The general details of the plot are of course well known: a group of Catholics led by Robert Catesby planned to assassinate James VI along with the entire House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament on 5th November 1605, as a prelude to a popular revolt in the Midlands during which James’ nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth would be installed as a puppet head of state. The plot was revealed to the authorities when an anonymous letter was sent to the Catholic peer William Parker, Lord Monteagle warning him not to attend the Parliament. Monteagle took the letter to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury and Secretary of State, and during a search of the House of Lords at about midnight on 4th November, Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder in the undercroft directly beneath the Great Hall. Most of the other conspirators fled London when they learned the plot had been discovered and they were subsequently either killed or arrested after a shootout at Holbeche House near Worcester. The surviving conspirators were tried, convicted and executed in January 1606.

The crucial Monteagle letter was anonymous and its author has never been known with certaintly but it is most often thought to have been the conspirator Francis Tresham. Tresham was not one of the original conspirators when Catesby first recruited his friends for the plot, but became involved only in early October 1605 when the plans were being further developed, not just to assassinate the King and his government, but also to incite a general insurrection. By this time the plotters were running low on funds and so Tresham was approached as he was wealthy and had contacts amongst other wealthy Catholic nobles. But when he was recruited to the plot Tresham voiced his concerns about the loss of innocent lives, in particular that of William Parker, Lord Monteagle, who was married to his sister. Accordingly it is widely assumed it was Tresham who wrote (or had someone write) to Monteagle. That the warning letter came from Francis Tresham was also the opinion of the other conspirators when questioned after their arrest, as well as of the Jesuit priest Father Henry Garnet, who became involved in the plot through the confessional.

The official version of the story, as published by the Government of the time, states that on the evening of 26th October one of Monteagle’s servants brought him a letter that he said had just been handed to him in the street outside the house by an unknown man. Monteagle opened the letter, and "perceiving the same to be an unknown and somewhat unlegible hand, and without either date or subscription, called one of his men to help him read it."  He was uncertain as to the letter’s meaning but realised it was important and so, "notwithstanding the lateness of the hour and darkness of the night in that season of the year", went straight to Whitehall and gave it to Cecil.

The letter, which is now held in the National Archives, reads:
"My Lord out of loue I beare; to some of youere frends I haue a caer of youer preseruacion therfor I would aduyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to deuyse some excuse to shifte of youer attendance at this parliament for god and man hathe concurred to punishe the wickedness of this tyme and thinke not slightlye of this aduertisement but retyre youre self into youre contri wheare yowe maye expect the euent in safti for thowghe theare be no appearance of anni stir yet I save they shall receyue a terrible blowe this parliament and yet they shall not sei who hurts them this cowncel is not to be contemned because it maye do yowe good and can do yowe no harme for the dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter and i hope god will give yowe the grace to make good use of it to whose holy proteccion I commend yowe"

But did Tresham write it?  He wasn’t one of the original core conspiartors being the last recruited only 3 weeks before the final date for the opening of parliament and when the plot was out-lined to him he begged them not to go through with it. Catesbey eventually argued him round saying "a great sickness required so sharp a remedy", nevertheless Tresham continued to voice his uncertainty. Tresham’s money and connections were useful to Catesby but he was perhaps too well connected as he had friends and relations in Parliament and had considerably more to lose than the other conspirators. But why would he write a letter when all he needed to do was go to Monteagle, his brother-in-law and just tell him it wasn’t a good idea to go to the opening of parliament?

Was the letter perhaps written by Tresham’s wife (Monteagle's wife's sister) or the wife of another of the conspirators? Despite all the conspirators being sworn to secrecy it seems that at least some of their wives were aware that a that a plot was being hatched and had voiced their concerns. The women were unlikely to be able to go directly to Monteagle in person, alone and in secret, and so a letter might have been the only way to get the message to him.

