[120] _History of England_, i. 254, note.
[123] _Condition of Catholics under James I._, p. 100.
[124] R.O. _Dom. James I._, lxxxi. 70, August 29th, 1615.
[125] _A Plain and Rational Account of the Catholick Faith_, Rouen, 1721, p. 197.
[126] _Certamen utriusque Ecclesiæ_, James I.
[127] The author of the _English Protestants' Plea_ (1621) says: "Old stratagems and tragedies of Queene Elizabeth's time must needs be renewed and playde againe, to bring not only the Catholikes of England, but their holy religion into obloquy" (p. 56).
Peter Talbot, Bishop of Dublin, in the _Polititian's Catechisme_ (1658) writes: "That Cecil was the contriver, or at least the fomenter of [the Plot,] was testified by one of his own domestick Gentlemen, who advertised a certain Catholike, by name Master Buck, two months before, of a wicked designe his Master had against Catholikes" (p. 94).
[128] A writer, signing himself "Architect," in an article describing the old palace of Westminster (_Gentleman's Magazine_, July, 1800, p. 627), having occasion to mention the Gunpowder Plot, observes: "This Plot is now pretty well understood not to have been hatched by the Papists, but by an inveterate foe of the Catholicks of that day, the famous minister of James.... All well-informed persons at present laugh at the whole of this business."
THE history of the Gunpowder Plot prior to its discovery, as related with much circumstantiality by the government of the day, has, in all essential particulars, been accepted without demur by the great majority of modern writers. We have already seen that those who lived nearer to the period in question were less easily convinced; it remains to show that the internal evidence of the story itself is incompatible with its truthfulness.
The point upon which everything turns is the secret, and therefore dangerous, character of the conspiracy, which, as we are told, completely eluded the vigilance of the authorities, and was on the very verge of success before even a breath of suspicion was aroused, being balked only by a lucky accident occurring at the eleventh hour, in a manner fitly described as miraculous.
On the other hand, however, many plain and obvious considerations combine to show that such an account cannot be true. It is not easy to believe that much which is said to have been done by the conspirators ever occurred at all. It is clear that, if such things did occur, they can by no possibility have escaped observation. There is evidence that the government knew of the Plot long before they suddenly "discovered" it. Finally, the story of the said "discovery," and the manner in which it took place, is plainly not only untrue, but devised to conceal the truth; while the elaborate care expended upon it sufficiently indicates how important it was held that the truth should be concealed.
