The conspirators, while making these material preparations, were likewise busy in settling their plan of action when the intended blow should have been struck. It was by no means their intention to attempt a revolution. Their quarrel was purely personal with King James, his Council, and his Parliament, and, these being removed, they desired to continue the succession in its legitimate course, and to seat on the throne the nearest heir who might be available for the purpose; placing the new sovereign, however, under such tutelage as should insure the inauguration of a right course of policy. The details of the scheme were of as lunatic a character as the rest of the business. The confederates would have wished to possess themselves of Prince Henry, the king's eldest son; but as he would probably accompany his father to the opening of Parliament, and so perish, their desire was to get hold of his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards Charles I., then but five years old. It was, however, possible that he too might go to Parliament, and otherwise it might not improbably be impossible to get possession of him: in which case they were prepared to be satisfied with the Princess Elizabeth,[177] or even with her infant sister Mary, for whom, as being English born, a special claim might be urged. Such was the project in general. When we come to details, we are confronted, as might be anticipated, with statements impossible to reconcile. We are told,[178] that Percy undertook to seize and carry off Duke Charles; and again,[179] that, despairing of being able to lay hands upon him, they resolved "to serve themselves with the Lady Elizabeth," and that Percy was one of those who made arrangements for seizing her;[180] and again, that having learnt that Prince Henry was not to go to the House, they determined to surprise him, "and leave the young Duke alone;"[181] and once more, that they never entered into any consultation or formed any project whatever as to the succession.[182] Still more serious are the contradictions on another point. We are told, on the one hand, that a proclamation was drawn up for the inauguration of the new sovereign--whoever this was[183]--and, on the other, that the associates were resolved not to avow the explosion to be their work until they should see how the country took it, or till they had gathered a sufficient force,[184] and accordingly that they had no more than a project of a proclamation to be issued in due season. But, again, it is said[185] that Catesby on his way out of town, after the event, was to proclaim the new monarch at Charing Cross, though it is equally hard to understand, either how he was to know which of the plans had succeeded, and who that monarch was to be,--whether a king or a queen,--or what effect such proclamation by an obscure individual like himself was expected to produce; or how this, or indeed any item in the programme was compatible with the incognito of the actors in the great tragedy.