The Elaborate Plot To Kill King James I | Gunpowder, Treason & Plot | Real Royalty With Foxy Games

[Music] it was a cold winter night in westminster a new session of parliament was due to open the following morning just after midnight a search party entered the cellars below the old parliament house the date was november the 5th 1605 under the vaults they found a stranger booted and spurred and hidden under firewood 36 barrels of gunpowder enough to blow up parliament 20 times over [Music] the man they arrested was a catholic soldier called guy fawkes the first link in the chain of the greatest terrorist conspiracy britain has ever known [Music] if they had succeeded in doing what they wanted to do it would have been the bloodiest and most appalling plot in english history it was the first attempt to blow up the entire british establishment just take a checklist of who would have been present had that explosion cut off the king the queen the princes the lords the bishops the gentry the judges it's the first real attempt to use gunpowder technology for widespread terrorism in other words it's the gunpowder equivalent of the atomic bomb strike on hiroshima on sunday the 20th of may 1604 in the duck and drake inn just off the strand in london five men met in an upper room they were there to plan the assassination of king james the first and the destruction of his entire government to strike this gunpowder plot was not the brainchild of the infamous guy fawkes they'd met at the summons of a young man called robert or robin catesby kate spies clearly the leader he's the man with charisma the man who recruits other people he's the man who has the idea of blowing up the palace of westminster so we ought really to call it kate's biz night rather than guy fawkes night kate's was far and away i think the most attractive personality among the gunpowder plotters everybody agrees he was an absolutely charismatic figure he was the sort of person who if you met whatever resistance you'd initially plan to his ideas they crumbled [Music] what had led robert catesby to such a drastic plan of action [Music] on the surface he seemed hardly the type in 1602 in queen elizabeth's england he appeared to have everything going for him catesby was a young nobleman with a dashing reputation as a swordsman and man of action he had land he had connections but in a country as aggressively protestant as queen elizabeth's one thing counted against robert catesby he was catholic and proud of it he's not as it were a crypto catholic he's an out and out catholic with a very strong view of the burdens that catholics bear and that catholics should not be passive but should seize an opportunity to better their condition in the 70 years since the english reformation most catholics had learned to keep their heads down and their faith to themselves most even attended church with their protestant neighbors but not catesby he was part of a network of wealthy catholic families who refused to conform who chose instead to suffer crippling fines for non-attendance [Music] the government called them requisites a requisite somebody comes from the latin word recusary to refuse and a requisite is somebody who refuses to give outward conformity uh somebody who will not say well i'm catholic inside but i'm not a catholic outside uh very much like the people in eastern europe uh who refuse to to conform what we call the refuse next you nearly always get in any society particularly societies that are under pressure some people who will not agree to go along with the mess and the requisites are those sorts of people in her warwickshire manor house catesby's cousin anvo lived in a private catholic world priests were sheltered in secret children sent to be educated in catholic schools abroad in their own eyes the requisites were a beleaguered minority struggling to keep the true faith alive but to the authorities people like ann voe and her cousin katesby seemed dangerous [Music] england was at war with catholic spain it made the requisites potential fifth columnists an enemy within a security risk to be watched at all costs [Music] the most commonly used comparison of the life for catholic elizabethan england the modern day is that of being a communist in 1950's america but to be a communist in fifties america is a holiday camp compared with being a catholic requisite under elizabeth for a start you're always in danger of having your property searched usually at night and always without warning you are always politically suspect you regardless being the agent of a foreign power subverting everything for which the realm stood [Music] above all if you actually do what a catholic supposed to do which is hear the word of god according to your church you need a priest if you harbor a priest you're in serious trouble at badly clinton in the summer of 1602 anne vo was secretly harboring the leading jesuit priest in england father henry garnett you have to remember that from 1585 to 1604 england is at war and that therefore things like sheltering priests who come from spain or from the spanish netherlands is a quite different thing from a purely religious gesture it's it's a potentially very hostile and very threatening gesture to the english war effort and to the english government garnet lived a covert existence moving from house to house celebrating the mass in secret as a jesuit he was part of a new order of priests sent to england to stir up catholic revival to undermine elizabeth's authority as head of the english church the government feared jesuit priests because in 1570 the pope published a bull excommunicating elizabeth the first that bull released all their subjects from their allegiance to her and encourage them to depose her absolutely such fighting talk inspired catesby and his cousin the hope of a catholic revival was what gave them the strength to live as requisites they knew that to harbor a man as dangerous to the protestant state as henry garnet risked imprisonment even death but that was the price of their faith [Music] but the question was when would the catholic revival begin despite the best efforts of the jesuits most english catholics were drifting into conformity the protestant church had never seemed more secure for catesby to turn round catholic fortunes it was clear some radical change was needed [Music] in the autumn of 1602 a friend of kate's bees called thomas percy rode north to edinburgh to meet james vi of scotland on a mission on behalf of english catholics what they hoped was that catholicism would be tolerated and of course there was no chance of that while edisworth was alive but although she'd had a long and glorious reign even elizabeth was subject to mortality and it was clear she was going to die and it was clear that the next occupant of the throne would almost certainly be james james of scotland and james himself had allowed it to be known that when he came to the throne catholics would be allowed to live a free life james was a protestant but appeared tolerant of catholics he was the son of the catholic martyr mary