5
November 1605 A.D. Gunpowder Plot: Guy
Fawkes Letter on Sale for £60,000
Reynolds, Mark.
“Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot letter on sale for £60,000.” The
Express. 5 Nov 2014. http://www.express.co.uk/news/history/531458/Guy-Fawkes-gunpowder-plot-letter-sale-60000. Accessed 5
Nov 2014.
Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot letter on sale for £60,000
THE earliest known account of Guy Fawkes' notorious gunpowder plot has emerged for sale 409 years to the day of the failed attempt to wipe out the entire English political class.
By: Mark Reynolds
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Published: Wed, November 5, 2014
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GETTY
Conspirator Guy Fawkes (1570 - 1606) attempts to
plant gunpowder in the cellar of Westminster
The details of the plan were revealed by Robert
Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, one of King James I's most trusted advisers and a
key figure in bringing down the plot.
Cecil described the bold plot to assassinate James
I and his parliament to Sir Ralph Winwood, the English ambassador at The Hague,
in a letter written on November 9, 1605.
He wrote: “It hath pleased Almighty God, out of his
singular goodness, to bring to light, the most cruell and detestable practise,
against the person of His Majesty, and the whole estate of this realme, that
ever was conceaved by the hart of man.”
The plot, he said, “intended, not onely the extirpation
of the kings Ma[jes]ty, and his Issue Royal but the whole subversion and
downfall of this Estate, the plott being to take away, at an instant, the King,
Queen, Prince, Counsell, Nobility, Clergie, Judges, and the principall
gentlemen of this Realme, as they should have been assembled together at the
Parliament house in Westminster, the Fifth of November, being Tuesday last.”
He revealed: “The means how to have compassed so
great a dareing, was not by force of men, or outward violence, but by a secret
conveying of a great quantity of Gunpowder into Vault under the Upperhouse of
Parliament, and so to have blown up all, at a clapp, if God, out of his mercy,
and his just revenge, against so great an abomination, had not destined it, to
be discovered, though very miraculously, evensome twelve hours before the
matter should have been put into execution.”
Four days earlier Fawkes, part of a gang of English
Catholics who wanted to see a Catholic King returned to the throne, had been
arrested guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder hidden directly underneath the House
of Lords.
Led by Robert Catesby, the gang had intended on
detonating the gunpowder thus killing the King and his Parliament on the day of
its opening.
His lifeless body was then quartered and the body parts
were put on display as a warning to other would-be traitors
But just days before the plot was due to be
executed William Parker, Lord Monteagle, received an anonymous letter warning
him not to attend that day.
Loyal to the King, Lord Monteagle took the letter
to Cecil, James I's appointed 'spymaster', and a search of the House of Lords
was ordered for November 4.
Fawkes, posing as caretaker John Johnson, was
discovered with matches and fuses shortly before 36 barrels of gunpowder were
found.
Cecil described in the six-page letter how on his
arrest Fawkes was “no more dismayed then if he weare taken for a poore
robberye, by the highe waye”.
But after two days of interrogation and torture in
the Tower of London Fawkes finally gave up information about the plot.
In January 1606 he and seven other plotters were
found guilty of high treason at trial. Fawkes was due to be hanged on January
31 but as he climbed the ladder onto the gallows he fell, broke his neck and
died.
His lifeless body was then quartered and the body
parts were put on display as a warning to other would-be traitors.
James I then passed a law allowing the foiling of
the plot to be remembered by the burning of bonfires, a tradition that has
remained for the past 400 years.
Cecil's letter has been owned by the Harcourt
family since the late 19th.
It is tipped to fetch £60,000 when it goes under
the hammer at London auction house Sotheby's.
Gabriel Heaton, an expert from Sotheby's, said:
“This letter was written just days after the discovery of Guy Fawkes guarding
barrels of gunpowder in the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.
“He had been interrogated for a couple of days and
the letter contains information he had given up.
“When Cecil had written the letter the remaining plotters
had yet to be captured but by the time it was sent they had either been
captured or killed and Cecil added a postscript with the breaking news.
“This letter is an incredible document. It is so
fresh and alive and exciting and you get a real sense of this really horrific
plot which was in the process of being uncovered.
“The level of detail is amazing and shows just how
much had been found out about the plan in the first few days of it being
foiled.
“Interestingly Guy Fawkes' true identity still hadn't
been revealed at this time - he was going by the name John Johnson which was a
pseudonym he had adopted when he started working at the palace.
“The gunpowder plot is such a mythological part of
English history that it is great to be reminded that it was a real event.
“The Harcourt family almost certainly acquired the
letter in the late 19th century but there is no family link to the sender or
recipient.
“It is the first time it has ever appeared at
auction and it can be counted among the most important historical documents to
appear in recent years.”
The auction will be held on December 9.
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