The names of those that were first in the Treason, and laboured in the mine.

Robert Catesby, Robert Winter, Esqrs. Thomas Percy, Thomas Winter, John Wright, Christopher Wright, Guido Fawkes, Gentlemen. And Bates, Catesby's man.

Those that were made acquainted with it, though not personally labouring in the mine, nor in the cellar.

Everard Digby, Knt. Ambrose Rookwood, Francis Tresham, Esqrs. John Graunt, Gent. Robert Keyes.)

But here let us leave Fawkes in a lodging fit for such a guest, and taking time to advise upon his conscience, and turn ourselves to that part of the history, which concerns the fortune of the rest of their partakers in that abominable treason. The news was no sooner spread abroad that morning, which was upon a Tuesday, the fifth of November, and the first day designed for that session of parliament; the news, I say, of this so strange and unlooked-for accident was no sooner divulged, but some of those conspirators, namely, Winter, and the two brothers of Wrights, thought it high time for them to hasten out of the town (for Catesby was gone the night before, and Percy at four of the clock in the morning the same day of the discovery) and all of them held their course, with more haste than good speed, to Warwickshire towards Coventry, where the next day morning, being Wednesday, and about the same hour that Fawkes was taken in Westminster, one Graunt, a gentleman, having associated unto him some others of his opinion, all violent papists, and strong recusants, came to a stable of one Benocke, a rider of great horses, and, having violently broken ́up the same, carried along with them all the great horses that were therein, to the number of seven or eight, belonging to divers noblemen and gentlemen of that country, who had put them into the rider's hands to be made fit for their service. And so both that company of them which fled out of London, as also Graunt, and his accomplices, met all together at Dunchurch, at Sir Everard Digby's lodging, the Tuesday at night, after the discovery of this treacherous attempt; the which Digby had likewise, for his part, appointed a match of hunting, to have been hunted the next day, which was Wednesday, though his mind was, Nimrod like, upon a far other manner of hunting, more bent upon the blood of reasonable men than brute beasts.

This company, and hellish society, thus convened, finding their purpose discovered, and their treachery prevented, did resolve to run a desparate course; and, since they could not prevail, by so private a blow, to practise, by a publick rebellion, either to attain to their intents, or, at least, to save themselves in the throng of others. And, therefore, gathering all the company they could unto them, and pretending the quarrel of religion, having intercepted such provision of armour, horses, and powder, as the time could permit, thought, by running up and down the county, both to augment piece and piece

their number (dreaming to themselves, that they had the virtue of a snow-ball, which, being little at the first, and tumbling down from a great hill, groweth to a great quantity, by increasing itself with the snow that it meeteth by the way) and also, that they, beginning first this brave shew, in one part of the country, should, by their sympathy and example, stir up and encourage the rest of their religion, in other parts of England, to rise, as they had done there. But, when they had gathered their force to the greatest, they came not to the number of fourscore; and yet were they troubled, all the hours of the day, to keep and contain their own servants from stealing from them; who, notwithstanding all their care, daily left them, being far inferior to Gideon's host in number, but far more, in faith or justness of quarrel.

And so, after that this catholick troop had wandered a while through Warwickshire to Worcestershire, and from thence to the edge and borders of Staffordshire, this gallantly armed band had not the honour, at the last, to be beaten with a king's lieutenant, or extraordinary commissioner, sent down for the purpose, but only by the ordinary sheriff of Worcestershire were they all beaten, killed, taken, and dispersed. Wherein ye have to note this following circumstance so admirable, and so lively displaying the greatness of God's justice, as it could not be concealed, without betraying, in a manner, the glory due to the Almighty for the same.

