[Illustration: ARCHES FROM THE "CELLAR" UNDER THE HOUSE OF LORDS.]
We may here pause to review the extraordinary story to which we have been listening. A group of men, known for as dangerous characters as any in England, men, in Cecil's own words,[166] "spent in their fortunes," "hunger-starved for innovations," "turbulent spirits," and "fit for all alterations," take a house within the precincts of a royal palace, and close to the Upper House of Parliament, dig a mine, hammer away for over two months at the wall, acquire and bring in four tons of gunpowder, storing it in a large and conspicuous chamber immediately beneath that of the Peers, and covering it with an amount of fuel sufficient for a royal establishment--and meanwhile those responsible for the government of the country have not even the faintest suspicion of any possible danger. "Never," it is said,[167] "was treason more secret, or ruin more apparently inevitable," while the Secretary of State himself declared[168] that such ruin was averted only by the direct interposition of Heaven, in a manner nothing short of miraculous.
It must be remembered that the government thus credited with childlike and culpable simplicity, was probably the most suspicious and inquisitive that ever held power in this country, for its tenure whereof it trusted mainly to the elaborate efficiency of its intelligence department. Of a former secretary, Walsingham, Parsons wrote that he "spent infinite upon spyery,"[169] and there can be no doubt that his successor, now in office, had studied his methods to good purpose. "He," according to a panegyrist,[170] "was his craft's master in foreign intelligence and for domestic affairs," who could tell at any moment what ships there were in every port of Spain, their burdens, their equipment, and their destination. We are told[171] that he could discover the most secret business transacted in the Papal Court before it was known to the Catholics in England. He could intercept letters written from Paris to Brussels, or from Rome to Naples.[172] What was his activity at home is sufficiently evidenced by the reports furnished by his numerous agents concerning everything done throughout the country, in particular by Recusants; whereof we shall see more, in connection with this particular affair. That those so remarkably wide-awake in regard of all else should have been blind and deaf to what was passing at their own doors appears altogether incredible.