queen of scots and his own wife had converted to the old faith as the future king he seemed an answer to requisite prayers he was a rather crude and vulgar man who was physically in many ways repulsive because he wasn't very clean he's slobbered and he was he was sort of not exactly misshapen but a little man who was very ungainly and he had a predilection for male favourites although he did conduct a very happy married life with his queen who bought him about nine children in all james is really a very intelligent man with a bad pr kind of image uh he's donish he had been a really good professor of theology or lord edinburgh university the present day he's really bright he writes well he speaks well he's got a good brain james is uncomfortably aware that in an europe divided between protestant and catholic if he pleases both he's safe he wins both sides and so what he does is he gives the protestant english every possible public reassurance at the same time he's tipping the wink privately to english catholics thomas percy was a poor relation of the powerful earl of northumberland as a convert he was a zealous champion of the catholic cause one of the most unfortunate aspects of james's diplomacy before coming the english throne is the way in which he'll receive private visitors and will let them believe what they wish how is my lord and the classic man here is thomas percy is going to be one of the gunpowder conspirators he's connected to the earl of northumberland one of the great magnets of the english realm and he trots up to scotland to check out james and try and get a solid promise from him to give toleration to english catholics and the general mood in london james doesn't give any solemn promises at all what he seems to do is encourage percy to believe what percy wishes to believe i find the english a factious people mr percy so if i may we are merely seeking concord [Music] oh i shall rule england as i rule scotland mr percy with nothing but concorde in mind what to james was a political ploy seems to have been taken by percy as a genuine statement of belief and also a genuine commitment to do something and it's fairly clear that james never intended it to be any such thing send my greetings to lord northumberland [Music] and so percy returned to england carrying the dangerous idea that james had promised toleration for english requisites english catholics when they heard about this uh assumed that it was virtually all over rather like people in occupied europe felt in 1944 liberation had come the dictators had gone you could throw your hats in the air and live a perfectly normal life six months later on march the 24th 1603 queen elizabeth died and james vi of scotland became james the first of england when james comes from scotland is the classic honeymoon period he's doing everything that a king initially should he's hunting everything that runs and knighting everything that crawls he lathers the british nation with flattery with honours and as part of this he relaxes the persecution of catholics he remits the requisite fines that is to say he he instructs the collectors of reconciliance if i'm simply not to collect them so there is a period of easement for about a year but by the summer of 1604 it's clear that nothing is going to happen by way of a formal toleration the requisite laws have not been repealed nothing has been done to grant greater liberties to catholics clearly james intended to do nothing for them english catholics felt betrayed and none more so than thomas percy as he saw it james had proved weak buckling under the weight of english protestant opinion by 1604 the honeymoon for english catholics was over under pressure from parliament james reimposed the requisites he finds and an edict was passed ordering all catholic priests out of the country those that stayed risked being hunted down as in the worst days of elizabeth henry garnet had written of james's accession as a golden time of unexpected freedom the reality was hard to bear for robert catesby a lifetime of resentment drew into sharp focus and the object of his hatred was the man who'd betrayed them he's somebody who dared to promise them all that they rightfully deserve who even may have held out a promise of someday coming back to the true religion himself what happens he tries this transparent trick of relaxing the fines just to see how the protestants react as soon as a few of them start bleeding what does he do he starts persecuting the catholics all over again bringing back the old terrible elizabethan regime just to curry favor with a heretical church so from that moment onwards to a genuine catholic extremist james deserves to die it's as simple as that i think the really dangerous moment in any political situation is not when people have been so oppressed for so long that they've been ground into the earth it's when their hopes have risen and suddenly you try and put the genie back in the bottle and you can't do it it creates an explicit situation and that's what happened in 1604 [Music] and so it was in the spring of 1604 the robert catesby made his decision to blast king james and his protestant regime to pieces [Music] sunday the 20th of may 1604 in the duck and drake just off the strand in one of old london's most fashionable quarters robert catesby met with four friends but it wasn't a social gathering this was the meeting that was to set in motion the gunpowder plot to disclose nothing that i hear today so help me god i swear to disclose nothing of what i hear today so help me god i swear to disclose nothing of what i hear today the gunpowder conspirators themselves were wild and rather silly young men i think what i hear today so help me god they weren't normal english catholics they were relatively young their average ages in the 30s and on the whole they're adventurers they are people whose personalities are fairly unstable whose finances are in even worse condition their personalities and who feel on the whole that they're ready to take the biggest risk of all which is losing their limbs their heads their fortunes for the sake of the jackpot which is winning england back for catholicism the meeting began with a vow of secrecy and then catesby outlined his blood curdling plan i aim to strike a blow with powder the target was the state opening of parliament the weapon gunpowder the gunpowder plot is remarkable because of the scale of the attempt on the life and apparatus of the stewart crown they've been previous assassination attempts which were matters of bullets or daggers or perhaps poison directed directed at a particular individual a monarch but this targeted the entire ruling class the entire establishment of stewart protestant england if you take a register of who would have been destroyed had the explosion succeeded not just the king the queen the princes the royal family the heirs of the throne the continuity of the dynasty also all the lords all of the bishops all of the members of parliament the leading gentry and judges the entire representative of the stuart state all would have been