Although divers of the King's proclamations were posted down after these traytors with all the speed possible, declaring the odiousness of that bloody attempt, the necessity to have had Percy preserved alive, if it had been possible, and the assembly together of that rightly damned crew, now no more darkened conspirators, but open and avowed rebels; yet the far distance of the way, which was above an hundred miles, together with the extreme deepness thereof, joined also with the shortness of the day, was the cause that the hearty and loving affections of the King's good subjects, in those parts, prevented the speed of his proclamations. For, upon the third day after the flying down of these rebels, which was upon the Friday next after the discovery of their plot, they were most of them all surprised by the sheriff of Worcestershire, at Holbeech, about the noon of the day, and that in manner following:

Graunt, of whom I have made mention before, for taking the great horses, who had not, all the preceding time, stirred from his own house till the next morning, after the attempt should have been put in execution; he then laying his accounts without his host, as the proverb is, that their plot had, without failing, received the day before their hoped-for success, took or rather stole, out those horses, as I said before, for enabling him, and so many of that foulest society, that had still remained in the country near about him, to make a sudden surprise upon the King's elder daughter, the lady Elisabeth, having her residence near by that place, whom they thought to have used for the colour of their treacherous design (his Majesty, her father, her mother, and male children being all destroyed above) and to this

purpose, also, had that Nimrod, Digby, provided his hunting-match against that same time, that, numbers of people being flocked together; upon the pretence thereof, they might the easilier have brought to pass the sudden surprise of her person.

Now the violent taking away of those horses, long before day, did seem to be so great a riot, in the eyes of the common people, that knew of no greater mystery: And the bold attempting thereof did ingender such a suspicion of some following rebellion in the hearts of the wiser sort, as both great and small began to stir and arm themselves, upon this unlooked-for accident. But, before twelve or sixteen hours past, Catesby, Percy, the Winters, Wrights, Rookwood, and the rest, bringing then the assurance, that their main plot was failed, and bewrayed, whereupon they had built the golden mountain of their glorious hopes: They then took their last desperate resolution, to flock together in a troop, and wander, as they did, for the reasons aforetold. But as, upon the one part, the zealous duty to their God, and their sovereign, was so deeply imprinted in the hearts of all the meanest and poorest, sort of the people (although then knowing of no further mystery, than such publick misbehaviours, as their own eyes taught them) as, notwithstanding of their fair shews and pretences of their catholick cause, no creature, man or woman, through all the country, would, once, so much as give them, willingly, a cup of drink, or any sort of comfort or support, but, with execrations, detested them: So, on the other part, the sheriffs of the shires, through which they -wandered, conveying their people with all speed possible, hunted as hotly after them, as the evilness of the way, and the unprovidedness of their people, upon that sudden, could permit them. And so at last, after Sir Richard Verney, Sheriff of Warwickshire, had carefully and straightly been in chace of them to the confines of his county, part of the meaner sort being also apprehended by him; Sir Richard Walsh, sheriff of Worcestershire, did likewise dutifully and hotly pursue them through his shire: And, having gotten sure trial of their taking harbour at the house above named, he did send trumpeters and messengers to them, commanding them, in the King's name, to render unto him, his Majesty's minister; and knowing no more, at that time, of their guilt, than was publickly visible, did, promise, upon their dutiful and obedient rendering unto him, to intercede, at the King's hands, for the sparing of their lives; who received only, from them, this scornful answer (they being better witnesses to themselves of their inward evil consciences) That he had need of better assistance, than of those few numbers that were with him, before he could be able to command or controul them.'

But here fell the wonderous work of God's justice, that, while this message passed between the sheriff and them, the sheriff's and his people's hearts being justly kindled and augmented by their arrogant answer; and so, they preparing themselves to give a furious assault, and the other party making themselves ready, within the house, to perform their promise by a defence as resolute; it pleased God, that, in the mending of the fire in their chamber, one small spark should fly out, and light among less than two pound-weight of powder, which was

*

drying a little from the chimney; which being thereby blown up, so maimed the faces of some of the principal rebels, and the hands and sides of others of them (blowing up with it also a great bag full of powder, which, notwithstanding, never took fire) as they were not only disabled and discouraged hereby, from any further resistance, in respect Castesby himself, Rookwood, Grant, and divers others of greatest account among them, were, thereby, made unable for defence, but, also, wonderfully struck with amazement in their guilty consciences, calling to memory, how God had justly punished them with that same instrument, which they should have used for the effectuating of so great a sin, according to the old Latin saying, In quo peccamus, in eodem plectimur; as they presently (see the wonderful power of God's Justice upon guilty consciences) did all fall down upon their knees, praying God to pardon them for their bloody enterprise; and, thereafter, giving over any further debate, opened the gate, suffered the sheriff's people to rush in furiously among them, and desperately sought their own present destruction: The three specials of them joining backs together, Catesby, Percy, and Winter, whereof two, with one shot, Catesby and Percy, were slain, and the third, Winter, taken and saved alive.

