The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

Such is that part of the story told by Fawkes which concerns us at present. It is obvious that Fawkes, who, as subsequent experience shows, was no coward, had made up his mind to shield as far as possible his confederates, and to take the whole of the blame upon himself. He says, for instance, that Percy had only lain in the house for three or four days before Easter, 1605, a statement, as subsequent evidence proved, quite untrue; he pretends not to know, except from rumor and the preparation of the barge, that the King was coming to the House of Lords on the 5th, a statement almost certainly untrue. In order not to criminate others, and especially any priest, he denies having taken the sacrament on his promise, which is also untrue.

What is more noticeable is that he makes no mention of the mine, about which so much was afterward heard, evidently—so at least I read the evidence—because he did not wish to bring upon the stage those who had worked at it. If indeed the passage which I have placed in square brackets be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence upon the mine. He must have made a positive assertion—soon afterward found to be untrue—that the cellar was hired several months before it really was. This passage is, however, inserted in a different hand from the rest of the document. My own belief is that it gives a correct account of a statement made by the prisoner, but omitted by the clerk who made the copy for Coke, and inserted by some other person. Nobody that I can think of had the slightest interest in adding the words, while they are just what Fawkes might be expected to say if he wanted to lead his examiners off the scent. At all events, even if these words be left out of account, it must be admitted that Fawkes said nothing about the existence of a mine.

Though Fawkes kept silence as to the mine, he did not keep silence on the desperate character of the work on which he had been engaged. "And," runs the record, "he confesseth that when the King had come to the Parliament House this present day, and the Upper House had been sitting, he meant to have fired the match and have fled for his own safety before the powder had taken fire, and confesseth that, if he had not been apprehended this last night, he had blown up the Upper House when the King, Lords, Bishops, and others had been there, and saith that he spake for [and provided][6] those bars and crows of iron, some in one place, some in another, in London, lest it should be suspected, and saith that he had some of them in or about Gracious Street."[7] Fawkes here clearly takes the whole terrible design, with the exception of the mine, on his own shoulders.

Commissioners were now appointed to conduct the investigation further. They were: Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Worcester, Northampton, Salisbury, Mar, and Popham, with Attorney-General Coke in attendance. This was hardly a body of men who would knowingly cover an intrigue of Salisbury's. Worcester is always understood to have been professedly a Catholic; Northampton was certainly one, though he attended the King's service, while Suffolk was friendly toward the Catholics; and Nottingham, if he is no longer to be counted among them,[8] was at least not long afterward a member of the party which favored an alliance with Spain, and therefore a policy of toleration toward the Catholics.

Before five of these commissioners—Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Northampton, and Salisbury—Fawkes was examined a second time on the forenoon of the 6th. In some way the Government had found out that Percy had had a new door made in the wall leading to the cellar, and they now drew from Fawkes an untrue statement that it was put in about the middle of Lent, that is to say, early in March, 1605.[9] They had also discovered a pair of brewer's slings, by which barrels were usually carried between two men, and they pressed Fawkes hard to say who was his partner in removing the barrels of gunpowder. He began by denying that he had had a partner at all, but finally answered that "he cannot discover the party, but"—i.e., lest—"he shall bring him in question." He also said that he had forgotten where he slept on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday in the week before his arrest.