destroyed in one blow and that is i think remarkable and unprecedented for this devastating act catesby had recruited four men he knew he could trust the first thomas percy still smarting from his misreading of james's intentions second catesby's cousin tom winter stocky and round-faced fired up with a recent and passionate reconversion to the faith of his childhood third jack wright catesby's oldest friend and finally a more mysterious character recruited for his expertise in mining and explosives he called himself guido fawkes now guy fawkes was a catholic from yorkshire his relatives on his mother's side were the chief influence in his life they were catholics and he became very much the equivalent of a sort of hard-line catholic terrorist guy fawkes had been an experienced mercenary soldier in the southern netherlands the area that we would now call belgium and he had been fighting for the catholic forces there it was a well-known area where english catholic men might go for military experience might go to get away from their families away from the requisite laws he comes over as an extremely doer brave relatively unimaginative yorkshire man with very considerable technical skills fawkes had been fighting in the netherlands for over ten years he'd been back in england for less than a month it was winter who introduced him to catesby fawkes was vital because at this early stage catesby had no practical idea of how to take out parliament forks knew about siege warfare he knew about digging mines he knew how to lay gunpowder for maximum impact all katesby knew was that the effect must be total it must result in the complete destruction of the ruling elite create that political vacuum whatever the cost and god would do the rest are you with me [Music] i [Music] was a fanatic and like most fanatics he had an absolute conviction of the rightness of his own actions god was with him he was doing god's work and if it involved blowing up lots of people many of whom were innocent well god moves in a mysterious way and it's ultimately for the good the term freedom fighter and terrorists they're two sides of the same coin they certainly were terrorists in that they were going to use terror they were certainly freedom fighters in that they believed with some reason that they were fighting for a freer life for the catholic confederates corpus dominion austria they concluded their meeting with a private mass the priest apparently unaware [Music] and so the conspirators sealed their covenant with god and with each other [Music] and the months of plotting began the current session of parliament had only a few weeks to run it would then be adjourned until february 1605 that gave them a time scale within which to work but there was much to do with just seven months to go they lacked even a base in westminster [Music] westminster at this time is basically a rabbit warren inhabited by rabbits wearing silk and herman it is a boom suburb it's growing very very fast and as the number of court offices expands uh tremendously under james and his desire to please everybody all the time so the demand for lodgings increases it's a grubby messy untidy over-monit precious society in which contacts are absolutely everything of all the plotters percy had the best connections and milking his link with the powerful earl of northumberland he hit the jackpot he was appointed a gentleman pensioner a kind of ceremonial parliamentary guard ironic in the circumstances the appointment gave him an excuse to rent lodgings right in the heart of westminster and it was here they installed guy fawkes [Music] now reason to choose guy fawkes as the man who's going to like the gunpowder is that he wouldn't have been known in london now that may seem very strange to us today when london's a large cosmopolitan city with millions in its population but in those days london had a population of thousands and anybody who was anybody became rapidly well known [Music] guy fawkes has liabilities and his assets and that's why he's used in london where the two of them are best balance he's a liability because he's a nobody else in the catholic network of the provinces on the other hand he does know about munitions he's a soldier he's part of an international network of catholic conspiracy and above all at this time he's an unknown he's a man without a name who can move silently across frontiers and in that great thriving metropolis and a nameless man with a mission is the best person to have on base for the london side of the operation catesby co-opted two more men in the web of conspiracy [Music] thomas bates was catesby's manservant robert keys was a requisite gentleman from lincolnshire a trusty and honest man according to the record these two were to help forks stockpile the gunpowder necessary for the blow purchase downriver in the docks gunpowder is quite widely manufactured in the southeast of england and obviously during wartime there had been a considerable demand for gunpowder not least from the ships of the royal navy but also from english merchant shipping because they very often carry cannon to defend themselves someone like fawkes would know where to get gunpowder having been in those circles as a military man the nearest powder mill to london was in rutherhive it operated under royal licence but with a peace treaty now signed with spain there was a glut of powder on the market the excess was sold off cheap no questions asked fork stockpiled 36 barrels taking his time to avoid suspicion and he transported them back up river to percy's westminster lodgings up the thames that great artery of early modern london 36 barrels was 10 000 pounds weight of powder it would blow with the explosive charge of 250 cannon firing at once but all that destructive energy was useless unless forks could unleash it in exactly the right spot under the parliament house and that was the access they still lacked the clock was ticking just two months to go but then in december 1604 the state opening was delayed once again this time to the winter of 1605. one of the dodgiest things about blowing up a parliament is working out when the parliament's going to be there at all because parliamentary sessions delicate things they impose a incredible strain on the people who hauled in from the provinces to sit in the commons or the lords london's notoriously unhealthy so you can't keep people there for too long and especially summer months are a dodgy thing because they're the best time for disease so they put off uh the meeting until the winter months when as we now know the fleas are going to bed and so plague dies down for catesby the postponement of parliament changed the scale of the plot up till now he'd planned only the explosion his grievance focused just on that one act of revenge now with time on his hands he returned to the midlands and he began to plan the plot's second stage a full-blown catholic uprising for this he needed the support of local requisites so in march he recruited john grant of northbrook house and jack wright's brother kit and robert winter tom's