Then follows an interval during which we know little of the course of events which were proceeding in the seclusion of the council-room and torture-chamber; but on December 4th we find Cecil complaining that he could obtain little or no evidence against the really important persons: "Most of the prisoners," he writes,[8] "have wilfully forsworn that the priests knew anything in particular, and obstinately refuse to be accusers of them, yea, what torture soever they be put to." On January 15th, 1605-6, a proclamation was issued declaring that the Jesuit fathers, John Gerard, Henry Garnet, and Oswald Greenway, or Tesimond, were proved to have been "peculiarly practisers" in the treason, and offering a reward for their apprehension. On the 21st of the same month Parliament met, having been prorogued immediately after the king's speech of November 9th, and four days later an Act was passed for the perpetual solemnization of the anniversary of the projected crime, the preamble whereof charged its guilt upon "Many malignant and devilish papists, jesuits, and seminary priests, much envying the true and free possession of the Gospel by the nation, under the greatest, most learned, and most religious monarch who had ever occupied the throne."[9] In consequence of this Act, was introduced into the Anglican liturgy the celebrated Fifth of November service, in the collect of which the king, royal family, nobility, clergy, and commons are spoken of as having been "by Popish treachery appointed as sheep to the slaughter, in a most barbarous and savage manner, beyond the examples of former ages;" while the day itself was marked in the calendar as the "Papists' Conspiracy." It will thus be seen that the Powder Plot was by this time officially stigmatized as the work of the Catholic body in general, and in particular of their priests; thus acquiring an importance and a significance which could not be attributed to it were it but the wild attempt of a few turbulent men. As a natural corollary we find Parliament busily engaged upon measures to insure the more effectual execution of the penal laws.[10] On January 27th the surviving conspirators, Robert and Thomas Winter, Faukes, Grant, Rokewood, Keyes, Digby, and Bates,[11] were put upon their trial. In the indictment preferred against them, it was explicitly stated that the Plot was contrived by Garnet, Gerard, Greenway, and other Jesuits, to whose traitorous persuasions the prisoners at the bar had wickedly yielded. All were found guilty, Digby, Robert Winter, Grant, and Bates being executed at the west end of St. Paul's Church, on January the 30th, and the rest on the following day in Old Palace Yard.