After my ill-usage at Paws’ [St Paul’s], I confess that I ran flat-eared until I was clear of the citie. Then I rested myself ’neath a shed before I crept cold through the fields to my house.
Once within, I sought my bed and cleansed my feet and paws.
There was no true rest for me. I had too many thoughts.
What was this blow that Picker and Stealer knew of? Would it still come? Would it hurt me?
I rose and crept about. It were All Hallow E’en. The servants supping ale by the hearth arrkst, “What troubles his lordship’s cat?” “What do he see that we cannot?”
I myself was too affrighted to take pleasure in affrighting them.
More nights passed. Had the King come? Or had he fled to a place of safetie? And what of me?
I could do nowt but gnaw my paws.
Then I began to doubt I’d gone to Paws’ and been accused of having writ a letter. Were that a horrid dream? Worser, were I a cat of distracted mind?
I was keeping watch upon our roof (cold, but safer out than in) when I saw my lord come and go in haste.
Then came sounds of excitations. I slipped inside, and learnt l was not crazie. There had been a conspiracie!
A plot to make a great clap. Like unto thunder, I guessed. But so loud as to flat parlement’s house and all houses thereabouts. And kill they that heared it close.
Sure, it would have killed me. And those cats in Paws’ Yard that delight in wickedness.
This devilish work, the like of which was never seen, was not done by forrein troublers. No.
An Englishman had been took that morn. This man’s master was a known Catlick, so he too was sought.
The Lord Mayor had been arrkst to have a care for the Spanish ambassador’s safetie, for folk might blame him for such wicked doings. In truth, the ambassador hisself would have been killed because he meant to visit parlement that day.
As night came on all the bells gave voice, and I nosed the scents of fires in the streets. That meant great rejoycings.
So free from fear was I now, I pulled a cushion from a chair and fought it fierce. None spake sharp to me.
Then, thinking on my fear, I had a new question. Why was newes of this plot so late in coming?
When next my lord came from White-Hall, I kept close by him.
Thus I learnt that Mr Secretary first thought the letter might be lies or lunatick. But he and his friends had also spake of a powder that kills folks. And of the chambers where such powder might be hid.
When the King saw the letter, he was of the same mind. They resolved not to look for powder until the night before parlement. Why?
So all the plotters’ wicked practises might be revealed.
When I thought of my paw-gnawing, and how nigh I’d come to believing myself a crazie cat, I was shamed. I knew Mr Secretary was a spyder who spins his web slow but strong.
Why had I forgot it?
Because, steel myself as I might, I was not of the metal that earls’ cats are made.
My lord loves politicks. I did not. I wished myself back in the countrie.
Harry over-estimates the force of the “blow”. He’d have been safe in Southampton House in Holborn, about a mile and a half away from parliament, though the sound would have terrified him and the cats of St Paul’s Yard.
I like the Richard Hammond documentary The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend. The historical background details aren’t the best, but the story of how an authentic “test explosion” was created and the damage it would have caused is fascinating.
It’s hard to estimate the casualties. King James put the figure at 30,000. Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 seems more likely.
The “establishment”, an elite group, always gets a mention. Parliamentary administrators, servants and attendants wouldn’t have been far away. The lords’ personal retinues, and those of other attendees, would have been in the vicinity. Then there are those who lived or worked nearby. The state records (and their minders) would have been lost. And would the streets have still been crowded with people who’d come to see the King, Queen, and their sons?
The six days from 30 October, when Harry heard of the plot, to its official discovery on 5 November must have seemed very long to him. What Harry says he later learnt from the Earl of Southampton is similar to what Robert Cecil wrote to English ambassadors overseas on 7 November (although his letters weren’t sent until 9 November)[1].
In brief, when Cecil saw the letter Lord Monteagle brought him on 26 October he thought it could well be a hoax. He was also surprised that only one Catholic lord should have received a warning. (Did he wonder if others had? If so, he kept that to himself.) He and other members of the Privy Council thought of gunpowder, and considered a search.