brother the wealthy master of huddington court until now in a curious way although it's lunatic the plot is actually viable as it's the big bang theory of destruction in which you take out your enemy and then work out what happens next whereas kate sp now goes on to phase two and in doing so he actually makes the plot more likely to fail because more and more people know about it it's like spinning a spider's web in which you're going to be catching potentially really quite dangerous animals as well as flies what catesby envisaged was a cavalry uprising centered on the midlands he whispered of the plot to rich noblemen like ambrose rookwood and sir everard digby men famed for their impressive stables the idea was in advance of the explosion a hunting party would be raised once the king was dead this hunting party would show its true colours it would ride to coventry and there kidnapped james's eldest daughter the princess elizabeth [Music] they knew nothing about her the only advantage was she was living i think at the time in in warwickshire and they simply thought for princess elizabeth being young and they hoped easily malleable she would just be a puppet in their hands and they could say there we are james is gone but now we have james's daughter she's queen and they would rule england through her as as a catholic country what catesby was banking on was chaos with the protestant power structure destroyed his cavalry would press its advantage stirring the dormant catholic population provoking open civil war it was a wildly ambitious plan i think that the gunpowder plotters kates me in particular they were very much isolated figures in the catholic community i didn't think they'd have had anything like the impact within england that they seemed to assume that they would have done most catholics wanted to keep their heads down [Music] there is about a one percent chance that protestants would have been so dazed and demoralized that catesby's lot could actually have seized princess elizabeth and made her their stooge but i wouldn't put that was more than 100 chance [Music] but catesby was blind to any flaw he convinced himself god was smiling on his plans god had provided the gunpowder god had secured percy lodgings in westminster and if more proof were needed news now came through from london the best news of all [Music] at a cost of an extra four pounds paid to his westminster landlord percy had secured a lease on a cellar it used to be the old palace kitchens now it was empty and hired out for storage and that seller ran directly underneath the parliament house you must think of the palace of westminster not as we see it today because that's a 19th century building very largely but as a great sprawl of late medieval buildings not that difficult in fact to get access to because in westminster hall there with the law courts kings bench common pleas and that was an area where ordinary people came and went quite freely and so during the summer months of 1605 guy fawkes and his confederate smuggled the powder into the cellar for all the world like servant storing provisions all quite legal and innocent under the very noses of the protestant state this powder keg would sit until parliament reconvened the gunpowder plot was ready to blow [Music] october 1605 three weeks to go before king james reopened parliament and the gunpowder plot was on course in the palace cellars the barrels of powder were hidden with firewood for added security all forks could do now was wait but robert catesby was running out of funds and so he recruited one more conspirator the 13th conspirator unlucky for some his name was francis tresham the treshams were very substantial land holders indeed trisham has access to money he has access to horses i mean that may seem to be absurd but if you have a big house you have big stables and horses are after all um the motor cars the getaway helicopters of the of the 17th century tresham wielded great influence in catholic circles he'd help rally the midlands it's clear why catesby needed him but tresham resisted the idea right from the start maybe because being wealthy he had so much more to lose implore you please not to go through with this catesby argued him round saying a great sickness required so sharp a remedy but he was taking a gamble francis tresham is the weakest link in the whole chain of conspiracy he's the one who should never have been taken on board he's notoriously unreliable he's notoriously unstable he's a blabbermouth it is probably through trash and the leak actually comes which uh scuppers the whole plot no we'll not stop now the trouble was treshim was almost too well connected as kate's bee well knew he had many friends in the house of lords catholic peers who'd die with the rest they would of course go straight to heaven whereas the protestant ones would go to hell but it was hardly a prospect that tresham could envisage with equanimity the danger was that tresham might warn his catholic friends of the existence of a plot some say that's exactly what he did because on october the 26th with just 10 days to go before the explosion catesby's plot began to unravel act one of the drama unfolded in hoxton a village a mile north of london this was the home of william parker lord mont eagle tresham's brother-in-law he was one of those catholic peers at risk of becoming collateral damage in catesby's big bang montegle is not a nice man he is uh from a catholic family and the catholics half-heartedly accept as one of them he's officially what we call a church papist which means that he's looking like a protestant at the present time it seems fairly transparent that he is a selfish opportunist who is now playing the protestant card in public in order to try and make himself a court career according to the official version of the story on the evening of october the 26th mont eagle's servant thomas ward delivered to his master a letter asked whom it was from ward described how he'd been accosted outside by a masked stranger on opening the letter montego found it contained a warning not to attend the state opening of parliament because a sudden and unspecified blow was to be dealt against the enemies of his religion my lord out of the love i bear to some of your friends i have a care of your preservation therefore i would advise you as you tender your life to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this parliament for though there be no appearance of any stir yet i say they shall receive a terrible blow this parliament [Music] apparently mont eagle didn't fully grasp at the meaning of this letter but sensing foul deeds were afoot he resolved despite the lateness of the hour to ride at once to whitehall to deliver this warning into the hands of the authorities or more specifically into the hands of james's secretary of state the notoriously anti-catholic robert cecil he's the son of elizabeth the first greatest minister william cecil lord burleigh so he's a man born to power born into an immensely wealthy and powerful family like sir francis wilson before him who was