WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Gunpowder Plot 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.200 Happy Saturday. Since it is November five, also known as 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.480 Guy Fox Day or Guy Fox Night, we are replaying 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.480 prior hosts Sarah and Deblina's episode on the Gunpowder Plot 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:18.080 as today's Saturday classic. This originally came out as two 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.000 parts that were separated by an entire week that was 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.880 on November two and n Each of those parts is 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.040 shorter than today's episodes typically are, so we are running 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:35.120 both of them together today, so enjoy. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:45.360 You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.760 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Deblina Chocolate Boardy and 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:50.320 I'm Sara Dout And the topic we're about to discuss 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.960 isn't exactly obscure, and at least some of our listeners, 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.240 the British contingent that is, probably won't be able to 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.160 say that they missed in history class. It has to 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.000 do with a certain celebration that's coming up in England 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.679 on November five. Some call it Bonfire Day, others call 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.640 it Fireworks Night, and still others know it as Guy 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:12.880 Fox Day, referring to the man whose name is most 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.360 associated with the notorious Gunpowder Plot. Athwarted attempt to blow 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:22.360 up Parliament on November five. It's also called the Powder Treason. Yeah, 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:25.840 and people celebrate or commemorate this day in different ways, 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:27.760 and it's changed a lot over the years, but the 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.959 alternate names for the event really give you a good 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.640 general idea of what goes on. People set off fireworks 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.880 and they light up their bonfires, and often a top 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.320 of those bonfires, they'll burn Guy Fox in effigy, so 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.360 that might throw some of you guys for a loop. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.360 Children will often sell those effigies eventually they call them guys. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.320 They'll go out and they'll sell them on the street 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.480 and they'll ask for a penny for the guy. And 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.360 those same kids are probably also pretty familiar with a 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:01.200 famous rhyme. Do you want to read it off for Scenarstaplina? Sure, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:06.360 it's remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder treason and plot. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:09.760 I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:14.240 forgot and thanks at least in part to pop culture references. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.160 And we'll talk a little bit more about that later. 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.160 But many people outside of the UK have heard this 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.680 rhyme too, and perhaps they even know the name Guy Fox. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:24.720 I mean, if you've ever seen the two thousand six 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.359 movie V for Vendetta, for example, this will surely ring 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:29.960 a bell, or if you just work in the house 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.120 Stuff Works office. One of our coworkers, Jonathan Strickland of 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.680 tech Stuff, is definitely a fan of of rattling off 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.359 this rhyme from time to time. It's always fun to hear. Yeah, 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:41.360 And he and I were actually talking about that in 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:43.600 reference to the fact that there are a lot of 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.480 misconceptions out there about who exactly Guy Fox was and 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:51.720 what November five is commemorating. Some simply think that Fox 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.040 was the hero of the day, and they might be 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.280 surprised to learn what we just told you that he's 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.160 burned in effigy, or they at least think that he 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.920 was the master mind of the Gunpowder plot, which wasn't 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:04.240 the case at all. He's actually kind of a minor character, 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.520 not a master criminal at all. Really, right, So we're 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.560 going to take a closer look at the Gunpowder plot, 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.400 the motives behind it, and the players involved, including who 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.799 really instigated the whole thing. And we're also going to 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.760 discuss some conflicting theories over the origins of the plot, 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:21.560 but we're going to get to that later. First, we're 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.480 gonna give you the generally accepted version of events, and 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.200 to do that we need to kind of set the 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.880 scene a bit. So there's an overarching conflict at the 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.600 time which ends up leading to the events will discuss, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.360 and the conflict is between English Catholics and English Protestants. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.560 And by the time the gunpowder plot was devised, Catholics 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.520 in England had had pretty rough go of it for 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:45.360 many years, being persecuted. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.600 the First, who was a Protestant, they'd been subject to 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.080 religious legislation that required them to attend to parish church 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.600 every Sunday. And it wasn't just that they had to 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.680 go to church every Sunday. If you didn't go, it 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.880 was known as recusancy. And according to an article by 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.440 i'm in Adams in History Today, the penalty for recusancy 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.440 was originally a one shilling fine, but that ended up 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.920 going up to twenty pounds a month by fight one, 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:13.640 which I mean that still sounds like a lot of 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.039 money today. Twenty pounds that's pretty stee forty dollars or 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.000 so about that. So Elizabeth had been excommunicated by the 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.920 pope and she saw Recusans as potential traders, thus the 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.680 really high fine and the strict rules about what Catholics 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.359 had to do right. And there were other parts to 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.719 these penal laws as they were called um one that 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.200 declared that it was treason basically to convert a subject 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.479 to Catholicism, and also treason for a Jesuit or a 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.520 priest to enter the country. People who broke these laws 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.960 were executed. But towards the end of the fifteen nineties 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.280 Catholics started to have a little bit of hope. Elizabeth 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.800 was getting older and she was childless and didn't have 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.760 an air so there was the thinking, hey, maybe the 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.080 next monarch would be a little bit more tolerant of Catholics. 