Did Monteagle write it? He was from a Catholic family but was an ambitious man keen to play the Protestant card in public to further his own career. Nevertheless as a catholic peer he may well have heard on the recusant grapevine about the plot, and so had seen an opportunity for gain by a act of loyalty to the state. Although he claimed not to understand the letter at all, he nevertheless made sure it went directly into the hand of Cecil.

Was it perhaps written by Cecil? Cecil was secretary of state, the second most important person in that land after the king and head of the intelligence network charged with keeping a close eye on all of England’s Catholics. The official account says that when Monteagle handed over the letter with its description that the opening of parliament would suffer "a terrible blowe", Cecil was apparently completely non-plussed. However it is fairly clear that Cecil had known for weeks in advance that something was afoot, and there is a some evidence that he may even have had an informer amongst the family or servants of at least one of the plotters.

Cecil sat on the letter for five days before showing it to the King on the 1st November. Again the  official version says that while Cecil still professed to be baffled by the letter, James, 'the wisest fool in Christendom', immediately understood its import, guessed that it referred to the intended use of gunpowder, and ordered a search of Whitehall. James thus took the credit for solving the riddle and by his God-given wisdom saved the lives of his subjects as well as himself. (The official narrative, clearly stage-managed for posterity, actually has James ordering a second search after the first one failed to find anything amiss, despite Cecil himself having seen Guy Fawkes in the cellar directly under the Great Hall yet still supposedly unable to put two and two together).

So was it perhaps written on the instructions of James VI himself ? …  as a cunning plan to bolster his reputation - especially amongst Protestants who felt that to date he’d been too lenient with the Catholics - and so strengthen his position on what was essentially for him, a foreign throne?

Or, did Cecil, either with or without James’ knowledge, devise the whole of the Gunpowder conspiracy himself as a means to entrap all the most fanatical Catholics in the country, or for propaganda purposes and ultimately to get the King and Parliament to enact more stridently anti-Catholic legislation?

Meles meles wrote:

So was it perhaps written on the instructions of James VI himself ? …  as a cunning plan to bolster his reputation

This seems quite likely. I'm trying to think of any other 'assassination by blowing up with gunpowder' from the era in either the British Isles or on the European mainland. The only one I can think of involved the death of James' father, Lord Darnley nearly 40 years earlier in Edinburgh. Even then his death doesn't seem to have been directly attributable to the explosion. The concept of an assassination plot involving gunpowder, however, must surely have been seared into the mind of James who consequently grew up without a father being only 6 months old at the time of Darnley's death.

Vizzer wrote:

I'm trying to think of any other 'assassination by blowing up with gunpowder' from the era in either the British Isles or on the European mainland. The only one I can think of involved the death of James' father, Lord Darnley ...

There was also a plot in 1537 devised by the Italian condottierro, Leone Strozzi (the Strozzi were bitter rivals of the Medici) to kill both the Duke of Florence, Cosimo de Medici, and Andrea Doria (the Genoese admiral and an ally of the Medici), when they were on board a ship. The plan was to blow the vessel up using a time bomb ignited by a clockwork mechanism. A priest, Fra Paolo del Rosso who was a kinsman of the Strozzi, had offered to carry out the assassination for financial reward. But he took the money (which he soon gambled away), didn't place the bomb, and ran off to hide from both the Medici and the Strozzi, in Rome. Unfortunately for him the Medici maintained an effective network of spies in the Papal city and they soon got word of the failed assassination attempt. Despite the animosity between Florence and Rome Cosimo managed to persuade Pope Julius II to arrest and then extradite Rosso. Once in Florence, Rosso, to avoid torture immediately made a very thorough confession ... so thorough in fact that his inquisitors thought he might be lying, and so tortured him anyway just to make sure he was telling the truth. And it is from this long, thorough confession that all the mechanical details of the clockwork timer attached to a wheel-lock pistol attached to a cask of gunpowder are known: it probably would have worked if it had ever been put onboard the ship.

