A History of the Gunpowder Plot; The Conspiracy and Its Agents

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1905. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII LASTING EFFECTS OF THE GUNrOWDER TREASON Of the vast importance of the Gunpowder Treason, considered as an historical event, there can be no doubt. The consequences of its conception and failure are felt by English Roman Catholics even to this day. It determined for ever the question whether they could possibly recover the ground they had lost since the death of Queen Mary. The complete exposure of the conspirators' schemes was the one thing needed by the Protestant Government1 to serve as an excuse to crush, not a section only, but the whole of the Romanist party in England. Loyal Romanists, and disloyal, one and all had to suffer for the sins of a desperate gang of fanatics belonging to the Jesuit section; and the terror excited by the revelation of Catesby's plans lived on so forcibly in the public mind that when Titus Oates appeared, in the reign of James' grandson, with his improbable story, the fear that what had been attempted in the autumn of 1605 was being attempted again in London in the autumn of 1 1 It fixed the timid and wavering mind of the King in his adherence to the Protestant party' (Jardine). 1678, under the direction of the Jesuits, drove half the population of London off their heads. As a result a number of completely innocent people were butchered on the scaffold for no other reason than they were members of the same religion as had been Thomas Percy, Robert Catesby, Guy Faukes, Oswald Greenway, and Henry Garnet. The hardships undergone by the English Romanists during the seventeenth century, from the date of the meeting of the adjourned Parliament (which Faukes strove to destroy), are manifest when we read of the fresh laws passed against all the avowed members, rich or poor, of the old religion. The following were some only ...