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:05.360 And when James the sixth of Scotland took the throne 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.960 in six o three after Elizabeth died, making him King 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.640 James the First of England, he kind of seemed to 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.560 be that guy. His wife, for example, Anne of Denmark, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:18.040 she was Catholic, and with Anne's help, James had sort 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.919 of campaigned for support from other Catholic powers in Europe 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.640 and from the Pope also before Elizabeth's death, to kind 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.320 of prepare himself to not have opposition when he took 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.440 the throne in England, so those things kind of gave 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:33.640 Catholics a little bit of hope. They're like, okay, he 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.640 seems friendly towards Catholics. And also, according to an article 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:41.320 in History Review by Pauline Croft, James was pretty open 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:43.480 minded at least seemed that way at first. He said 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.800 to have commented that he didn't really want there to 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.480 be more Catholics in England, so he didn't want there 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.560 to be more converts or for more people to come in. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.159 But if they kept their Catholic nous kind of on 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.280 the down low and followed the law, he wouldn't bother them, 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.560 or at least there wouldn't be major violence, like a 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:03.080 live in, let live philosophy. Almost so Catholics caught wind 0:06:03.120 --> 0:06:06.360 of this, and some people thought, well, maybe it means 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:10.560 the end of the recusancy laws period, and some Catholics 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.520 even went as far as to petition James before his 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.960 coronation for toleration, really hoping that something would come out 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.280 of this new monarch. James wouldn't go that far, and 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.719 he said that he'd suspend the monthly recusancy finds for 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:26.960 as long as they continued to support him, so he 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.800 kind of offered a halfway bargain there, and he also 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.719 added a few people with Catholic sympathies to the Privy Council, 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.839 including the Earl of Northumberland. So yeah, I mean that 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.520 seems like a bit of a win, especially coming after Elizabeth. 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.000 But for many Catholics, they were just disappointed that they 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.560 were disappointed that there weren't more changes than they saw 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.320 under James. And as evidence of how disgruntled some people 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.200 were with James already, two plots against the king were 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.440 discovered as early as June and July three, just to 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.760 give you an idea of exactly how all soon. That is, 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.960 Elizabeth had died in March um, so really just a 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:06.880 couple of months. These plots were called the Bye and 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:09.520 the Main plots, and there were different people involved in each, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:11.680 but just to give you a summary of these. In 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.640 the by plot, the goal was to kidnap the King 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.240 and his eldest son, Prince Henry, and forced James to 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.960 replace his chief ministers and to declare Catholic toleration. And 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.720 the main plot, on the other hand, conspirators hoped to 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.680 get rid of James entirely, and to put his English 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.920 born cousin, Lady Arabel Stewart, on the throne. According to 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.920 Crofts article, though both of these plots were pretty incompetent, 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:37.920 which I guess is probably why they didn't work out, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.600 But the fact that they were found out didn't stop 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.000 others from cooking up their own conspiracies, which is where 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.360 the gunpowder plot begins. So we're gonna start talking about 0:07:47.360 --> 0:07:51.720 this conspiracy by talking about the conspirator specifically. The plot 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.880 began with a man named Robert Catesby, and Catesby was 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.600 a devout Catholic and he had become very disillusioned with 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.920 the govern ment early on when he saw his father 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.640 being persecuted for not conforming to Church of England rules. 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.160 And Katsby himself had been imprisoned for a brief time 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.080 after fighting in an uprising led by Robert Devreaux, who 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.880 was the second Earl of Essex back in sixteen o one. 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.960 So Katsby really wasn't like the Catholics who were entering 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.760 James Rain with a lot of hope and thinking there 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.840 was a lot of promise. He didn't trust in those promises, 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:29.440 and he he wasn't counting on anything. Katsby was also 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:31.840 kind of a ringleader of a small group of men 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.080 who had taken part in the Essex Revolt with him, 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:38.120 including Jack and kit Wright and Francis Tresham. Other men 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.439 related to them were also sympathetic to their cause. Thomas Percy, 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.360 for example, who worked for and was related to the 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.280 Earl of Northumberland, was brother in law to the Rights 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.880 and then Robert and Thomas Wintour, who were known for 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.800 giving priest refuge in their homes, were related to Katesby. 