Incidentally, as true renaissance men, Paolo del Rosso's Florentine inquisitors tortured him through the "sytematic use of the four elements" (their words), of air, fire, water and earth, in that order ... but I'll leave the details to your imagination. Rosso did however survive the ordeal and was condemned to life imprisonment in the castle of Pisa.

As a means of assassination gunpowder does seem to have been rather hit-and-miss. Poison seems to have been the preferred method if one hoped to have any chance of getting away with it, and whenever someone of rank died unexpectedly there was always the suspicion of poison. But again getting the fatal potion into the right person's meal, while avoiding the scrutiny of courtiers, servants and food-tasters, was never easy. Shooting and stabbing were generally more certain, except that the assassin, even if successful, usually got caught and so themselves died horribly (and as a suitable warning ... while the fate of convicted regicides was never pleasant, that of Balthazar Gerardts who fatally shot William the Silent of the Netherlands in 1584 was particulaly nasty).

Vizzer wrote:

Meles meles wrote:

So was it perhaps written on the instructions of James VI himself ? …  as a cunning plan to bolster his reputation

This seems quite likely.....

Whether he was in some way managing the conspiracy itself (including perhaps leaking the info by means of the Monteagle letter), James "the wisest fool in Christendom" was certainly very canny in his handling of the plot and in getting the most benefit from it. Such was the mood in the country that when Parliament successfully opened, instead of niggardly refusing him funds as they had consistently done ever since his coming to the throne, they promptly voted him higher subsidies than any granted in Elizabeth's reign. He also cleverly insisted that the plot had been the work of only a few Catholics, not of the English Catholics as a whole, thereby winning Catholic loyalty, while still having cause to investigate and harshly root out all traces of Catholic subversion.

Furthermore he put on it the spin that his and Parliament's survival was clearly a divine miracle, thereby reinforcing that he was king by divine right. This was a line that also played well with foreign monarchs who were also appeased by his astute emphasis that the plot had not been the work of Catholics as a whole but by just a few heretical subversives. Catholic foreign powers, like France, Spain and even the Papacy, hurried to distance themselves from the plot itself and from supporting - even tacitly - any similar actions in the future.

I still feel that even if the plot was not actually devised by James and Cecil between them, then at least their intelligence and information was so good that they were effectively in control of the situation as it developed. Cecil almost certainly had informers in the households of some of those involved. The single fact that the Sheriff of Worcestershire with a squad of militia arrived at Holbeche House early on 8 November, just hours after the conspirators own panicky and unplanned arrival there, rather suggests that Cecil knew more than just the general idea of the plot. I suspect Cecil already had detailed knowledge of names, associates, accomplices, safe-houses, back-up plans and timings ... and had a warrants and riders ready for depatch immediately the plot was revealed (early on November 5) at which time Guy Fawkes was the only one arrested and he wasn't to give out any information for several more days.

Gunpowder was a "hit-and-miss" form of assassination, but it was an excellent way of causing general panic; and panic amongst the population often leads to a longing for strong and effective government. People who feel threatened always want someone "in authority" to take control of a situation. Sighs of relief all round when it is seen that "something is being done".

Cecil's father, the great William Cecil, knew all about the plot to assassinate Darnley - long before most of the others implicated in the affair did. But that's another story.

I rather agree with MM that both Cecil Jr. and James had learnt a lot from the events of 1567.

Temperance wrote:

Cecil's father, the great William Cecil, knew all about the plot to assassinate Darnley - long before most of the others implicated in the affair did. But that's another story.

I have a vague memory that one of the many plots to kill Elizabeth had intended to blow her up with gunpowder when she was staying at a country house ... but I can't seem to find anything, so maybe I'm wrong.

You are also dead right about the terror affect of a big explosion, and the Gunpowder Plot was not just one to assassinate the King but to create such mayhem and paralysis in Governement that they believed they could take control of the country.