elizabeth secretary of state one of his major functions was collating intelligence and he inherited wolsey inspiring cecil is seen as the spy master and that's an anachronistic term the 16th and 17th century would have called it an intelligencer it's cecil's job to get as much intelligence information as he can from europe and at the same time to keep an eye on potentially difficult groups in england including of course catholics it is like running mi5 and mi6 together cecil of course knew montego they weren't close friends they weren't much more than ready acquaintances and there wouldn't be much of a bond between the catholic pair and the the leading protestant in england but nevertheless they had a political contact and sissel almost certainly would not have trusted montego but at the same time he would have recognized that montego as a catholic peer would know a great deal more than sissel would about what was going on in the catholic community particularly at its up levels and so cecil invited in his surprise guest and montego braced himself to explain this nocturnal intrusion into the inner sanctum of the second most powerful man in the land montego was taking a risk the letter linked him with catholic extremists but equally through this act of loyalty he had much to gain this letter was delivered to my house this evening the contents disturbed me so that i thought to bring it to your attention as soon as possible and so the letter was handed over and apparently cecil two found the letter obscure just as montego had done and the two men sat into the night discussing the dark and doubtful document puzzling over its authorship okay by this it was delivered to my house but meanwhile events were taking on a momentum of their own in hoxton mont eagle's servant thomas ward was himself a catholic on the requisite grapevine he told the conspirators of the letter determined to identify the leak catesby and winter turned at once on the natural suspect the blabbermouth francis tresham what do you know of this what tell me you're not a man who would betray us it took some smooth talking and an oath on the bible to persuade them he was innocent and it seems they believed him i know nothing about any letter it was widely assumed at the time in the aftermath of the plot that it was tresham who was responsible for the letter the more one looks at it the more unlikely that seems because why should tresham have either written or caused to be written this very obscure letter as a way of warning montego when all he needed to do was to go to montego whom he knew perfectly well and said by the way if you're thinking of going to parliament it's not a frightfully good idea why don't you come hunting or something like that historians dramatists and pulp novelists just love the montego letter because it will forever leave us for the puzzle we'll never ever be able to say with any certainty who produced it and therefore what the historian's mind naturally does is run wild upon alternative possibilities one theory is it was written by one of the conspirators wives not to warn montego rather to spike the plot this gamble that put requisite estates and dynasties at risk or maybe there was no mysterious messenger in hoxton that night maybe montego wrote the letter himself maybe he'd heard of the plot on the wreckage grapevine and had seen an opportunity to carry favor with the regime if so it worked he ended up fated as the hero of the hour with a pension of 500 pounds a year for life you've done yourself great service delivering this to us i am a loyal subject of the king my lord but there's another theory casting doubt on the whole official version of that october night a conspiracy theory which began to circulate within weeks of fox's arrest it focuses on the shadowy figure of robert cecil himself [Music] the reason why conspiracy theories surround this conspiracy is that the government minister who claims to have discovered the plot is himself an arch conspirator he is a spy master he is a manipulator he's used to orchestrating and rigging assemblies monarchs and hirelings alike he comes from a family which itself has a history of rigging plots mary queen of scots was framed by a combination of politicians including cecil's own father and so with this family background it is natural for people to suspect that to some extent cecil riggs the gunpowder conspiracy himself [Music] the supposition is that cecil knew of the plot long before october that cecil's network of spies had fed him information of a stir in catholic circles the only question is how extensive was that information there's no doubt that cecil knew fairly early on that something was afoot and as the time of the assembly apartment got nearer sissel's information became more detailed and more accurate [Music] some conspiracy theorists go even further that cecil was the brains behind the plot that kate's b winter forks were just pawns in his wicked game it's far-fetched [Music] but that the spy master knew more than he let on seems incontrovertible when the formal exposure of the plot comes available by what he reads did sissel have the letter written did montego have the letter written the answer is we don't know we never shall know but it's not a boat from the blue either to want eagle or to sizzle my apologies again for the likeness of the hour but i thought it worth bringing to your attention cecil had let the plot simmer because he'd seen in it a way of trapping important enemies of the state now he would bring the plot to boil stage managing the de numer and the letter whether he wrote it or not would serve his purpose well catesby should have cut his losses when he'd had the chance he'd chosen to gamble to underestimate the enemy's hand it was a bad call it changes nothing the letter changes nothing there's no nothing of the powder they know nothing about one of the great mysteries the whole affair is why having discovered that the plot is disclosed knowing the government's onto them kate spee doesn't do the obvious thing in skedaddle it's it's fairly blatant now that the conspiracy is going to fail and they're going to pay the maximum penalty one can only surmise that the mind of a fanatic just doesn't operate in common sense obvious and rational ways that having gone this far kate's catesby just hopes that human nature intervene and the normal bungling ways of humanity will enable guy to get through with a torch at the right moment and the whole lot to go sky high nothing is crazy if god wants it and god will organize it for you it's what happens if you believe in providence but god it seems was with the protestants and he had other plans for robert catesby on the first of november 1605 four days before the state opening of parliament king james the first returned to london from a hunting trip his chief minister robert cecil handed him the mont eagle letter the letter revealing the threat to parliament cecil played the innocent he pretended he was baffled allowing the king to shine where does this come from we know not your majesty and of course james