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Ronald Hutton – professor of history at the University of Bristol – answered an initial six questions about the Gunpowder Plot. Dr Pauline Croft of the Department of History at Royal Holloway College, University of London continued as our 'expert' for the updates.
• Update: 10 November 2001
• Last update: 15 November 2001
What sorts of people made up Parliament at the time of the Gunpowder Plot? Who would have been at the state opening and so in danger of being blown up?
In the early 17th century, a state opening of Parliament consisted of its entire membership gathering in the House of Lords to hear the king deliver a short speech from the throne and his lord chancellor make a longer one. These would set forth the targets that the government wanted Parliament to achieve in that particular session.
Present would have been all the members of the two Houses – Lords and Commons. The former comprised the whole of the hereditary aristocracy – barons, earls, marquises and dukes – who between them represented the richest and most powerful people, the traditional military and political leaders and the royal counsellors. The Lords also included the bishops and archbishops of the national Church.
The Commons contained most of the realm's major landowners – those who did not yet have noble titles – who staffed the commissions that administered the counties on a regular basis. They shared the House with many of the wealthiest and most influential of the merchants who dominated the large towns and cities. Also with them sat the more important of the royal servants and counsellors who had not yet been rewarded with aristocratic titles.
In short, the state opening of Parliament would have involved more or less the entire government of Church and state, and most of the social élite of the kingdom. It was the only time when all these people would have been gathered together in one room.
Exactly where in Westminster did Parliament sit?
It sat in part of the old Palace of Westminster, the main London residence of the late medieval English monarchs, which burned down in 1834. It occupied approximately the same site, along the river Thames, as the modern Houses of Parliament do today. The sole surviving building of the old Palace is the Jewel Tower, across the road from the present House of Lords.
The Palace was built next to Westminster Abbey, where monarchs were crowned and often buried. Its situation, a mile west of the City of London, meant that it was conveniently close to the capital but the prevailing wind would blow the smoke and stink of the latter in the opposite direction. It was never planned as a single unit, but grew over the medieval period into a warren of large and small buildings added according to need. Under Henry VIII, the royal household moved 100 yards to the east, into the new Palace of Whitehall, leaving behind the national law courts and the areas used by Parliament when it met. Other parts of the old Palace were rented or sold off to private individuals as shops, taverns and apartments.
Parliament was originally called to Westminster so that it would be conveniently close to the rulers and their ministers – it was, effectively, under the king's roof. The Commons gathered in a space originally intended to be a chapel, and the Lords were nearby in a large chamber on the upper floor of a block that ran between the lodgings once given to the heir to the throne and a room used for committee meetings.
The lower floor of this block consisted of the storehouse in which the plotters put the gunpowder. Designed as a medieval kitchen, it was rented out as a cellar to a private apartment carved out of the block that had contained the prince's lodgings. The conspirators gained access to it simply by leasing the apartment.
Why was the English crown so 'aggressively Protestant' at the time of the plot, when it had split off from the Roman Catholic Church only 70 years earlier?
Recent converts make some of the most enthusiastic believers!
The whole thrust of the Protestant message was that, for hundreds of years, the Church of Rome had been perverting the true Christian message until the souls of those who believed in it were damned to everlasting torment. In other words, it had been corrupted from the inside by the Devil and turned into a false Church masquerading as a true one in order to subvert God's whole plan for human salvation. According to this argument, the Church of Rome had diverted the attention of people to ineffective and superficial things, such as images, church decorations, pilgrimages and consecrated bread, and away from the crucial issues of faith and Scripture.
By 1600, most of the English had come to believe this message, persuaded by an intensive government programme of preaching and the relentless destruction of Catholic worship. Deeply religious people felt a tremendous sense of betrayal by a traditional Church that they had trusted. As a result, regions that had been noted for the most intense Catholic piety turned most ardently to the new faith. Perhaps surprisingly, Protestantism did not appeal most to those who were less pious or less firmly attached to the old Church; rather, white-hot Catholics turned into white-hot Protestants.
However, there was a wide variety of attitudes – ranging from those like James I's, who thought that the Church of Rome was defective but still had some good in it, to those of the more radical Protestants, who believed that the pope was the Antichrist and that his Church was utterly evil.