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.920 So at first they hoped that maybe Spain would invade 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.280 England to help the Catholics, and they offered their support 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.000 to Spain in that regard. But Spain was actually hoping 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.160 to end hostility with England at the time, and was 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.480 in the process of starting to negotiate a peace treaty 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.360 to that effect, so Katsby and his buddy started to 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.440 give up on Spain as a solution. We're not sure 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.640 exactly when the idea for the plot started brewing, but 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.720 by the beginning of sixteen oh four, Katesby shared with 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.120 tom Win Tour that he thought of a way to 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:27.880 solve their problem al right, So in January, the King 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.640 had announced that he was going to call parliament soon, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:34.040 and Katsby's idea was to blow up the House of 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.520 Parliament while they were in session, and apparently when Tour 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:41.680 was kind of hesitant about this, but Katsby was a 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:46.240 smooth talker and ultimately convinced the gang. So Kidsby held 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.880 a meeting of people who were to be involved in 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.559 the plot on May four in London at the Duck 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.720 and Drake lodging house in the Strand, and he had 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:59.200 three of his posse there, Tom Wintour, Thomas Percy and 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.560 Jack Right. But there was a fifth person to a 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:07.559 very important one, none other than Guy Fox himself. So 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.720 Fox is an interesting character in this whole discussion about 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.040 the tensions between the Protestants and the Catholics. He was 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.520 a militant Catholic convert from Yorkshire. He was born in 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.000 April thirteenth, fifteen seventy to a Protestant dad and a 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.120 Catholic mom. His dad died when he was young, though, 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.480 so his mom and her actions in the underground Catholic 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.319 community in England really ended up being a big influence 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.600 on him. Fox also went to St. Peter's School, in York, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.439 which also had Catholic leaning, so that probably had a 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:38.719 big influence in how his views turned out grew up, 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.000 and that's also where he might have met the Wright brothers. 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.000 He ended up going into military service abroad, serving in 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.680 the Spanish Army in the Netherlands from fifteen ninety three 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.360 to about sixteen o four. In sixteen o three, though, 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.240 he was sent on a diplomatic mission to Spain to 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:56.800 try and convince them to invade England, much like Catesby 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:00.280 and friends did before. And that's also where he might 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:03.600 have come into contact with Katesby's crew through these interactions, 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:05.920 so just looking for areas where he might have met 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.439 up with them or where they may have heard of him. 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.360 At any rate, Katesby and his fellow plotters needed someone 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.000 like Fox in the mix. He was their muscle of sorts. 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.800 He knew something about guns and AMMO, and since he'd 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.960 been away from England for so long, his face was unknown, 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.640 and that's a key point to remember, very important because 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:26.320 he was going to have to do some sort of 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:31.040 reconnaissance type work. So those five conspirators had their meeting 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.600 in the Strand and they took an oath of secrecy, 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.199 and they said mass, and then they talked about the plan. 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.920 So by that time, Parliament had been in session since 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.200 March and was expected to last at least a couple 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.200 of months. More so, the plan was to lease a 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.520 house next to the House of Lord's Chamber in the 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.520 old Palace of Westminster. Then they would dig a tunnel 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.040 from the sellers of the least House to the foundations 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:59.320 of the Chamber and put some gunpowder in there. They'd 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.400 bring gunpowder in at night from Catesby's house across the towns. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.280 So you can start to get the sense of why 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.280 it would be important to not be a guy everybody 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.520 recognized around town. Yeah, you wouldn't want to be recognized 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:13.840 because there was a lot of at stake. If this worked, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:15.560 they were going to be blowing up Parliament. They were 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.760 going to be killing the king. Also his son, and 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.360 his other son was sickly. So the plan after this 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:27.800 was to kidnap young Princess Elizabeth and basically make her 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.720 their puppet queen. But I mean, the details surrounding this 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:32.400 are still kind of sketchy, and we're going to talk 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:34.840 about that a little bit more later. But once they 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.360 settled on a general Plan, or part one of the plan, 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.520 at least they set to it. Percy leased the house 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.360 with the help of his connections to the Earl of Northumberland, 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.880 but then on July seven, Parliament was postponed and scheduled 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:52.520 to reconvene in February of six five. Before that meeting ended, though, 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.520 they did manage to reconfirm all of those penalties that 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:59.240 applied to Catholics and recusancy fines were reinstated, so adding 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:04.280 fuel to the potential explosive fire exactly. So, they agreed 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.840 to start working again in the fall keep moving towards 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.680 