WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:05.160
<v Speaker 1>Chapter eleven of Unknown London, written by Walter George Bell.

2
00:00:06.559 --> 00:00:11.720
<v Speaker 1>This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Janet,

3
00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:20.079
<v Speaker 1>Chapter eleven. The Baga de Secritus. Three locks of cunning workmanship,

4
00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:23.719
<v Speaker 1>each one different the shot bolts holding fast. Should the

5
00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:26.640
<v Speaker 1>possessor of a single key attempt alone to open the

6
00:00:26.719 --> 00:00:33.320
<v Speaker 1>jaws Three keys, deeply cut in varying patterns, one held

7
00:00:33.359 --> 00:00:37.240
<v Speaker 1>in the keeping of the Lord Chief Justice, the second

8
00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:40.920
<v Speaker 1>in that of the Attorney General, and the third by

9
00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:46.039
<v Speaker 1>the Master of the Crown Office. Three high officers of state,

10
00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:50.640
<v Speaker 1>acting together, each with his key in lock, might open

11
00:00:50.679 --> 00:00:54.280
<v Speaker 1>the bag of secrets, but none others, nor one of

12
00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:59.280
<v Speaker 1>them alone. Bluebeard's cupboard was not guarded with such care,

13
00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:03.159
<v Speaker 1>it could disclose a story less tragical than this of

14
00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:08.159
<v Speaker 1>the Great Baga. Less a thousand times. Perhaps one ought

15
00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:12.079
<v Speaker 1>not to wonder that with such precautions the Crown kept

16
00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:16.120
<v Speaker 1>inviolate against prying eyes the records which affected the King

17
00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:21.840
<v Speaker 1>in his most intimate and domestic relations, the frailties of queens,

18
00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:26.920
<v Speaker 1>the treason of subjects, the course of justice, which too

19
00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:30.840
<v Speaker 1>often was in justice when the fountain itself was dishonorable.

20
00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.519
<v Speaker 1>Far back in our history. These dim and stained parchments

21
00:01:35.560 --> 00:01:39.599
<v Speaker 1>go to the reign of King Edward the Fourth. They

22
00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:45.719
<v Speaker 1>are strangely intermixed, telling much of treasons and attainders, affecting

23
00:01:45.760 --> 00:01:49.840
<v Speaker 1>the king's throne more than his personal relation. Till Henry

24
00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:54.920
<v Speaker 1>the aiths much troubled life sent to the Bogadae Secritus.

25
00:01:54.959 --> 00:01:58.760
<v Speaker 1>The piled documents so full of human sadness, with their

26
00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:04.120
<v Speaker 1>questions of guilt or innocence, so monstrous inconceivable, it seems

27
00:02:04.599 --> 00:02:08.599
<v Speaker 1>that still we are left in doubt, sometimes the doubt

28
00:02:08.599 --> 00:02:10.840
<v Speaker 1>whether we can accept the word of man or woman,

29
00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:14.319
<v Speaker 1>though they themselves, by their plea say they are guilty

30
00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:19.960
<v Speaker 1>of this thing, charged, and so saying suffer. Anne Boleyn

31
00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:25.319
<v Speaker 1>keeps this company a tragical figure asserting her innocence. Catherine

32
00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:31.439
<v Speaker 1>Howard later Lady Jane Gray. Here too figures Sir Walter Rally,

33
00:02:32.080 --> 00:02:36.599
<v Speaker 1>a great patriot and ill starred adventurer, beheaded at Westminster.

34
00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:42.080
<v Speaker 1>Fisher and Moore, prisoners in the tower, together suffers for

35
00:02:42.159 --> 00:02:46.599
<v Speaker 1>the same faith, in sharing the same fate. Sir Thomas Wyatt,

36
00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:52.400
<v Speaker 1>rebel against Queen Mary, the handsome favorite, Robert Devereux, Earl

37
00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:57.400
<v Speaker 1>of Essex, rebel against Elizabeth, members of the proud Duckle

38
00:02:57.439 --> 00:03:02.400
<v Speaker 1>House of Norfolk, and statesman from Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick.