At the time of the plot, most of the recusants – Catholic 'refuseniks' – were middle or upper class. Why did the lower classes conform to Protestantism?
To stay Catholic under Elizabeth I, English people needed four assets:
• The first was wealth, to pay the fines imposed on those who would not attend the reformed national Church, and to maintain the priests who would carry on the old religion in secret.
• The second was social standing, carrying with it political power (such as a hereditary seat in the House of Lords), and family and personal connections with individuals currently influential in the court and government. These would all intimidate the gentry entrusted with the local enforcement of religious persecution.
• The third was the ownership of large, rambling houses in which hiding-places could be made for priests when the intimidation failed.
• The fourth was membership in a nationwide social élite including other rich Catholic families, so that news, warnings, priests and mutual encouragement could be circulated rapidly between regions.
Only the middle and upper classes, and especially the latter, possessed all these, and that is why Catholicism survived almost wholly among them.
How did Catesby and his followers reconcile their desire to murder the king with their Christian beliefs?
Although the New Testament generally counsels against acts of violence, the Old Testament regularly provides approving examples in the spheres of politics and war – including a direct divine order to commit genocide. Early modern Christians were therefore free to pick and choose.
Furthermore, there was an ancient tradition, based both on the Bible and on Greek and Roman literature, that it was a noble act to destroy a tyrant. For many people caught up in the crisis of the Reformation, the worst sort of tyrant was one who sought to impose an evil religion on his or her subjects and so endanger their souls. Hence, in the 25 years before the Gunpowder Plot and the five years after it, the leader of the Dutch state and two successive kings of France were killed by Catholic assassins, while there were various plots to murder James I's predecessor Elizabeth. Elizabeth herself had authorised the beheading of James's own mother, Mary Queen of Scots, as a precautionary measure, after Mary had become directly involved in one of those plots.
The Gunpowder plotters, therefore, were following a well-established tradition, but it was not a very respectable one. Most Europeans of the age regarded political murder as a tacky way of proceeding, and monarchs were understandably reluctant to endorse a device that could so easily be turned against them.
Would the king's eldest daughter Elizabeth, whom the conspirators planned to kidnap with the aim of putting her on the throne as a Catholic puppet, have been a willing 'stooge'? What happened to her afterwards?
Little is known about the princess at the time of the plot – she was, after all, only nine – except that she was an exceptionally pretty and charming child. Her later career proved that she was intelligent as well. It seems unlikely that she would have been a willing puppet for a group of strangers who had just murdered her father and brother. However, it is just possible that, had the plot worked, she might in time have responded to a kindly Catholic priest and come to treat him as a father-figure and so enthusiastically adopted his religion.
In view of this, her subsequent fortunes are very ironic. James married her off to the most dynamic and aggressive Protestant prince in Germany, Frederick, the Elector Palatine. They fell deeply and lastingly in love with each other, and she stuck by him during the disasters that were to beset them both. In 1619, Frederick was rash enough to accept the offer of the throne of Bohemia from Protestant rebels, and had Elizabeth crowned queen alongside him. This act drew upon them the fury of some of the main Catholic powers of Europe, who defeated them and seized all of Frederick's lands. They were left to wander in penniless exile, during which Frederick died. Elizabeth, however, retained a personal glamour as the Protestant heroine of Europe – known as the 'Queen of Hearts' some 375 years before Diana, princess of Wales – and her son was eventually restored to some of his father's ancestral realm. The present royal family, moreover, is descended from her daughter Sophia, the mother of George I.
Update: 10 November 2001
My local authority have recently sold a building to builders that was once owned by Robert Catesby. The builders wish to demolish part and gut the remainder to make way for housing.
The local council did not notify or seek public permission for the sale. The building is listed as grade II. I spoke to English Heritage who advised that listings undertaken by councils are often based on a quick scan of a building and not depth. So aspects of a building may be much older. In this case, it is likely to be fireplaces, cellars, perhaps some exterior. They also advised that it is people like myself – i.e. researchers or students – who normally uncover evidence to call for further analysis.
I think this property should never have been sold and should be kept
for the nation. How should I proceed to progress an inquiry further?
DO
I'm very sorry to learn about this house. However, Robert Catesby is associated with a number of other houses, which probably makes your local house rather less important historically.