their plot, but Parliament was delayed again until October six 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.319 oh five, and eventually it was rescheduled again until November five, 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.560 so they agreed to start work again that February. That March, though, 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:21.360 they had a stroke of luck the lease for a 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.200 ground floor seller between their tunnel and the House of 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:29.160 Lords meeting space became available. According to the BBC, that 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.120 seller extended right underneath the House of Lords, so it 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:36.120 allowed the plotters to pack the gunpowder, thirty six barrels 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.200 of it, in fact, right where it would be the 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:50.920 most dangerous. So when we saw them last March, of 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.440 sixteen o five. Our conspirators had just lucked out, and 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.520 they had gotten the chance to Lisa Seller, which would 0:13:57.840 --> 0:13:59.840 was used at the time for coal storage. I believe 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.960 that extended right underneath the House of Lords, so it 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.199 made the tunnel unnecessary. It's a really good break for them, exactly. 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.640 So the plotters started filling up the cellar with barrels 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.920 and barrels of gunpowder, sneaking in at night, and they 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.320 kept it pretty well concealed too. They covered it with 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.520 iron bars and lots of bundles of kindling, so you 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.080 couldn't just tell it was a cellar full of gunpowder. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.960 So over the next few months they managed to get 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.360 about thirty six barrels of gunpowder in there, which was 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.400 definitely enough to demolish everything in the immediate area, including 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.800 of course the king and his heir and the members 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.960 of parliament. But that was only if the gunpowder was 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.920 fresh enough by the time they actually ignited it. And 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.120 some folks have suggested that the gunpowder might have decayed 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.440 um others say, well, maybe they were able to replace 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.240 some of it, but that turns out to be a 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.760 moot point, and it still would have done some damage 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.960 we can assume. But during this time Fox assumed the 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.680 role of the seller's caretaker, posing as a John Johnson, 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.880 a servant of Thomas Percy, who was the plotter who 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.800 would lease the space. And Fox was really well suited 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.840 to this role too, because, as we mentioned in the 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:11.440 previous podcast, he'd been out of the country for some time. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.680 So his appearance, which Gunpowder plot historian Antonio Frasier has 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:20.320 described as quote tall, powerfully built, with thick reddish brown hair, 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.240 a flowing mustache in the tradition of the time, and 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.680 a bushy, reddish brown beard, was pretty much unknown in 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.160 London at that time, which is fortunate because he does 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.600 sound like a guy you probably would recognize if he 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.960 saw him. Twice. Yes, very distinctive. So the plot seemed 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:39.680 to be progressing steadily, but before fall even rolled around, 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.200 the conspirators did something you should probably never do if 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.200 you're really trying to keep a secret. They let more 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:48.840 people in on it. Kind of a lot, but we'll 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.160 just give you a refresher because there are a lot 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:53.280 of names here, and they worked to add many more 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.120 names to their party. But the original conspirators were catesby 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:03.120 Tom Wintour Thomas Percy, Jack Right, and Guy Fox. So 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.680 in the spring of sixteen o five, they included Robert Wintour, 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.560 who was Tom's brother, Kit Wright, who was Jack's brother, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:16.080 and John Grant, who was Wintour's brother in law. Another guy, 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.960 Robert Keys, who was probably related to the Wintour brother 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.440 somehow or another, was also led into the group, as 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.320 was katesby servant Thomas Bates. So, I mean, I guess 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:29.800 you figure you can trust your your brother. So they're 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.720 telling a few people, but this is already starting to 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.960 swell to a pretty large group of men. Yeah, And 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.280 then it got even worse when the plotters took a 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.080 break from the preparations they were doing over the summer. 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:46.800 Katesby also brought Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby, and Francis Tresham, 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.760 Katesby's cousin by marriage, into the fold, mainly because of 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.840 their wealth. Katesby had been funding this whole thing by 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.000 himself so far, and he really needed some help to 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.640 see it to its completion. And Rookwood and Digby were 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:01.600 also so supposed to have a role in what will 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.320 refer to as Part two of this plan. They both 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:06.960 had a lot of horses that were going to be 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.400 useful in the uprising that Katesby was planning after the explosion, 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.160 but more specifically after the explosion, which would take place 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.560 after Fox lit a slow match in the cellar. As 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.840 soon as the King had come into the House of Lords. 