POWDER PLOT. - A conspiracy to blow up, on Nov. 5, 1605, the English Parliament and with its members also King James I. Motive: the long and unbearable vexations and persecutions suffered by Catholics from Henry VIII onward, which had resumed under James I, contrary to the promise he had made, on ascending the throne, to put an end to them.
Various English nobles took part in it under the leadership of Robert Catesby, first in league with John Wright and Robert Winter, to whom were later added Guy Fawkes, Thomas Winter, Francis Tresham, Thomas Percy, Everard Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, Robert Keyes and John Grant. On Dec. 11, 1604, having first rented a house near the Palace of Westminster, they began to build a gallery as far as a main wall of the Parliament, piercing it halfway; then, having interrupted this work in order to take advantage of a cellar directly beneath a hall of the Palace, they brought into it 36 barrels of powder, hiding them under a pile of wood and coal. Once the work was completed, the conspirators separated to await the opening of Parliament, which was postponed until Nov. 5, 1605.
On Oct. 28, Lord Monteagle was warned by one of the conspirators, a certain Tresham, his relative, not to go to Parliament on Nov. 5 in order to avoid serious dangers. Probably Tresham wanted, by this, to avoid condemnation for himself and to give the conspirators time to save themselves by fleeing. The government, having been informed, did not move, nor did it order the search until Nov. 4. During the night of Nov. 5, Fawkes was arrested near the cellar with the fuse in his pocket; the accomplices had time to flee to Holbeche, where however they were pursued; on Nov. 8, Catesby, Percy and Wright fell killed on the spot; the others, captured, taken to London and tried, were executed, some on Jan. 30 and some on Jan. 31, 1606.
The first official news of the discovered conspiracy came only on Nov. 7, from a report by Robert Cecil, which, revised and enlarged, reappeared two days later with the title: A True and Perfect Relation of Whole Proceedings against the late and Barbarous Traitors. This, with the addition of the king's speech to Parliament, of some testimonies of the conspirators and some new modifications, came out in a 3rd ed. the following March with the title of King's Book. The government's "true and perfect relation" however contains strident contradictions and falsehoods, and, in the judgment even of cultured Protestants beyond all suspicion (cf. Enc. Britannica, XII, 11th ed., 1910, p. 729) is full of implausibilities (e.g., the transport of the material from the excavation and of the 36 barrels of powder without anyone noticing; the absence of any trace of the mine driven underground, etc.). By now it may be considered demonstrated that the government had for some time been aware of the conspiracy and pretended not to notice it, letting things proceed to the point of making the discovery more sensational and its exploitation easier for its persecutory aims. The relation, in fact, with its tendentiousness, with its skillful falsifications of details and signatures, with arbitrary additions and modifications, ends by making the Papacy appear responsible for the conspiracy, declared a " mysterium iniquitatis " and its "accursed doctrines." The executors of Rome's wishes and instigators of the conspiracy would have been, according to the indictment of Jan. 26, 1606, the three Jesuits: Henry Garnet, provincial, Oswald Greenway, John Gerard. The names had been brought up in the course of the trial by Thomas Bates alone, who however had set forth no fact that had the appearance of an accusation; nevertheless the government thereafter always spoke of the participation of priests and of the Pope as of something long meditated. The order to arrest the three Jesuits came on Jan. 15, 1606; but they succeeded in taking only Garnet, on Jan. 30; the other two had been able to flee to the continent. The accusation against them is contrary to all historical truth. Gerard, in fact, had simply celebrated Mass and distributed communion to the conspirators, who earlier, in another room, by themselves, had sworn to keep it secret; Fr. Greenway had, at a certain point in the course of the conspiracy, learned clearly the intentions of the conspirators from Catesby, but in confession, and had turned for explanations to Fr. Garnet, with the penitent's permission, but always under the sacramental seal. Garnet, then, uneasy, from well before, about the course of things regarding the patience of endurance of Catholics, had several times warned Rome, asking for clarifications, had always sought to make peace and had obtained from Rome a letter to him and to archpriest Blackwell, in which the Pope implored them to prevent by every means a revolt of Catholics. Catesby, warned of this, at first showed himself displeased, observing that if the Pope had known how things stood he would have spoken otherwise; he yielded however to the promise to do nothing until the Pope, informed by a trusted messenger, had decided on the course to take to put an end to the persecution. But the messenger, a certain Baitham, was slow to arrive and in the meantime things came to a head. The only fault that can be reproached to Fr. Garnet is that he could have and, notwithstanding Catesby's promises, should have warned, on the basis of what he and others also knew and which was completely outside any sacramental secret, the government in a general way and put it on guard against the danger of a violent undertaking. Garnet himself, in fact, a few days before his death (he was hanged as guilty of high treason at Tyburn in London on May 3, 1606) understood that he should have shown himself more resolute and in this sense wrote a letter to the king, in which he asks his pardon for this his only fault.
But the account given by the government spared nothing in order to reach its goal of oppressing Catholics and suppressing the Roman Church; therefore the persecution became more violent and the legislation more draconian; thus increasing the number of martyrs.
In conclusion it must be held that the essential features of the "true relation" are certain (cf. O. Pfüll, Die Controverse über die Pulververschwörung, in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, 56 [1869], pp. 41-57, 142-57, 286-99) and that therefore the intention on the part of some Catholics to blow up Parliament did exist and that an attempt was also made to carry it out; to what extent, however, the conspirators arrived in their undertaking will perhaps remain forever a mystery.