He was probably born at Lapworth in Warwickshire, the main residence of his father Sir William, and the family also had properties around Ashby St Ledgers in Northamptonshire. From his grandmother, Catesby inherited a property at Chastleton in Oxfordshire (now owned by the National Trust) where he and his wife lived for some years. After having to sell Chastleton, Catesby resided with his mother at Ashby St Ledgers. He is known to have had lodgings in Lambeth near the archbishop's palace during the run-up to the plot.
However, you should certainly go on complaining to your local authority, which is neglecting its statutory duties since the house is already listed. Could you get up a local petition? Ask in your local library for information about conservation groups and local historical societies, which could be contacted to give you support. Good luck!
The treasonists sound a little over-ambitious, or else maybe the Nuclear
Age has made us underestimate the firepower of gunpowder. Would 36 barrels
of gunpowder (even if it had been fresh enough to explode) really have
destroyed Parliament?
GB, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
It's important to realise that the plot was not to blow up the whole complex that comprised the early 17th-century Parliament. The plotters targeted a specific two-storey wing of the main building, and stockpiled the gunpowder in the cellar that they had rented, which was directly under the meeting chamber of the House of Lords: 77 feet (23.5 metres) long, 24ft (7.3m) wide and 10ft (3m) high.
In this chamber at a state opening, the king and other members of the royal family assembled, together with the House of Lords (around 100 men, including the bishops) and all those members of the Commons who could manage to crowd in at the back of the room by the doors.
The plotters brought in 36 barrels of gunpowder, probably amounting to around 5,500 lb (2,500 kilograms). A modern explosives expert has calculated that this was five times the amount necessary to blow the cellar and the chamber sky high, even allowing for the fact that 17th-century gunpowder was probably only half as powerful as today's. The surplus indicates that the plotters were expecting some barrels to be damp and not explode initially, although they would probably have done so soon after, in the heat of the conflagration.
I am 17 and studying Performing Arts A-level. For a project, my group
must devise a piece with the Gunpowder Plot as our stimulus. Could you
give us any ideas?
KL, Wolverhampton
How about two short plays, one in costume on the Gunpowder Plot and another in modern dress about terrorism – featuring, for example, a bomb threat where the bomb is found in time and expertly defused?
How much knowledge do you think that Robert Cecil had of the plot
before Monteagle's letter arrived?
DMH, Huntingdon
Robert Cecil's surviving papers suggest that he was worried that some sort of threat was in the offing – for at least a year, he had been receiving reports of rising Catholic unrest. However, he clearly did not know the details of the plot and where the trouble was coming from.
After the arrival of Monteagle's obscure letter, Cecil had little option but to let events take their course for a few more days. If he acted too precipitately, he might have triggered the plot before the government's intelligence found out anything further. Conversely, if there was nothing in it, he might trigger a groundless panic and end up looking foolish in the eyes of the king.
So by showing James the letter, Cecil was discreetly asking – without planting any preconceptions – if the king read the document in the same threatening light that he did. James knew of his own father's death at Kirk o' Field, a house outside the walls of Edinburgh that was blown up, so it's entirely probable that the king genuinely was the first to spot the implications of the words 'a great blow'.
How should the surname of Catesby's cousin Anne Vaux be pronounced?
Should it rhyme with 'toe' or with 'corks'? The Channel 4 programme rhymed
it with 'toe', but there is a print from the period that spells Fawkes'
name as 'Faux', which could indicate that Vaux should be pronounced similarly.
As a follow-up to this, since 'Vaux' and 'Faux' would be phonetically
almost indistinguishable and given that spelling was not formalised in
this period, is there a possibility that the two might have been related,
as so many of the plotters were?
JK, Brighton
I've always thought it should be pronounced 'Vorks' as in Vauxhall, not 'Vo' in the French style. Modern members of the Vaux family certainly pronounce their surname the first way. However, no lineages have been traced between the yeoman Yorkshire family of Guy Fawkes and the noble Northamptonshire family of Anne Vaux of Harrowden.
Can you tell me how long the execution of Guy Fawkes would last from
start to finish? I have often wondered how long these things lasted. I
would guess somewhere around one hour.
