The next step was to obtain a house convenient for their operations,-- namely, so close to the Houses of Parliament that they could carry a mine from its cellar right under the House. Percy was deputed to attend to this matter, as his circumstances offered an excuse for his seeking such a house. He was one of the band of gentlemen pensioners, whose duty it was to be in daily attendance on the King; a position into which he had been smuggled by his cousin Lord Northumberland, without having taken the oath requisite for _it_. This oath Percy could not conscientiously have taken, since by it he renounced the authority of the Pope. A little study of the topography induced him to fix on two contiguous houses, which stood close to the House of Lords. On investigation, it was found that these two houses belonged to the Parliament, and were held by Mr Wyniard, Keeper of the King's Wardrobe, "an ancient and honest servant of Queen Elizabeth." Both, however, had been sub-let by him--the nearer to Mr Henry Ferris; the further to Gideon Gibbons, a public porter, subsequently utilised by the plotters, to his danger and discomfort. Percy, therefore, in March, 1604, "began to labour earnestly" with Mr Wyniard and his wife to obtain these houses. Mrs Wyniard seems chiefly to have attended to this business; her husband was not improbably incapacitated by age or ill-health. Percy's efforts proved successful. He was accepted as tenant by the Wyniards at a rent of 12 pounds per annum, Mr Ferris being bought out with 30 pounds for his good-will and 5 pounds more "in consideration of the charges of the house." The agreement was signed on the 24th of May. The next united act of these five exemplary gentlemen was to meet at a house "in the fields behind Saint Clement's Church, near the arch, near the well called Saint Clement's Well." This seems to have been the residence of the Jesuit priest Gerard; but it is uncertain whether it was identical with that of Percy, or with that of Mrs Herbert, where Fawkes had apartments, both which are also described as "beyond Saint Clement's." Gerard, who was in the company, was with delicate consideration left in an upper room, where he was provided with all necessaries for the celebration of mass, while the conspirators proceeded to business alone in the lower apartment. Taking a primer in his hand, Catesby administered to his four accomplices this oath, which he also took himself:-- "You swear by the blessed Trinity, and by the Sacrament which 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 till the rest shall give you leave." Then they passed into the upper room, where Gerard stood ready robed, and received the host from his hands--with what "intention" being unknown to him, if the assertion of the conspirators may be believed.