the wisest fool in christendom took the bait of intimate's great violence always paranoid obsessed with his own safety he leapt on the word blow a blue he berated cecil for failing to grasp the blindingly obvious a great that suggests to me powder powder in the official version the king is the first person immediately brilliantly spontaneously to perceive the truth the matter and suggest it might be a good idea if people started searching the cellars beneath the house of parliament and the vicinity of the palace of westminster and uh in this way the conspiracy is revealed by the only person equipped by god to do so which is the brainy monik himself now this is wildly implausible given quite how sharp cecil himself is but in favor of james having some role in it you have to say that he's a clever man he is perceptive quick-witted and also a very good survivor of the six rulers of scotland before james only one has not died violently and he died of nervous exhaustion james's mother had a head hacked off an english jail his father was strangled after attempt to blow him up and james himself had survived two attempts upon his life one allegedly by trapping the assassin's head under his arm and screaming for help for all he was worth he has used the idea of attempts on royal lives he's ready for this one james charged cecil with his safety he called for westminster to be searched but still cecil waited in his own words he wanted the plot to ripen to snatch it in full bloom and so the conspirators made their final preparations unaware of the net closing in catesby's plan was to stay in london until the fourth he would then ride the midlands in advance of the others to join the hunting party raised by digby as a cover for the kidnap of the young princess [Music] one last time treshum urged the others to reconsider his nerves stretched to the limit we are prepared to die but kate b winter and percy were resolute ready to abide the utmost trial to give their lives if necessary [Music] in the cellar guy fawkes prepared a fuse enough apparently to smolder for eight hours before the gunpowder blew his brief was to stay in the westminster lodgings until after the explosion to witness the destruction to confirm the death of the king and then to ride to join the others with the joyful news at some point on the fourth it's known he visited keys in lambeth to collect a timepiece with which to gauge the vital moment at eleven o'clock on that last morning thomas percy left to pay a visit to his cousin northumberland at cyan house to see what rumors if any were circulating at court [Music] later that evening he rendezvoused with catesby at the duck and drake he told him all was well there was no talk of the mont eagle letter kate's be left for the midlands but percy was quite wrong all was not well because now at the 11th hour cecil was ready to make his move his plan was that the king should take all the credit his de numero would be orchestrated to that effect the official version has the lord suffolk and montego searching parliament in the early evening and spotting a bearded man most likely a servant but they also notice a pile of firewood a pile too large for the lodgings the seller served on further investigation they discover the seller's leased to a catholic thomas percy they go to the king they tell him what they've discovered still apparently unable to put two and two together and the king in his wisdom urges that a second search be made or he would plainly go next day to parliament and leave the outcome of the day to fortune and so cecil's drama was resolved just after midnight the second search party entered the westminster cellar and there they arrested the mysterious stranger booted and spurred as if for flight what's your name john johnson he gave a false name he said he was a servant but under the firewood the barrels revealed the terrible truth and guido fox's place in the history books was secure beauty of the official version is that it comes up such a wonderfully theatrical image i mean no wonder we still have it rivets in our minds a guy with his beard his hat his cloak his dark lantern it's just so beautifully vivid it's how of course he was actually caught but uh the the the belief we have to go through in order to reach the point at which we imagine that none of this was stage managed at all requires an act of faith considerably greater than that believing in the holy apostolic church or any other [Music] as soon as fawkes was taken a warrant was issued for percy's arrest kit wright was the first to hear the news he rushed the duck and drake to warn the others what do we do the conspirators in london of whom the leaders are winter and percy uh have a quick conflab at the stage and work out what to do we leave and really do anything sensible left to them they built for the provinces [Music] the conspirators spent the fifth riding through a brutal november landscape they'd posted horses along the route it said their cloaks were found later cast by the wayside catesby was ahead of them still ignorant of the news but somewhere in bedfordshire he was overtaken by ambrose rookwood rookwood had ridden like the wind it was his thankless task to break the news of guido's arrest to the man who'd planned the plot we'll never know how catesby reacted the only wise course now surely was to keep riding west ahead of the inevitable chase to sweep up his friends in the midlands on route to escape maybe to catholic island but catesby was never one to play it safe he rode to ashby saint ledges in northamptonshire where his mother lived too embarrassed to face her he arranged to meet john grant and robert winter at the edge of the town there he told them that though guido was taken they'd push on regardless they joined the hunting party they'd spread the rumor the king was dead they'd stir the dormant catholic community into open rebellion but catesby was blind to one crucial fact his own isolation on the margins of mainstream catholic opinion as soon as the news arrives of a catholic plot it's quite clear that support for kate space simply fades away and no one comes to join the plotters there is no mass rising of catholics at all [Music] kate's be had at his disposal a rag-tag cavalry of no more than 40 maybe less a rump of requisites they rode from estate to a state preaching rebellion but the catholic majority treated them like lepers they closed their doors [Music] when gatesby arrives and tells them that the king is dead i feel sure that their immediate reaction must have been one of horror because they were loyal subjects you don't want the king to be dead even if he's the king of a different religion he was their king secondly if the king is dead what sort of horrors does that open up who's going to take over uh they've suffered so far but my god the suffering was to follow under robert sissel or committed protestants or whoever would be a great deal worse they saw at once that this could only make their circumstances more difficult not better but considerably more difficult and they must have feared absolutely