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.200 Katesby would ride from London to the Midlands, where he'd 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.520 meete Digby, and Digby would have been waiting beforehand with 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.760 some servants that the Red Lion and dun Church disguised 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.840 as a hunting party. From there, they would supposedly go 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.320 to kidnap Princess Elizabeth, the King's daughter, from the home 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.320 of her governor and proclaim her queen. And we mentioned 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.120 her in the previous podcast as well. And the reason 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.280 that they were going to proclaim her queen is because 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.159 Prince Henry would have died in the explosion. He was 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.719 the oldest son of the king and four year old 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.399 Prince Charles was too sickly. There were some there was 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:54.040 some question as to whether or not he was going 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.359 to survive, and they didn't want to place all their 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.160 hopes on him. So yeah, that was the general idea 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.240 of the plot. But what was going to happen next, 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.760 after they had kidnapped Princess Elizabeth is sort of unclear. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.520 In an article for History Today, Simon Adams says, that's 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.280 quote one of the major mysteries of the plot. So 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.879 presumably they would just try to marry Elizabeth off to 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:21.479 some other Catholic European prince and solidify their Catholic regime 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.720 that way, and they would create their own puppet queen essentially. 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.440 According to an article by Pauline Croft in History Review, though, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.040 Tresham was uneasy about the whole plot pretty much as 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.800 soon as he heard it. So giant red flag here. 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.159 He's not liking what he hears. You can't take it 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.760 back once you tell somebody all about your plot either. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:43.720 But regardless of how everyone felt about it, I mean, 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.600 that's still more than ten people. That's just a lot 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:48.679 of people to be involved in what's supposed to be 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.280 a secret plot. So maybe what happened next really isn't 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:57.680 that surprising. On October five, just days before Parliament was 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.360 set to meet William Parker, who's better and own as 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.560 Lord Monteagle, received an anonymous letter warning him to quote, 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.760 devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this Parliament 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:12.359 to avoid quote a terrible blow. So basically, stay away 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.480 for your own good, don't go to parliament. So Lord 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:19.480 Monteagle was a former Catholic himself. He had also participated 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.439 in that Essex uprising with Katesby and friends that we 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.200 mentioned in the earlier podcast, and he had at least 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:32.040 publicly converted to the Protestant religion. Still he had Catholic connections, 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.720 especially through his marriage. Trasham was Montegal's brother in law, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:41.280 so um, unfortunately for Kate's By, Tresham had a few 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.960 brothers in law to consider. But that's why the letter 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.600 is often attributed to Tresham because of that family connection. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:51.359 But we really don't know for sure who sent it, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.320 who warned Lord Monteagle. Yeah. Croft actually throws out some 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:58.040 other potential sources of the letter. She writes, for example, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:02.080 that Tom Winter sometimes served as montegal secretary, so there's 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.960 a connection there. But there's another theory that's even more 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:08.080 interesting to me at least. Croft also suggests that it's 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:12.240 possible that Monteagle himself wrote the letter and just incorporated 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.920 information that he gleaned from some of his Catholic cohorts 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.679 to tip people off under under the guise of an 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.320 anonymous letter right but regardless of where it came from. 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:24.440 Montegal shared this letter with Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.520 of Salisbury, the head of the monarchy secret police, and 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.680 the King's Secretary of State. Salisbury, in turn, of course, 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:32.959 shares the letter with the King, and there aren't any 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.639 specifics in the letter, so they wait a couple of 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.720 days before they raise any sort of alarm. Katesby in 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.400 the meantime he hears about the letter too, and he's 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:45.160 obviously worried that the plot has been betrayed, so he 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.560 consults with his co conspirators and they actually decided just 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.080 to go ahead with the plan. They suspected I've read 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.719 that Tresham was at fault, but he swore to them 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.520 that he didn't do anything, so they just said, okay, 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.680 let's go. They weren't going to just complete rushed into 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.280 it blindly though, just sname case. On November four, Percy 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.240 visited with his boss and his relative, the Earl of Northumberland, 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:12.000 whose connections had of course helped Percy lease the house 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.040 in the cellar in the first place. He checked with 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:17.560 him to try to gauge whether or not the Earl 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:22.240 of Northumberland knew anything about the plan. Ironically, Percy did 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.240 not warn his relative to try to stay away from 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.600 Parliament himself that day. But Percy left the meeting feeling 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.000 pretty reassured that they were in the clear. Nobody knew 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.879 it was good, so it is all just full speed 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:38.800 ahead for the gunpowder plotters, or so they think, because 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.440 Saulisbury by this time has ordered the area all around 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.880 the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, to be searched. 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.400 During the first search, though they didn't find anything, though 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.240 they did run into Fox there. He was, of course, 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.960 posing as John Johnson, and so they took him basically 0:21:54.960 --> 0:21:56.399 for what he was posing to be. They took him 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.679 for a servant. The gunpowder, as we mentioned, was concealed, 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.200