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[Illustration: Execution of Guy Fawkes]




                         GUY FAWKES

                             OR

                   THE GUNPOWDER TREASON

                  _AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE_

                             BY
                WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH


      With Illustrations on Steel by George Cruikshank


                           LONDON
              GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited

                 BROADWAY HOUSE, LUDGATE HILL




                LONDON AND COUNTY PRINTING WORKS,
                  BAZAAR BUILDINGS, LONDON, W.C.




                              TO

                           MRS. HUGHES,

                      KINGSTON LISLE, BERKS.


MY DEAR MRS. HUGHES,

You are aware that this Romance was brought to a close during my last
brief visit at Kingston Lisle, when the time necessary to be devoted to
it deprived me of the full enjoyment of your society, and, limiting my
range--no very irksome restriction,--to your own charming garden and
grounds, prevented me from accompanying you in your walks to your
favourite and beautiful downs. This circumstance, which will suffice to
give it some interest in your eyes by associating it with your
residence, furnishes me with a plea, of which I gladly avail myself, of
inscribing it with your name, and of recording, at the same time, the
high sense I entertain of your goodness and worth, the value I set upon
your friendship,--a friendship shared in common with some of the most
illustrious writers of our time,--and the gratitude I shall never cease
to feel for attentions and kindnesses, little less than maternal, which
I have experienced at your hands.

In the hope that you may long continue to diffuse happiness round your
own circle, and contribute to the instruction and delight of the many
attached friends with whom you maintain so active and so interesting a
correspondence; and that you may live to see your grandsons fulfil their
present promise, and tread in the footsteps of their high-minded and
excellent-hearted father,--and of _his_ father! I remain

                    Your affectionate and obliged friend,

                           W. HARRISON AINSWORTH.



      KENSAL MANOR HOUSE, HARROW ROAD,
              _July 26, 1841_.




PREFACE.


The tyrannical measures adopted against the Roman Catholics in the early
part of the reign of James the First, when the severe penal enactments
against recusants were revived, and with additional rigour, and which
led to the remarkable conspiracy about to be related, have been so
forcibly and faithfully described by Doctor Lingard,[1] that the
following extract from his history will form a fitting introduction to
the present work.

"The oppressive and sanguinary code framed in the reign of Elizabeth,
was re-enacted to its full extent, and even improved with additional
severities. Every individual who had studied or resided, or should
afterwards study or reside in any college or seminary beyond the sea,
was rendered incapable of inheriting, or purchasing, or enjoying lands,
annuities, chattels, debts, or sums of money, within the realm; and as
missionaries sometimes eluded detection under the disguise of tutors, it
was provided that no man should teach even the rudiments of grammar in
public or in private, without the previous approbation of the diocesan.

"The execution of the penal laws enabled the king, by an ingenious
comment, to derive considerable profit from his past forbearance. It was
pretended that he had never forgiven the penalties of recusancy; he had
merely forbidden them to be exacted for a time, in the hope that this
indulgence would lead to conformity; but his expectations had been
deceived; the obstinacy of the Catholics had grown with the lenity of
the sovereign; and, as they were unworthy of further favour, they should
now be left to the severity of the law. To their dismay, the legal fine
of twenty pounds per lunar month was again demanded, and not only for
the time to come, but for the whole period of the suspension; a demand
which, by crowding thirteen payments into one, reduced many families of
moderate incomes to a state of absolute beggary. Nor was this all. James
was surrounded by numbers of his indigent countrymen. Their habits were
expensive, their wants many, and their importunities incessant. To
satisfy the more clamorous, a new expedient was devised. The king
transferred to them his claims on some of the more opulent recusants,
against whom they were at liberty to proceed by law, in his name, unless
the sufferers should submit to compound, by the grant of an annuity for
life, or the immediate payment of a considerable sum. This was at a time
when the jealousies between the two nations had reached a height, of
which, at the present day, we have but little conception. Had the money
been carried to the royal coffers, the recusants would have had
sufficient reason to complain; but that Englishmen should be placed by
their king at the mercy of foreigners, that they should be stripped of
their property to support the extravagance of his Scottish minions, this
added indignity to injustice, exacerbated their already wounded
feelings, and goaded the most moderate almost to desperation." From this
deplorable state of things, which is by no means over- in the
above description, sprang the Gunpowder Plot.

The county of Lancaster has always abounded in Catholic families, and at
no period were the proceedings of the ecclesiastical commissioners more
rigorous against them than at that under consideration. Manchester, "the
Goshen of this Egypt," as it is termed by the fiery zealot, Warden
Heyrick, being the place where all the recusants were imprisoned, the
scene of the early part of this history has been laid in that town and
its immediate neighbourhood. For the introduction of the munificent
founder of the Blue Coat Hospital into a tale of this description I
ought, perhaps, to apologize; but if I should succeed by it in arousing
my fellow-townsmen to a more lively appreciation of the great benefits
they have derived from him, I shall not regret what I have written.

