Having thus, I hope, established that the story of the mine and cellar
is borne out by Fawkes's own account, I proceed to examine into the
objections raised by Father Gerard to the documentary evidence after
November 8, the date of Fawkes's last examination before he was
subjected to torture. In the declaration, signed with his tortured hand
on the 9th, before Coke, Waad and Forsett,[71] and acknowledged before
the Commissioners on the 10th, Fawkes distinctly refers to the
examination of the 8th. "The plot," he says, "was to blow up the King
with all the nobility about him in Parliament, as heretofore he hath
declared, to which end, they proceeded as is set down in the examination
taken (before the Lords of the Council Commissioners) yesternight."
Here, then, is distinct evidence that Fawkes acknowledged that the
examination of the 8th had been taken in presence of the Commissioners,
and thus negatives the theory that that examination was invented or
altered by Salisbury, as these words came on the 10th under the eyes of
the Commissioners themselves.[72]
The fact is, that the declaration of the 9th fits the examination of the
8th as a glove does a hand. On the 8th, before torture, Fawkes described
what had been done, and gave the number of persons concerned in doing
it. On the 9th he is required not to repeat what he had said before, but
to give the missing names. This he now does. It was Thomas Winter who
had fetched him from the Low Countries, having first communicated their
design to a certain Owen.[73] The other three, who made up the original
five, were Percy, Catesby, and John Wright. It was Gerard who had given
them the Sacrament.[74] The other conspirators were Sir Everard Digby,
Robert Keyes, Christopher Wright, Thomas[75] Grant, Francis Tresham,
Robert Winter, and Ambrose Rokewood. The very order in which the names
come perhaps shows that the Government had as yet a very hazy idea of
the details of the conspiracy. The names of those who actually worked in
the mine are scattered at hap-hazard amongst those of the men who merely
countenanced the plot from a distance.
However this may be, the 9th, the day on which Fawkes was put to the
torture, brought news to the Government that the fear of insurrection
need no longer be entertained. It had been known before this that
Fawkes's confederates had met on the 5th at Dunchurch on the pretext of
a hunting match,[76] and had been breaking open houses in Warwickshire
and Worcestershire in order to collect arms. Yet so indefinite was the
knowledge of the Council that, on the 8th, they offered a reward for the
apprehension of Percy alone, without including any of the other
conspirators.[77] On the evening of the 9th[78] they received a letter
from Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff of Worcestershire:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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