It will, moreover, be found by investigators that when exceptional stress is laid on any point by Sir E. Coke, the Attorney General, a _prima facie_ case against the genuine nature of the evidence in regard of that point is thereby established. In his speech on the trial of the conspirators we find him declaring that, "If the cellar had not been hired, the mine work could hardly, or not at all, have been discovered, for the mine was neither found nor suspected until the danger was past, and the capital offenders apprehended, and by themselves, upon examination, confessed." That is to say, the government could not, though provided with information that there was a powder-mine under the Parliament House, have discovered this extraordinary piece of engineering; and moreover, after its abandonment, the traces of the excavation were so artfully hidden as to elude observation till the prisoners drew attention to them. Such assertions cannot possibly be true; but they might serve to meet the objection that no one had seen the mine. We likewise find that in his examination of November 5th, Faukes is made to say: "He confesseth that about Christmas last [1604], he brought in the nighttime Gunpowder _to the cellar under the upper house of Parliament_," that is some three months before the cellar was hired. Moreover, the words italicised have been added as an interlineation, apparently by Cecil himself. Evidently when this was done the mine was still undiscovered. Yet more remarkable is the fact that it would appear to have remained undiscovered ever afterwards, and that no marks seem to have been left upon the wall which had been so roughly handled. It is certainly impossible to find any record that such traces were observed when the building was demolished, though they could scarcely have failed to attract attention and interest. On this subject we have the important evidence of Mr. William Capon, who carefully examined every detail connected with the old palace, and evidently had the opportunity of studying the foundations of the House of Lords when, in 1823, that building was removed.[188] He does, indeed, mention what he conceives to be the traces of the conspirators' work, of which he gives the following description: "Adjoining the south end of the Cellar, or more properly the ancient Kitchen, to the west, was a small room separated only by a stone doorway, with a pointed head, and with very substantial masonry joined to the older walls.... At the North side [of this] there had been an opening, a doorway of very solid thick stonemasonry, through which was a way seemingly forced through by great violence.... In 1799 it was asserted that this was always understood to have been the place where the conspirators broke into the vault which adjoined that called Guy Vaux's cellar."[189]