What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original EvidenceGerard, John
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What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence
Gerard, John
Gunpowder Plot, 1605
"_Peter Heiwood_, younger son of _Peter Heiwood_, one of the Counsellors
of _Jamaica_, ... Great Grandson to _Peter Heiwood_ of _Heywood_ in the
County Palestine of _Lancaster_; who apprehended _Guy Faux_ with his
dark Lanthorn; and for his zealous prosecution of Papists, as Justice of
Peace, was stabbed in _Westminster-Hall_ by _John James_, a _Dominican_
Friar, An. Dom. 1640. Obiit _Novem. 2. 1701_.
Reader, if not a Papist bred
Upon such Ashes gently tread."
It is to be presumed that the person who died in 1701 is not the same
who was stabbed in 1640, or who discovered Guy Faukes in 1605.
The Dominican records contain no trace of any member of the Order named
John James, nor does so remarkable an event as the stabbing of a Justice
of Peace in Westminster Hall appear to be chronicled elsewhere.
Peter Heywood, J.P. for Westminster, was active as a magistrate as late
as December 15th, 1641. [_Calendar of State Papers._]
APPENDIX K. (p. 173).
_The Use of Torture._
THERE can be no doubt that torture was freely employed to extract
evidence from the conspirators and others who fell into the hands of the
government.
The Earl of Salisbury, in his letter to Favat, of December 4th, 1605,
clearly intimates that this was the case, when he complains "most of the
prisoners 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_."
About the middle of November, Lord Dunfermline wrote to Salisbury [_Dom.
James I._ xvi. 81] recommending that the prisoners should be confined
apart and in darkness, that they should be examined by torchlight, and
that the tortures should be slow and at intervals, as being thus most
effectual.
There is every reason to believe that the Jesuit lay-brother, Nicholas
Owen, _alias_ Littlejohn, actually died upon the rack. [_Vide_ Father
Gerard's _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 189.]
Finally we have the king's instructions as to Faukes [_Gunpowder Plot
Book_, No. 17]. "The gentler tortours are to be first usid unto him, _et
sic per gradus ad ima tenditur_,[458] and so God speede your goode
worke."[459] Guy's signature of November 9th is sufficient evidence that
it was none of the "gentler tortours" which he had endured.
In the violently Protestant account of the execution of the
traitors,[460] we read: "Last of all came the great Devil of all Faukes,
who should have put fire to the powder. His body being weak with torture
and sickness, he was scarce able to go up the ladder, but with much ado,
by the help of the hangman, went high enough to brake his neck with the
fall."
APPENDIX L. (p. 227).
_Myths and Legends of the Powder Plot._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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