PW
It depends whether you include the dragging of the conspirators through the streets on a wicker hurdle. Fawkes came from the Tower to Old Palace Yard, which would have taken at least half an hour, depending on the crowds. The executions began at 8am, and Fawkes was the last of the four to die that day (three had been executed the day before). He watched each of the others being hanged, drawn and quartered before mounting the scaffold himself. The actual process of execution seems to have been quick, about 10 minutes: they were not left for more than a couple of minutes on the scaffold before being cut down and disembowelled.
I was always told that part of the plot was arranged at Coldham Hall,
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, which is near the village where I was brought
up. Is this true?
DB, Bury St Edmunds
Yes, Coldham Hall in Suffolk, which still exists, was a well-knwon recusant house [i.e. a house owned by Catholics who refused to accept the strictures placed on them]. It still has three hiding places for priests, together with the attic room that served as the private chapel. It is not open to the public.
Ambrose Rookwood, the 11th of the plotters (in order of recruitment by Catesby) was the son of Robert Rookwood of Coldham Hall, from whom he inherited the house in 1600. There, he had a celebrated stable of fine horses, which was why he was approached to join the plot. However, in the autumn of 1605, Catesby persuaded Rookwood to leave Coldham and rent a house near Stratford, which was thought likely to be more convenient for their plans, so he was not at Coldham at the time when the plot should have come to fruition.
The Channel 4 website gives a very fanciful account of what might
have happened if the Gunpowder Plot had succeeded [see What
if?]. What do you think would have been the most likely outcome?
DMH, Huntingdon
If the plot had been successful, most of the royal family and the peerage would have been killed or seriously maimed. However, probably only a minority of the House of Commons would have been present at the state opening of Parliament, crowded in at the back; the rest would have escaped. Also there would still have been thousands of Protestant gentry families in the provinces who would have been appalled and enraged at the tragedy – like the Americans after 11 September who wanted to hunt down Osama bin Laden.
My own view is that, within a week or so, these Protestant gentry, acting in their capacities as local officials – justices of the peace, sheriffs or even churchwardens – would have started to round up their Catholic neighbours. A real pogram of 'ethnic cleansing' might easily have begun. The Catholics were only a small minority in England – around 5% of the total population – so it would have been virtually impossible for the plotters, even if they had managed to seize James's daughter Princess Elizabeth, to retain control of the country. Another royal lady, Lady Arabella Stuart, the king's cousin, might have emerged as the contender for the throne.
The plotters hoped for Spanish aid, but even if the government of Philip III had been willing to intervene – and all the evidence suggests not – it would have taken weeks for a Spanish fleet to assemble, and memories of the Armada would have united the English in even greater hostility against the plotters.
Why did this programme consistently discuss the Gunpowder Plot as
an 'English' affair? Although the parliaments were separate, was James
VI (or James I as he was exclusively referred to) not also king of Scotland
(and, for that matter, Wales)? Did he not also foster a significant Scottish
influence at Whitehall? Did the plot not therefore have implications for
Catholics in Scotland as well, and not simply, as insisted on by the programme,
for 'the English nation'? If not, should this wider context not deserve
at least consideration?
SM
James, of course, continued to be King James VI of Scotland after 1603, when he came to the English throne, and he brought a number of Scots south with him who remained at his court. There would certainly have been a huge uproar in Scotland if James had been killed. Perhaps his Stuart cousins, the Lennoxes, would have been declared heirs to the Scottish throne. It seems very likely that the royal union between the two countries, only begun in 1603, would have broken down.
But the plot itself was exclusively English. The plotters could not have cared less about Scotland, and Guy Fawkes did say that he wanted to blow the Scots back north of the border!
The constraints of time meant those of us who worked on the programme had to focus on the main story, which is English. All we could have offered on Scotland was guesswork.
What did the Act of Attainder consist of in terms of disenfranchised members of the plotter's family? It was only repealed in, I think, 1977 (thus making me, as a descendant of Robert Catesby, break the law, I think, by voting!). What was contained in the Act and precisely who did it relate to and why? RC, Liverpool
There were numerous Acts of Attainder, all different, depending on the person or persons named in the Act. Usually the family properties were taken away and also the title, if the family had one. But often these Acts were reversed later and at least part of the property restored.
Acts of Attainder condemned the accused without a trial, but the central fact about the surviving Gunpowder plotters was that they were publicly tried and condemned, under the Treason Statute of 1352. Their properties were confiscated afterwards because they were then legally traitors and felons. Catesby was not tried because he was shot dead at Holbeach by the county sheriff's men who had tracked down the plotters.
