What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original EvidenceGerard, John
History
What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence
Gerard, John
Gunpowder Plot, 1605
What, however, is most remarkable is the frank manner in which this
document is treated as a draft. Several passages are cancelled and
others substituted, sometimes in quite a contrary sense, so that the
same deponent cannot possibly have made the statements contained in both
versions. Other paragraphs are "ticked off," as the event proves, for
omission.
Nine days later, November 17th,[347] Faukes was induced to put his name
to the substance of the matter contained in the draft.[348] The document
is headed "The declaration[349] of Guy Fawkes, prisoner in the Tower of
London." Faukes speaks throughout in the first person, and supplies the
names previously omitted.[350] Most noteworthy is the manner in which
this version is adapted to the emendations of the draft. The passages
ticked off have disappeared entirely, amongst them the remarkable
statements that "they [the confederates] meant also to have sent for the
prisoners in the Tower, of whom particularly they had some
consultation,"--that "they had consultation for the taking of the Lady
Mary [the infant daughter of King James] into their possession"--and
that "provision was made by some of the conspiracy of armour of proof
this last summer, for this action." Where an alteration has been made in
the draft, great skill is shown in combining what is important in both
versions.[351]
As to the means which were employed to compel Faukes to sign the
declaration there can be no doubt; his signature bearing evidence that
he had been tortured with extreme severity. The witnesses are but two,
Coke, the Attorney General, and Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower. When,
however, the document came to be printed, as in the other case, a fuller
list was appended, but not exactly that previously indicated, for to
Faukes were assigned the same witnesses as to Winter, including the
Earls of Worcester and Dunbar over and above his own list.[352]
[Illustration: SIGNATURES OF FAUKES AND OLDCORNE.[353]]
The printed version exhibits other points of interest. There was in the
Archduke's service, in Flanders, an English soldier, Hugh Owen,[354]
whom the government were for some reason, excessively desirous to
incriminate, and get into their hands. For this purpose, a passage was
artfully interpolated in the statement of Faukes, whereof no trace is
found in the original. In the "King's Book," the passage in question
stands thus, the words italicised being those fraudulently introduced:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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