the worst draconian requisite laws mass imprisonments executions whatever so i think there would have been virtually no support whatever for this hot-headed relatively unknown fanatical mid 30 year old saying this is it boys the time has come rise up now or never and they think well in that case never let's get home and lay quietly and see what happens [Music] and so on the evening of the 7th of november the remaining plot has reached their last safe house hull beach on the shropshire border tired demoralized hunted the gunpowder plotters prepared for their final stand november the 5th 1605 london and throughout the day news of fox's arrest had spread through westminster that evening the first bonfires were lit in the streets to celebrate the deliverance of king james and his son prince henry there seems to have been a tremendous outpouring of relief which is understandable not only in terms of the fact that the plot had failed but also the fact that james had been only two years on the throne of england and that his death and the death of henry would have precipitated a major succession crisis there are nationwide celebrations of bells ringing in churches and bonfires lit [Music] bonfires are lit as fires of joy bonfires are lit to celebrate good news bonfires are part of the public outdoor vocabulary of celebration remember we're dealing with autumn the the actual point in the year when this happens is of interest it's the 5th of november it's a dark time of the year in early modern england no street lighting so the sudden explosion of light perished by parish across london across the suburbs out in the country must have been quite stunning quite remarkable a got a wake-up call for the senses so far in the tower of london guy fawkes had held his tongue sticking to his alias of john johnson refusing to name his accomplices but on the evening of the 6th of november the king always keen to strut his forensic skill demanded to see fawkes in person and so the assassin and his target came face to face your name is john johnson and you would have killed me and my lords and my parliament well the fact that there was a meeting at all is remarkable because it was virtually unheard of for a monarch to interview anyone suspected of treason the first thing monarchs did was distance themselves completely but no here's james and he is wanting to interview guy fawkes himself but you have no regrets only that i did not succeed this is totally in character for james whenever a really hot political prisoner comes up james likes satisfying his own intellectual curiosity and also upping the drama of the moment by interrogating in person it shows him to be at the cutting edge of government activity and what are the royal children merely innocents the king showed off his debating skills but fawkes showed him nothing but contempt i thought to blow you all back to scotland that's what i thought how could you conspire so hideous a treason asked his motives he echoed catesby's words to tresham a dangerous disease requires a desperate remedy [Music] it's not known how his composure affected the king but what is recorded is what james did next two modern eyes and ears the most sinister aspect of james's personal interview with guy fawkes is at the end he tosses guy fawkes over to acute physical suffering [Music] now english law here is actually more humane than most european law because officially you cannot be tortured in order to produce a confession under strict english law somebody can only be tortured in political cases where the person's guilt is already established in other words once you've been tried and found guilty in the case of guy his guilt is so absolutely self-evident he's made no attempt to deny it he's now prime game for torture the gentler tortures meant that the manacles would be used and that meant that the prisoner would be suspended by manacles through the arms on a wall now this could be excruciatingly painful and and there are instances of prisoners whose hands were permanently maimed as a result now that's a gentler tortures people didn't always crumble immediately under these but when it came to the wreck which was the more forceful torture there were a few prisoners who had the courage to even go on the rank the mere sight of it was enough to make them confess or make something up which some of them certainly did the rack itself dislocated limbs and caused permanent disability there are only one or two instances of people who actually held out against being wrecked and guy fawkes was not one of them he he talked he crumbled [Music] two examples of guy fawkes's signature exist one from before one after torture the second scroll guido merely hints at the suffering to which he was subjected all eyes now were on the midlands forks's confession had filled in whatever gaps had existed in cecil's knowledge it incriminated the rights it incriminated the winters and so the end game began by the time that the conspirators reach what's going to be the last stand which is hull beach house staffordshire everything's gone wrong they're abandoned by their co-religionists even the weather's rotten they've been soaked through on their ride they're on the verge of despair they're on the verge of catching colds uh about the only thing remaining for them now is to make an epic lost stand and find martyrdom and after all if you are a religious fanatic then to be a religious martyr is a form of victory and whole beach is going to be on the surface the rather unlikely setting of one of the great acts of catholic martyrdom and british history hull beach was the property of stephen littleton one of the few requisites in the hunting party who'd not deserted them [Music] they had with them a cache of powder meant for the cavalry uprising all they'd need now was a small amount for their muskets to defend whole beach from attack but when they checked the powder they found it was damp from the downpour [Music] maybe it's just proof of how weary they were how muddled how desperate and how amateurish in forks his absence but what happened next was foolish to the point of farce they tried to dry out the gunpowder in front of an open fire [Music] as part of the tragicomic aspect of the ghana powder conspiracy nobody actually dies one poor guy john grant's actually blinded by it because it goes straight into his eyes and the rest are charred and they're sickly but nobody's actually killed the fact that a conspiracy which sets out to block the political nation uh almost ends up by blowing itself up indicates quite this mixture of sheer madness and bungling with genuine heroism in the makeup of the ghana powder conspirators with the 17th century mentality being so extremely providentialist they saw this as a clear divine message that god had not been on their side in the powder plot that indeed god now through powder was rebuking them so all sense of that spiritual elation must have gone at that point and it was that evening that tom winter said to catesby what do we do next and kate's been made the famous remark we mean here to die