than a boy, and he had just married a young and beautiful girl, when he became entangled in the detestable Gunpowder Plot. The plot, when it finally took form, was that the conspirators should hire a house near to the Houses of Parliament and dig an underground tunnel, which should reach right beneath the part of the House where the King would be when the Houses of Parliament were opened the next time; that they should then put gunpowder there, and blow up the whole building, killing the King and many of the great Ministers. While everyone was thrown into terror and confusion by this, the other conspirators were to seize one of the young princes, the King's sons, and carry him off; then, when everything was thus in the hands of the Catholics, they expected to be able to make their own terms, and get the laws against Catholics repealed by the nation. All this sounded very grand, but it was very difficult to do. It is wonderful that the conspirators managed to do so much as they did. They actually took a room near the Houses of Parliament, and began to dig their underground passage. But they found this a much more difficult job than they had anticipated, for every bit of the soil they dug out had to be carried away in baskets secretly by night; for people would naturally have noticed it if they had seen it, and begun to ask what was being done. But just when they had discovered how hard the work was going to be, they heard that a cellar right under the Houses of Parliament was to be let. Here was a chance! They took it at once, and gave up digging out their tunnel. Guy Fawkes was appointed to see that the scheme was carried out, and his was the dangerous part. He had to buy barrels of gunpowder singly and at different times, and see that they were carried into his cellar without anyone seeing them. Then he bought a great deal of wood in faggots and stacked it over the barrels of gunpowder, so that if anyone did come into that cellar, he would never suspect it was anything but an ordinary cellar for storing wood. The meeting of Parliament was to take place in October, and by August all was ready; then the meeting of Parliament was delayed, and the conspirators heard it was not to be until the fifth of November. The time now drew very near. Then it occurred to some of the conspirators that perhaps some of their own friends who were members of Parliament would be blown up with the rest, and they grew uneasy. Each one wanted to warn his own friend not to go to Parliament that day, but no one knew how to do it for fear of betraying the plot. At last, however, one of the conspirators, who was a brother-in-law of Lord Mounteagle's, sent Lord Mounteagle a letter, saying that he had better not go to Parliament on the day of opening, for the Parliament was to receive 'a terrible blow, and yet shall not see who hurts them.' Lord Mounteagle was naturally distressed to receive such a letter, without any sign who had sent it, and he took it to the King.