Delaying any action until the King’s return on 31 October sounds extremely risky, as does waiting until 4 November before taking obvious action. However, it was a calculated risk in a society much less risk averse than ours.
King James was given the credit for the plot’s discovery, as was proper. His popularity soared. Just as well. His succession had been smooth, but the honeymoon was over.
James was a Scot with unpopular Scottish retainers. He was criticized for spending too much time hunting outside London (i.e. neglecting state business). And, not content with uniting the kingdoms of Scotland and England in his royal person, he wanted one united kingdom with one parliament and legal system. Few liked that idea.
[1] Gardiner, Samuel Rawson What Gunpowder Plot Was. (Longmans 1897) p31
The Earl of Southampton's Cat 
I can see me watching another hour’s worth of telly about the plot just for the explosion. Someone, whose name I have, sadly, forgotten, has written a series of novels about what might have happened if the plot had been successful and Princess Elizabeth had been kidnapped and forced to rule. It’s an interesting idea.
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All the technicalities of constructing a medieval building for demolition and getting the right sort of gunpowder are fun.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Princess Elizabeth; she became an extraordinary woman. I think she was the brightest of James’ and Anne’s children. Though if the plot had succeeded, I think the Scottish Council would have sent an army over the border pretty smartly.
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I wonder how much support there was for the plotters. It wouldn’t have helped that, if the plot had been successful, they would have killed most of the ‘senior’ Catholics in the country in the explosion.
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True, about the ‘senior’ Catholics, though we’ll never know if there were any intending to skip parliament that day. Robert Cecil said that one of the things that made him doubt Monteagle’s letter was that it seemed odd only one Catholic lord had been warned. Surely he must have thought (but didn’t say), maybe others had been?
Possibly Monteagle (a former malcontent) had become one of Cecil’s agents and his visit was expected, but otherwise I find Cecil’s account to the ambassadors quite credible.
Such support as there was for the plotters seems to have melted away pretty quickly, but from what I remember from Jessie Childs (Gods Traitors) there was a fair amount of track-covering going on. I’ll have to read her Gunpowder chapters again.
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Yes, I was wondering how many others had been warned, but surely a man as clever and paranoid as James would have been expected to smell a huge rat if lots of Catholic lords didn’t turn up on the day.
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I wasn’t thinking lots. Maybe just a couple? They could have sent in last minute apologies for sudden illness.
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A couple, definitely.
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‘Remember, remember the fifth of November of gunpowder treason and plot. I know not no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.’ 😎😎😎😎😎
a Great movie, that is. 🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
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I used to love setting off fireworks on 5 November to celebrate the plot when I was a kid.
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Bonfire Night is celebrated everywhere here in the UK but it’s good to revisit the story every so often. This is an excellent ‘first hand’ version, described really well.
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We call it Guy Fawkes Night. It was a big event when I was a youngster. We made guys and wheeled them around the neighbourhood in carts or pushchairs, collecting pennies. In the evening we let off our fireworks. Nowadays Halloween seems to have taken its place, and its not celebrated so much. On the other hand, the large scale terrorist attacks over the last 25 years or so have given me a different perspective on the effect hearing about it must have had on people at the time, even though nothing happened.
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Yes, we used to call it Guy Fawkes night and now it’s become Bonfire Night. And we used to do the Penny for the Guy stuff. Halloween has crept in here but Bonfire Night is still huge. One of my daughters married an Irishman and lives in Ireland. They know nothing about it over there yet you’re familiar with it and so much further away.
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In 1605 the Irish were probably sorry the plot hadn’t been successful! The other thing is, it originated as a Protestant celebration, and may have had anti-Catholic undertones that had pretty much disappeared by the time we were young, when it was just a bit of fun.
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Imaging myself in the midst of such and incendiary situation (pun half-intended), I wonder how I would deport myself. I too fear that, “steel myself as I might, I [am] not of the metal that earls’ cats are made.”
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Nor me!
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