reme dying the oppression of the Roman Catholics, he greatly increased their miseries. The memory of this mad plot, invested with much fiction and intentionally enveloped in mystery for State and religious purposes, was long perpetuated by an annual festival on November 5th, in which it was customary to burn Fawkes in effigy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The Gunpowder Treason, with Bibliography. The Gunpowder Treason, with a Discourse of the Manner of Its Discovery and a Perfect Relation of the Proceedings Against Those Horrid Conspirators (London, 1679; re printed, with additions from the official report) ; Arraignment and Execution of the Late Traitors, etc. (London, 1872; reprinted from ed. of 1606) ; Archon)login, xii., 202; Howell, State Trials (London, 1809-26) ; Winwood, Memorials of Af fairs of State in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James I. (London, 1725) ; Gardiner, What the Gunpowder Plot Was (London, 1897) ; J. Gerard. What Was the Gunpowder Plot? (Lon don, 1897) : J. S. J. Gerard (contemporary), The Condition of the Catholics Under James I., edited by Morris (London, 1871) Gerard (of Stony burst), The Gunpowder Plot and the Gunpowder Plotters, reply to Gardiner (London, 1897 ). See FAWKES, GUY.