But it was all rather a hare-brained scheme. While Robert Catesby was by all accounts a very charismatic chap, well able to inspire more sensible folk to follow him on his rash death-or-glory mission, it still all reeked of blind religious fundamentalism. And religious fundamentalism of the most dangerous kind where, as Catesby himself said when it was pointed out that there would be a lot of innocent casualties, "a great sickness required so sharp a remedy", and that any Catholics who died would be received into heaven as martyrs (where have I heard that more recently?!). By all accounts when the priest Father Gerard heard of the plot (through the privacy of the confessional) he was horrified and begged Catesby not to go through with the plan ... and Gerard was a senior Jesuit, an order not particularly noted at the time for its religious toleration or squeamishness. Similarly when confronted by problems, such as how to get a ton of gunpowder secretly into Parliament, Catesby's response was that God would provide a way, and when by luck a solution presented itself, it was taken as a sign that they were indeed following God's will. The flip side to this blind faith is that once the plot was discovered and was clearly failing, they all simply caved-in, in the face of God's obvious displeasure. Again all Cecil had to do was give them enough rope and leave them to hang themselves.

The conspirators - with the sole exception of Guy Fawkes, the professional soldier and explosives expert - come across as naive, rather foolish, idealistic hot-heads, with little practical ability or common-sense ... I mean who in their right mind would dry out wet gunpowder by spreading it out in front of an open fire? But sadly their type are still being recruited today to fight, kill and die for extreme religious ideologies.

This has turned up in Aberdeen City Archives, a wanted poster for Thomas Percy:

That is interesting, Trike, as it is dated the 5th November ... at which time only Guy Fawkes had been apprehended (late in the evening of the 4th) but he did not divulge any names or details of the plot until he was questioned under torture between the 6th and the 8th. However when the cellars were first searched on the 4th Fawkes had claimed as his explanation of why he was loitering there so late at night, that he was called John Johnson and that he was a servant of Thomas Percy, who had the lease of the cellar. Accordingly I presume that is why the warrant is for Thomas Percy alone, as at that stage, although Cecil probably had a good idea of who else was involved, he had little evidence.

But it does seem fairly certain that Cecil already had quite a good idea of the prime suspects. Ambrose Rookwood's house was searched and his servants questioned just the next day, on the 6th, and by that evening the Lord Chief Justice had managed to obtain all the principal names and where they had fled to - a list that was confirmed on the 8th when Fawkes finally cracked under torture. But by that time the plot had already been thoroughly crushed by the shoot-out at Holbeche House (at about midday on the 8th).

Cecil and James VI moved with such speed and confidence it suggests to me that they already had a very good idea of all the plot details. In particular they managed to get word to the Sheriff of Worcester by the evening of the 7th - which was about the same time that the fugitives themselves finally arrived at Holbeche house having ridden hard all the way from London (about 180 miles distant by road). This alone implies that Cecil knew of the plotters' destination and so was able to very quickly send a despatch rider to Worcestershire - with a signed arrest warrant and details of where the conspirators were likely to be found - indeed the government courier may well have been sent on his way even before the authorities had extracted the information from Rookwood's servants. I reckon Cecil and James, for all their professed surprise at the plot, largely knew what was planned and were just giving the conspirators enough latitude to let them thoroughly implicate themselves.

This is from the wiki entry on the Gunpowder Plot; added because it ties in with Witchcraft thread:

The playwright William Shakespeare had already used the family history of Northumberland's family in his Henry IV series of plays, and the events of the Gunpowder Plot seem to have featured alongside the earlier Gowrie conspiracy in Macbeth, written some time between 1603 and 1607. Interest in the demonic was heightened by the Gunpowder Plot. The King had become engaged in the great debate about other-worldly powers in writing his Daemonology in 1597, before he became King of England as well as Scotland. Inversions seen in such lines as "fair is foul and foul is fair" are used frequently, and another possible reference to the plot relates to the use of equivocation; Garnett's A Treatise of Equivocation was found on one of the plotters.

The confession of Guy Fawkes:

Guido's signature before and after torture:

Holbeche House - I drove past it this morning on my way to a funeral - it's less than 2 miles away.