Was Robert Catesby or possibly his father imprisoned for non-payment
of 'fines' for being Catholic, and did this give him a motive of revenge
for the plot?
RC, Liverpool
Catesby's father, Sir William, suffered long imprisonment as a recusant Catholic, and his Catholic uncle, Sir Thomas Tresham, was fined heavily. But Robert Catesby's problems were largely of his own making.
In 1592, he married a wealthy Protestant heiress who brought him a large dowry. After she died, he seems to have become a fanatical and violent Catholic, unlike his parents, and joined the rebellion of the earl of Essex in 1601. For this, he was heavily fined but reprieved from any further penalties – an act of clemency on the part of the government. Then, because he was a known Catholic with a rebellious past, he was one of several malcontents who were briefly imprisoned just before Queen Elizabeth's death, since the government was trying to ensure the peaceful succession of King James. Eighteen months later, he began to prepare the plot.
Catesby had lived very comfortably on his wife's fortune, and as a widower, he lived with his mother, another wealthy woman. He had suffered far less than most other Catholics, and his involvement in the plot was due to his fanatical and violent character.
James VI and I gave Catholics some breathing space on his accession.
Do you think he was being political in that, had this met with little
resistance, he would have given more ground – all the way to complete
freedom for Catholics? The Puritans had a conference with him in January
1604 during which they expressed their displeasure at the relaxation in
the laws persecuting Catholics. They also argued that, in theory, Parliament
should be sovereign. Clearly their argument posed a more serious threat
than the gunpowder treason as they were striking at the heart of monarchy
itself, and James saw a glimpse of a belief that would come to maturity
under the guidance of Cromwell and his associates. Isn't it probable that
James feared the Puritans greatly as a result of their belief in parliamentary
democracy and gave in to their demands on Catholic persecution to preserve
his own position and indeed the monarchy itself?
KJM, Inverness
The Puritans in 1604 did not argue that Parliament should be sovereign in the modern sense, and they certainly had no interest in parliamentary democracy. For example, they had no aim whatsoever to widen the franchise so that all adults could vote. In the 16th and 17th centuries, everyone accepted that the monarch could veto any Act, even if passed by the Lords and Commons. The royal veto was last used by Queen Anne in the early 18th century.
Oliver Cromwell might have been anti-monarchy, but he was hardly a modern democrat. Our system has evolved over the last 300 years, slowly and erratically – women were not given the vote until 1929 (a move that would have appalled the Puritans!).
The point about James is that he had struggled before 1603 to get the kirk in Scotland to accept some royal control, if only for civil order. Similarly, he saw in the English Puritans the same stubborn insistence that individual conscience takes precedence over the laws of the state. James genuinely disliked persecution and thought that people should be won over by reasoned argument, not fines or imprisonment. But his main concern was to try and balance the situation and prevent public disturbances over religion. When he saw, in 1604-5, that the majority of his English subjects were angered by his tolerance towards Catholics, he drew back.
There is no evidence that James ever intended to give Catholics complete freedom – it would simply have been far too unpopular. The most that was on offer was tolerance and a suspension of the recusancy fines, not their total removal. Catholics were given a breathing space, but it was always conditional on their good behaviour and the acceptance by the general public.
Update: 15 November 2001
Could you tell me more about one of the plotters named John Grose,
please?
D, Warrington
There is no one of that name among the plotters. However, some of the servants and other peripheral figures are not named in the documents. Do you have any information on him?
In what museum are the two signatures of Fawkes kept?
D, Ireland
The documents for the Gunpowder Plot are almost all in the Public Record Office at Kew in west London, including the signatures before and after torture.
What was Guy Fawkes' date of birth?
AT, Warrington
We do not know Fawkes' date of birth, but he was baptised on 16 April 1570 in York, so it was probably no more than about a week before. If the baby was healthy, a gap of three days between birth and baptism was very usual, so his date of birth is often assumed to have been 13 April 1570.
Being a descendant of Sir Thomas Knevitt (or Kneyvett or Knevett,
depending on which books you read), I was quite disappointed he didn't
get a mention in the programme, especially as he is credited with actually
arresting Guy (Guido) Fawkes. I have also read that he was a lord as well
(apart from being a justice of the peace/magistrate for Westminster and
a member of the Kings' Privy Chamber). Is this true? And can you tell
me any more about him, please?
