Twice the work was suspended: the prorogation of Parliament was prolonged--at first until the month of October, then until November. The conspirators, who were no longer pressed for time, separated in order not to arouse suspicion. At the end of May the work was completed. They had been able to take a cellar which extended beneath the floor of the House of Lords. Thirty-six barrels of powder were deposited therein; but to these minds, agitated by dark designs and burdened with a weighty secret, idleness was fatal. They were, besides, nearly all without resources, and the successive delays brought about in their enterprise placed them in a great embarrassment. The want of money induced Catesby, still the prime mover in the plot, to admit among the conspirators two rich men upon whom he thought he could rely. One, Sir Everard Digby, promised to invite to a great hunting expedition all the Catholic gentlemen, members of Parliament, whose lives it was desired to save. The other, Tresham, a relative of Catesby, and already compromised with him in certain intrigues, undertook to provide the necessary funds; but scarcely had he taken the oath when the confidence with which Catesby had hitherto been animated suddenly failed him. He became dispirited: day and night he felt himself haunted by the most sinister forebodings. All was ready; Prince Charles, the second son of King James, was to be proclaimed by Catesby at Charing Cross at the moment of the destruction of Whitehall. Tresham was to depart in a ship freighted for that purpose, and repair to Flanders to invoke the assistance of the Catholic powers. {16} Guy Fawkes was entrusted to set fire to the mine. The general meeting-place was at Dunchurch. The uneasiness of the greater number of the accomplices was concerning their friends, whom they were afraid of making the victims of their enterprise. Catesby had, it was said, taken steps for keeping a great number of Catholics away from Whitehall. "But were they as dear to me as my own son, they should be blown up with the rest rather than cause the affair to fail," he added. Meanwhile, on the 26th of October, ten days before the opening of Parliament, Lord Monteagle, father-in-law of Tresham, received a letter in a disguised hand, enjoining him not to repair to Whitehall on the 5th of November. "The Parliament will receive a terrible blow," said the anonymous writer, "and yet they shall not see who hurts them."