of illustrious lineage; whilst the elder Winter, Rookewood, Tresham, and Digby, were landed proprietors of large fortune. Several of them, moreover, were bound by domestic ties of so pleasant a nature as to render life and liberty especially dear to them; and the wives, for instance, of Digby and Rookewood were both young and handsome. How these men, therefore, should risk so much by taking part in such a hare-brained scheme, can only be explained by our knowledge of the terrible persecutions which they underwent at the hands of the Government. Otherwise the notion that courtly country gentlemen, of ancient race and ample fortune, could be induced to play the part of common cut-throats would seem incredible.

That King James himself had incurred personally the hatred of the conspirators is an important factor. They accused him of treachery, of having promised, in Scotland, to grant a measure of relief to the Romanists, and of having deliberately broken his solemn word on succeeding to the English throne, notwithstanding that his wife, Anne of Denmark, greatly favoured their oppressed religion.' That they had been grossly deceived, is patent from an examination of the list of names of the county families who hurried to

1 There seems to be no truth in the Jesuit tradition that she was actually received into the Church of Rome by Father Abercromby, S.J. A Carmelite monk, who knew her well, states that she died outside the true Church, although in heart a Catholic.'

the support of the Scottish King as soon as the breath was out of Elizabeth's body. Among these names we note members of the Romanist families of Tichborne, Throgmorton, Arundell, Stourton, Tresham, Towneley, Talbot, and Howard. Bitter in the extreme was their vexation when they found that the fines for recusancy attained a higher figure early in 1605 than they had ever reached before.

Before entering into a discussion concerning the details connected with the construction of the plot, it will be advisable to furnish some account of the characters and careers of the plotters, whose lives are well worth the attention of the biographer. Of the thirteen men who arranged the plot, Robert Catesby was its founder, and I mention the others in chronological order, i.e. in accordance with their probable priority in becoming members of the conspiracy. Thus, after Catesby, I shall deal with them in the following sequence, viz.: Thomas Winter, John Wright, Guy Faukes, Thomas Percy, Christopher Wright, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Robert Winter, Ambrose Rookewood, Sir Everard Digby, and Francis Tresham. In narrowing down this list to thirteen,' I am referring only to those who are known to have actually joined the plot, and to have taken the necessary oath, and not to other persons who

1 A significant number, especially as the thirteenth conspirator, the last to join, is generally considered to have been the traitor ! bushwan!

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were cognisant of its existence and its plans, such as Lord Mounteagle, Father Greenway, and Father Garnet.

As to the actual oath used by the conspirators, the ensuing is the official and generally received version of the text, but whether it is a strictly accurate version I rather venture to question

'You shall swear by the Blessed Trinity, and by the Sacrament you now propose to receive never to disclose directly or 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.'

From the terms of this oath it is plain, as additional evidence reveals, that it was the custom of the plotters to hear Mass and receive the Host on joining the conspiracy. The officiating priests seem always to have been Jesuits, but the best of them, Father John Gerard,' was ignorant of the actual existence of the plot. A man of rather more scrupulous character than his colleaguesGarnet, Hart, Baldwin, Oldcorne, or Greenway— it would not (as Sir Everard Digby confessed) have been prudent to inform him of this diabolical measure's being. In common with others of his Order employed on the English Mission, Father Gerard was a man of many pseudonyms, it not

1 This Father Gerard, S.J., must not be confused with the Father John Gerard, S.J., author of What was the Gunpowder Plot! (published in 1897).