And thus these resolute and high aspiring catholicks, who dreamed of no less than the destruction of kings and kingdoms, and promised to themselves no lower estate, than the government of great and ancient monarchies, were miserably defeated, and quite overthrown in an instant, falling in the pit which they had prepared for others; and so fulfilling that sentence, which his Majesty did, in a manner, prophesy of them, in his oration to the parliament; some presently slain, others deadly wounded, stripped of their clothes, left lying miserably naked, and so dying, rather of cold, than of the danger of ther wounds; and the rest, that either were whole, or but lightly hurt, taken and led prisoners by the sheriff, the ordinary minister of justice, to the jail, the ordinary place, even of the basest malefactors, where they remained till their sending up to. London, being met with a huge confluence of people of all sorts, desirous to see them, as the rarest sort of monsters; fools to laugh at them, women and children to wonder, all the common people to gaze, the wiser sort to satisfy their curiosity, in seeing the outward cases of so unheard of a villainy; and, generally, all sorts of people, to satiate and fill their eyes with the sight of them, whom, in their hearts, they so far admired and detested; serving so for a fearful and publick spectacle of God's fierce wrath and just indignation.

What, hereafter, will be done with them, is to be left to the justice of his Majesty and the state; which, as no good subject needs to doubt, will be performed in its own due time, by a publick and exemplary punishment; so have we, all that are faithful and humble subjects, great cause to pray earnestly to the Almighty, that it will please him, who hath the hearts of all princes in his hands, to put it in

Catesby, who was the first inventor of this treason in general, and of the manner of working the same by powder, in special, himself now first maimed with the blowing up of powder, and, next, he and Percy both killed with the shot proceeding from powder,

his Majesty's heart, to make such a conclusion of this tragedy to the traytors, but tragi-comedy to the King, and all his true subjects, as, thereby, the glory of God, and his true religion, may be advanced, the future security of the King, and his estate, procured and provided for, all hollow and dishonest hearts discovered and prevented, and this horrible attempt, lacking due epithets, to be so justly avenged; that whereas they thought, by one catholick indeed, and universal blow, to accomplish the wish of that Roman tyrant, who wished all the bodies, in Rome, to have but one neck, and so, by the violent force of powder, to break up, as with a petard, our triple-locked peaceful gates of Janus, which, God be thanked, they could not compass by any other means; they may justly be so recompensed, for their truly viperous intended parricide, as the shame and infamy that, otherwise, would light upon this whole nation, for having unfortunately hatched such cockatriceeggs, may be repaired, by the execution of famous and honourable justice upon the offenders, and so the kingdom purged of them may, hereafter, perpetually flourish in peace and prosperity, by the happy conjunction of the hearts of all honest and true subjects, with their just and religious sovereign.

And thus, whereas they thought to have effaced our memories, the memory of them shall remain, but to their perpetual infamy; and we, as I said in the beginning, shall, with all thankfulness, eternally preserve memory of so great a benefit. To which let every good subject say Amen.

the

OF

F such honour (amongst all nations) hath the trade of merchandizing been ever accounted, that commerce (ever in the hottest flames of war against one another) could find no better, or fairer means to unite them in amity, and to join them, as it were in wedlock, than by commerce and negotiation. This is that chain which binds king

As Æneas Sylvius doth notably write concerning the murder of King James the First of Scotland, and the following punishment of the traytors, whereof himself was an eye witness. Europa, cap. xlvi.