In Viviana Radcliffe I have sought to portray the loyal and devout
Catholic, such as I conceive the character to have existed at the
period. In Catesby, the unscrupulous and ambitious plotter, masking his
designs under the cloak of religion. In Garnet, the subtle, and yet
sincere Jesuit. And in Fawkes the gloomy and superstitious enthusiast.
One doctrine I have endeavoured to enforce throughout,--TOLERATION.

From those who have wilfully misinterpreted one of my former
productions, and have attributed to it a purpose and an aim utterly
foreign to my own intentions, I can scarcely expect fairer treatment for
the present work. But to that wider and more discriminating class of
readers from whom I have experienced so much favour and support, I
confidently commit this volume, certain of meeting with leniency and
impartiality.

[1] Vide _History of England_, vol. ix. New Edition.




CONTENTS.

                                                                 PAGE

 DEDICATION                                                        iii

 PREFACE                                                             v


                      Book the First.

                         THE PLOT.

 CHAPTER

   I.   AN EXECUTION IN MANCHESTER, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
         SEVENTEENTH CENTURY                                         1

  II.   ORDSALL CAVE                                                10

 III.   ORDSALL HALL                                                12

  IV.   THE SEARCH                                                  26

   V.   CHAT MOSS                                                   31

  VI.   THE DISINTERMENT                                            49

  VII.  DOCTOR DEE                                                  50

 VIII.  THE MAGIC GLASS                                             56

   IX.  THE PRISON ON SALFORD BRIDGE                                62

    X.  THE FATE OF THE PURSUIVANT                                  66

   XI.  THE PILGRIMAGE TO SAINT WINIFRED'S WELL                     71

  XII.  THE VISION                                                  83

 XIII.  THE CONSPIRATORS                                            87

  XIV.  THE PACKET                                                  98

   XV.  THE ELIXIR                                                 105

  XVI.  THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH AT MANCHESTER                        115

 XVII.  THE RENCOUNTER                                             129

 XVIII. THE EXPLANATION                                            131

   XIX. THE DISCOVERY                                              133

    XX. THE DEPARTURE FROM THE HALL                                139


                        Book the Second.

                         THE DISCOVERY.

     I. THE LANDING OF THE POWDER                                  147

    II. THE TRAITOR                                                156

   III. THE ESCAPE PREVENTED                                       163

    IV. THE MINE                                                   169

     V. THE CAPTURE OF VIVIANA                                     179

    VI. THE CELLAR                                                 187

   VII. THE STAR-CHAMBER                                           195

  VIII. THE JAILER'S DAUGHTER                                      198

    IX. THE COUNTERPLOT                                            212

    X. WHITE WEBBS                                                 220

    XI. THE MARRIAGE IN THE FOREST                                 228

   XII. THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER                                      237

  XIII. THE FLIGHT OF THE CONSPIRATORS                             245

   XIV. THE EXAMINATION                                            255


                        Book the Third.

                       THE CONSPIRATORS.

     I. HOW GUY FAWKES WAS PUT TO THE TORTURE                      262

    II. SHOWING THE TROUBLES OF VIVIANA                            274

   III. HUDDINGTON                                                 278

    IV. HOLBEACH                                                   292

     V. THE CLOSE OF THE REBELLION                                 294

    VI. HAGLEY                                                     304

   VII. VIVIANA'S LAST NIGHT AT ORDSALL HALL                       313

  VIII. HENDLIP                                                    319

    IX. WHITEHALL                                                  327

     X. THE PARTING OF VIVIANA AND HUMPHREY CHETHAM                331

    XI. THE SUBTERRANEAN DUNGEON                                   332

   XII. THE TRAITOR BETRAYED                                       336

  XIII. THE TRIAL                                                  341

   XIV. THE LAST MEETING OF FAWKES AND VIVIANA                     344

    XV. SAINT PAUL'S CHURCHYARD                                    347

   XVI. OLD PALACE YARD                                            352

  XVII. THE LAST EXECUTION                                         355




GUY FAWKES.




Book the First.

THE PLOT.

      Their searches are many and severe. They come either in the night
      or early in the morning, and ever seek their opportunity, when the
      Catholics are or would be best occupied, or are likely to be worse
      provided or look for nothing. They willingliest come when few are
      at home to resist them, that they may rifle coffers, and do what
      they list. They lock up the servants, and the mistress of the
      house, and the whole family, in a room by themselves, while they,
      like young princes, go rifling the house at their will.

                            _Letter to Vers'egan, ap. Stonyhurst MSS._

      What a thing is it for a Catholic gentleman to have his house
      suddenly beset on all sides with a number of men in arms, both
      horse and foot! and not only his house and gardens, and such
      enclosed places all beset, but all highways laid, for some miles
      near unto him, that none shall pass, but they shall be examined!
      Then are these searchers oft-times so rude and barbarous, that, if
      the doors be not opened in the instant they would enter, they
      break open the doors with all violence, as if they were to sack a
      town of enemies won by the sword.

