This account is as follows. About a year after the accession of James I.,[13] when it began to be evident that the hopes of toleration at his hands, which the Catholics had entertained, were to be disappointed, Robert Catesby, a man of strong character, and with an extraordinary power of influencing others, bethought him in his wrath of this means whereby to take summary vengeance at once upon the monarch and the legislators, under whose cruelty he himself and his fellows were groaning. The plan was proposed to John Wright and Thomas Winter, who approved it. Faukes was brought over from the Low Countries, as a man likely to be of much service in such an enterprise. Shortly afterwards Percy joined them,[14] and somewhat later Keyes and Christopher Wright were added to their number.[15] All the associates were required to take an oath of secrecy,[16] and to confirm it by receiving Holy Communion.[17]
These are the seven "gentlemen of blood and name," as Faukes describes them, who had the main hand in the operations which we have to study. At a later period six others were associated with them, Robert Winter, elder brother of Thomas, and Grant, both gentlemen of property, Bates, Catesby's servant, and finally, Rokewood, Digby, and Tresham, all rich men, who were brought in chiefly for the sake of their wealth, and were enlisted when the preparations for the intended explosion had all been completed, in view of the rising which was to follow.[18]
Commencing operations about the middle of December, 1604, these confederates first endeavoured to dig a mine under the House of Lords, and afterwards hired a large room, described as a cellar, situated beneath the Peers' Chamber, and in this stored a quantity of gunpowder, which Faukes was to fire by a train, while the King, Lords, and Commons, were assembled above.
Their enemies being thus destroyed, they did not contemplate a revolution, but were resolved to get possession of one of the king's sons, or, failing that, of one of his daughters, whom they would proclaim as sovereign, constituting themselves the guardians of the new monarch. They also contrived a "hunting match" on Dunsmoor heath, near Rugby, which was to be in progress when the news of the catastrophe in London should arrive; the sportsmen assembled for which would furnish, it was hoped, the nucleus of an army.