That in the early part of the nineteenth century the storey beneath this
room was occupied by a passage leading from the court opening on
Parliament Place, and Cotton Garden, is shown in the plan at p. 81; and
the views at pp. 88, 89, rather indicate that that passage was in
existence when the old house, which I call Whynniard's block, was still
undemolished. If this was so, we are able to find a place for the
'little entry,' under which, according to Winter, the conspirators
worked. This view of the case, too, is borne out by Smith's statement,
that 'in the further end of that court,' _i.e._ the court running up
from Parliament Place, 'is a doorway, through which, and turning to the
left through another doorway, is the immediate way out of the cellar
where the powder-plot was intended to take effect.'[142] It seems likely
that the whole long space under the withdrawing room was used as a
passage, though, on the other hand, the part of what was afterwards a
passage may have been blocked by a room, in which case we have the 'low
room new builded'--_i.e._ built in some year in Elizabeth's reign--in
which the powder was stored.
Having thus fixed the position of the house belonging to Parliament, and
shown that it probably consisted of a long room in one storey, we can
hardly fail to discover the second house as that marked B in the plan on
p. 81, since that house alone combines the conditions of being close to
the House of Lords, and having a door and window looking towards the
river.
According to Father Gerard, however, the premises occupied by Percy were
far too small to make this explanation permissible.
"We learn," he says, "on the unimpeachable evidence of Mrs.
Whynniard's servant that the house afforded accommodation only for
one person at a time, so that when Percy came there to spend the
night, Fawkes, who passed for his man, had to lodge out. This
suggests another question. Percy's pretext for laying in so much
fuel was that he meant to bring up his wife to live there. But how
could this be under such conditions?"[143]
Mrs. Whynniard's servant, however, Roger James, did not use the words
here put into his mouth. He said that he had heard from Mrs. Gibbons
'that Mr. Percy hath lain in the said lodging divers times himself, but
when he lay there, his man lay abroad, there being but one bed in the
said lodging.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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