                                              _Father Gerard's MS._




CHAPTER I.

AN EXECUTION IN MANCHESTER, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.


More than two hundred and thirty-five years ago, or, to speak with
greater precision, in 1605, at the latter end of June, it was rumoured
one morning in Manchester that two seminary priests, condemned at the
late assizes under the severe penal enactments then in force against the
<DW7>s, were about to suffer death on that day. Attracted by the
report, large crowds flocked towards the place of execution, which, in
order to give greater solemnity to the spectacle, had been fixed at the
southern gate of the old Collegiate Church, where a scaffold was
erected. Near it was a large blood-stained block, the use of which will
be readily divined, and adjoining the block, upon a heap of blazing
coals, smoked a caldron filled with boiling pitch, intended to receive
the quarters of the miserable sufferers.

The place was guarded by a small band of soldiers, fully accoutred in
corslets and morions, and armed with swords, half-pikes, and calivers.
Upon the steps of the scaffold stood the executioner,--a square-built,
ill-favoured personage, busied in arranging a bundle of straw upon the
boards. He was dressed in a buff jerkin, and had a long-bladed,
two-edged knife thrust into his girdle. Besides these persons, there was
a pursuivant,--an officer appointed by the Privy Council to make search
throughout the provinces for recusants, Popish priests, and other
religious offenders. He was occupied at this moment in reading over a
list of suspected persons.

Neither the executioner nor his companions appeared in the slightest
degree impressed by the butcherly business about to be enacted; for the
former whistled carelessly as he pursued his task, while the latter
laughed and chatted with the crowd, or jestingly pointed their
matchlocks at the jackdaws wheeling above them in the sunny air, or
perching upon the pinnacles and tower of the neighbouring fane. Not so
the majority of the assemblage. Most of the older and wealthier families
in Lancashire still continuing to adhere to the ancient faith of their
fathers, it will not be wondered that many of their dependents should
follow their example. And, even of those who were adverse to the creed
of Rome, there were few who did not murmur at the rigorous system of
persecution adopted towards its professors.

At nine o'clock, the hollow rolling of a muffled drum was heard at a
distance. The deep bell of the church began to toll, and presently
afterwards the mournful procession was seen advancing from the
market-place. It consisted of a troop of mounted soldiers, equipped in
all respects like those stationed at the scaffold, with their captain at
their head, and followed by two of their number with hurdles attached to
their steeds, on which were tied the unfortunate victims. Both were
young men--both apparently prepared to meet their fate with firmness and
resignation. They had been brought from Radcliffe Hall--an old moated
and fortified mansion belonging to a wealthy family of that name,
situated where the close, called Pool Fold, now stands, and then
recently converted into a place of security for recusants; the two other
prisons in Manchester--namely, the New Fleet on Hunt's Bank, and the
gaol on Salford Bridge,--not being found adequate to the accommodation
of the numerous religious offenders.

By this time, the cavalcade had reached the place of execution. The
soldiers drove back the throng with their pikes, and cleared a space in
front of the scaffold; when, just as the cords that bound the limbs of
the priests were unfastened, a woman in a tattered woollen robe, with a
hood partially drawn over her face,--the features of which, so far as
they could be discerned, were sharp and attenuated,--a rope girded round
her waist, bare feet, and having altogether the appearance of a sister
of Charity, sprang forward, and flung herself on her knees beside them.

Clasping the hem of the garment of the nearest priest, she pressed it to
her lips, and gazed earnestly at him, as if imploring a blessing.

"You have your wish, daughter," said the priest, extending his arms over
her. "Heaven and our lady bless you!"

The woman then turned towards the other victim, who was audibly reciting
the _Miserere_.

"Back, spawn of Antichrist!" interposed a soldier, rudely thrusting her
aside. "Don't you see you disturb the father's devotions? He has enough
to do to take care of his own soul, without minding yours."

"Take this, daughter," cried the priest who had been first addressed,
offering her a small volume, which he took from his vest, "and fail not
to remember in your prayers the sinful soul of Robert Woodroofe, a
brother of the order of Jesus."

The woman put out her hand to take the book; but before it could be
delivered to her, it was seized by the soldier.

"Your priests have seldom anything to leave behind them," he shouted,
with a brutal laugh, "except some worthless and superstitious relic of a
saint or martyr. What's this? Ah! a breviary--a mass-book. I've too much
regard for your spiritual welfare to allow you to receive it," he added,
about to place it in his doublet.

"Give it her," exclaimed a young man, snatching it from him, and handing
it to the woman, who disappeared as soon as she had obtained possession
of it.

The soldier eyed the new-comer as if disposed to resent the
interference, but a glance at his apparel, which, though plain, and of a
sober hue, was rather above the middle class, as well as a murmur from
the crowd, who were evidently disposed to take part with the young man,
induced him