SS, Rochester
Sir Thomas Knyvet (the correct spelling) was born around 1545 and died in 1622. He was a member of Queen Elizabeth's privy chamber and subsequently also of James I's. He was a justice of peace for Westminster, as well as one of two MPs for the borough of Westminster between 1584 and 1607, when he went to the House of Lords as Baron Knyvet of Escrick in Yorkshire, an estate he owned, although he lived in Westminster for most of the year. He headed the search party in the cellars that found Guy Fawkes, and it was probably for that reason that he was elevated to a barony in 1607. There is a splendid monument to him and his wife in the parish church of Stanmore, Middlesex, with 22 armorial quarterings.
Was Guido Fawkes his real name? Is it an English name and how did
it develop into GUY Fawkes? Cheers!
GW, Sunderland
Guy Fawkes was baptised with that name in 1570, but in spring 1603, he went to Spain as an unofficial envoy from the English Catholics to the court of Philip III, to ask for help getting rid of James VI and I. He was received politely but nothing was offered other than vague promises. Thereafter, however, Fawkes adopted the Spanish version of his name, 'Guido', and signed himself in that way.
Does Parliament Hill in London have anything to do with the Gunpowder
Plot? We were told at school (Parliament Hill School) that it is where
the plotters were to watch Parliament blow up from.
R, London
I think the legend of Parliament Hill grew up later because the plotters did not have plans to meet there - although as they fled after the discovery of Fawkes, Ambrose Rookwood overtook Robert Keyes at Highgate.
Why did they want to do it?
Emily
As we tried to explain in the programme the plotters were a group of discontented Catholics. They thought that, if they could get rid of the king, his two sons, most of the House of Lords and many of the House of Commons, it would be possible for them to seize political power and allow Catholics full official freedom of worship. Their long-term aim was probably to declare England a Catholic country.
Fascinating as the story behind the Gunpowder Plot is, one of the
most amazing aspects is that its anniversary is still so widely and enthusiastically
celebrated nearly 400 years later. Have the festivities that we now traditionally
associate with 5 November been practised ever since the 17th century?
Or are our present-day celebrations a more modern phenomenon?
HA, London
From November 1605 on, the day was celebrated with bell-ringing, bonfires, and special prayers. It was very popular at times like the 1670s when there was further agitation over the 'Popish Plot', which turned out to be mostly an invention, but it dwindled into just a popular evening for community bonfires at other times. However, it never died out, and in the 1820s, it took on fresh vitality as part of the opposition to the proposal for Catholic emancipation, which the duke of Wellington got through Parliament in 1829. Our modern custom of burning Guy Fawkes in effigy seems to date from then and not earlier.
I remember reading about a tunnel that the plotters supposedly started
(under Parliament). The programme did not mention this. Have the remains
of the tunnel ever been discovered?
ML, Yorkshire
The plotters started to dig through the fairly soft earth of the river edge in an attempt to make a secret entry for the gunpowder. This first stage of the plan became unnecessary when they found they could actually rent the cellar under the House of Lords, a much easier way of stocking up their pile for the intended explosion. The earth tunnel would presumably have crumbled away pretty quickly once they stopped digging, as it was never lined with stones or intended to be made permanent.
I found the programme last Monday very interesting, but one thing
that did puzzle me was this: My understanding was that one of the reasons
Lord Monteagle may have chosen to pass on what he knew about the plot
to the authorities was because he wanted to protect 'Catholic friends'
in the House of Lords who may have otherwise become unwitting victims.
However, given the fact that Catholics were being suppressed around this
time, how were they simultaneously able to hold positions in the Lords?
GW, Blackburn
There were several members of the House of Lords who were known to be sympathetic to Catholicism and who went to masses in private. However, as an act of loyalty to the crown, they were prepared to take the oath of allegiance (which included swearing to accept the monarch as governor of the Church of England), and once they had done so, they were permitted to take their inherited places in the House of Lords. These men are often called 'crypto-Catholics' to distinguish them from Catholics like Fawkes and Catesby who would never take the oath.
For more discussion of the Gunpowder Plot by Ronald Hutton, see the full transcript of his interview for the programme.
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