kate's be clearly having come to the end of the road and seeing the plot had failed completely and maybe realizing that all along it had been an appalling mistake by the following morning november the 8th the sheriff of worcester had the house surrounded with a posse of 200 men um i'm always impressed by the the speed the rapidity with which the news gets to workshop the sheriff has his many norms um always before the the conspirators arrive the speed of the authority's reaction could imply that they are ready the final shootout is as epic as any western it is young guns all over again it is butch cassie the sundance kid as the posse literally aim their guns from the courtyard winter gets a broken arm from musketball and reels back inside the wright brothers are shot down mortally wounded catesby and percy set up a sort of joint defenses only a handful of plotters in the house and they've got the sheriff and his merry men outside hammering on the doors and the men of course are armed with muskets whereas the gunpowder plotters have on the whole just swords and it's just a question of time before they're overwhelmed catesby realizes this is it and he turns round writing his own epic to percy and says right that's it lad let's go out together and out they came and in an uncommonly good piece of shooting for the time muskets being so accurate it's clearly an accident the same musket ball actually takes them both out percy's killed i think instantaneously catesby not quite instantaneously has time to crawl away uh into a sort of chapel where there's a picture of the virgin which he clutches to himself and so dies clutching the picture of the virgin which is very appropriate for a man who whatever else you may think of him died for his faith not for him the humiliation the degrading public ceremony of execution never to the last abandoned by his sense of theater katesby had enough brains to know how to die making the finest possible end scene the ultimate catholic icon of a dying martyr [Music] from hull beach john grant and tom winter were taken to the tower tom despairing at having outlived his hero catesby was placed in the next door cell to forks and cecil had a jailer eavesdrop on their conversations within a week the others were rounded up robert winter keys bates rookwood digby france's treshum didn't last long he developed an inflammation of the urinary tract he sickened and died in his cell meanwhile news of the plot had spread to every parish in england prayers of thanksgiving hastily printed were read from every pulpit and a mood of protestant triumphalism swept the nation if the plotters had hoped to relieve the conditions of catholics in england it's entirely counterproductive one of the consequences of the plot is to produce widespread a suspicion of catholics all catholics are tied with the right of terrorism catholics are regarded as being agents of antichrist agents of the devil all sorts of demonical languages used to describe them and poor english catholics who are simply trying to maintain their faith think private uh bring up their children in in what they regard as the true religion find themselves penalized uh restricted uh harassed in all sorts of ways and demonized by their neighbours for the government the immediate need was to round up the dark forces behind the plot and for cecil that meant the jesuits catesby's confessor henry garnett hid in a priesthood for eight days before they found him he'd opposed the plot but they took him to the tower to join the others the conspirators spent the winter of 1605 here awaiting trial their confessions were extracted edited published sensational stories to feed a hungry public and so the official version of the story was born the spin is put on it very quickly i think what we're looking at is a remarkable exercise in government control of message the government got on message very very quickly the message is that god smiles on protestant steward england it's not simply that they've foiled a plot it's not simply that they have prevented an explosion what they've discovered so they say is evidence of god's active involvement in english protestant history it's part of a sequence of deliverances first of all from bloody mary queen mary who had lit human bonfires and had martyred english protestants the deliverance from that was the accession of queen elizabeth elizabeth faces the next great threat from the catholics the spanish armada and again god intervenes god blew the protestant wind the armada was scattered another miracle another deliverance and the deliverance from the gunpowder plot is is seen is interpreted is explained entirely in terms of this continuing sequence of divine intervention at last in january 1606 the conspirators were brought to trial here in westminster hall treason trials at this period they weren't so much trials as drama the only object of the prosecutor was to show up the heinous wickedness of trying to destroy gods anointed so in other words the the very horror of what they done was used by the um by the prosecutors by the state as a way of reinforcing this sense of english identity and of the sacredness of the king's person it was reported later that on the day of the trial james made a secret appearance in an upper room for him the plot came at the perfect time his early popularity was being undermined by his profligacy his porsche for favorites the plot blessed him with a divine seal of approval on which he'd draw for the rest of his reign remember remember the 5th of november but first to dispose of the conspirators a traditional traitors death it meant being tied to a hurdle and drawn by horses through the streets of london to the place of execution and the reason you were meant to be horizontal to the ground was that you weren't supposed to pollute the air that normal people were breathing you were supposed to be kept at a low level the punishment would then involve being hanged by the neck until you were not quite dead and then being cut down and then you could be either castrated or you could be disemboweled or your heart torn out and all these things symbolize that you would not live to procreate heirs who were going to be traitors and then the head was cut off and the body was divided into quarters and the quarters in the head would be displayed on spikes over gates on london bridge as an edifying example to those who might also think of committing treason the place of execution was old palace yard westminster within sight of the building they tried to destroy cecil who watched the executions was struck by their bravery he remarked how they died as they'd lived as catholics a prayer on their lips fawkes was the last to mount the scaffold weak with sickness and torture the hangman had to help him up the ladder and so died this great devil of the official version a stick with which to beat english catholics for generations to come

Channel: Real Royalty

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Id: jXrUIkZFvgg

Length: 75min 40sec (4540 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021