39
00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:08.319
<v Speaker 1>The names, in hundreds even thousands, form almost an epitome

40
00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:13.560
<v Speaker 1>of England's history. But some you miss, like Monmouth executed

41
00:03:13.639 --> 00:03:17.680
<v Speaker 1>upon attainder without trial, and two there is nothing of

42
00:03:17.759 --> 00:03:21.800
<v Speaker 1>Old Simon Fraser, Lord Lovett, the last man to suffer

43
00:03:21.840 --> 00:03:28.000
<v Speaker 1>in George Second's time, decapitation upon Tower Hill. All the

44
00:03:28.039 --> 00:03:31.360
<v Speaker 1>trials recorded in these papers are those of subjects for

45
00:03:31.479 --> 00:03:35.759
<v Speaker 1>crimes against the king. One king was placed on trial

46
00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:39.479
<v Speaker 1>for crime against his subjects, but of Charles the First.

47
00:03:39.919 --> 00:03:45.199
<v Speaker 1>The Baga de Secritus contains nothing. The Crown State could

48
00:03:45.199 --> 00:03:48.479
<v Speaker 1>not acknowledge the competence of that court sitting in Westminster

49
00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:53.479
<v Speaker 1>Hall to give the record inclusion here. Long ago the

50
00:03:53.520 --> 00:03:58.560
<v Speaker 1>great leathern Baga itself disappeared swollen by its contents, no doubt,

51
00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:02.280
<v Speaker 1>till they reached such proportions that no ox hide could

52
00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:07.639
<v Speaker 1>hold them in our own age. When the Baga was explored,

53
00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:11.240
<v Speaker 1>it consisted of a closet in which this collection was

54
00:04:11.360 --> 00:04:15.039
<v Speaker 1>kept separate from other documents of the King's bench. Still

55
00:04:15.159 --> 00:04:18.600
<v Speaker 1>under the three keys held by the same three officers

56
00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:23.480
<v Speaker 1>of state. Pouches or small bags were the receptacles of

57
00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.959
<v Speaker 1>many of the ancient parchments, which generally were in good

58
00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:31.399
<v Speaker 1>condition as to soundness, though crushed and crumpled in consequence

59
00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:34.959
<v Speaker 1>of the mode in which they had been stowed. They

60
00:04:35.079 --> 00:04:39.639
<v Speaker 1>ranged in shelves row upon row in the secret closet.

61
00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:45.560
<v Speaker 1>The old order changeth, yielding place to the new. The

62
00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:50.399
<v Speaker 1>older order that had produced these tragical happenings. The records

63
00:04:50.439 --> 00:04:56.079
<v Speaker 1>deal with a long dead past history enthroned in judicial calm,

64
00:04:56.839 --> 00:05:00.199
<v Speaker 1>sits in judgment upon these men and women, free from

65
00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:04.920
<v Speaker 1>those influences and prejudices and fears which distracted judgment in

66
00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:10.560
<v Speaker 1>their own day. Searching only for truth, loss, not public gain,

67
00:05:11.160 --> 00:05:17.040
<v Speaker 1>results from concealment. All need for secrecy has gone. The

68
00:05:17.079 --> 00:05:20.920
<v Speaker 1>locked jaws of the Baga de secritus are opened. Who

69
00:05:20.920 --> 00:05:25.199
<v Speaker 1>can be harmed? And today its contents are distributed in

70
00:05:25.279 --> 00:05:28.519
<v Speaker 1>their proper series and time, amongst the other documents of

71
00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:34.000
<v Speaker 1>the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Accessible These papers

72
00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.800
<v Speaker 1>guarded by our kings with such jealous care to any

73
00:05:37.839 --> 00:05:40.759
<v Speaker 1>student who fills out the required slip for the attendant,

74
00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:45.319
<v Speaker 1>it was for centuries believed that the document of the

75
00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:50.040
<v Speaker 1>trial of Anne Boleyn had been destroyed. The trial was secret,

76
00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:53.560
<v Speaker 1>conducted by a few chosen instruments who should do a

77
00:05:53.600 --> 00:05:58.560
<v Speaker 1>brutish king's brutal behests. The public had not knowledge by

78
00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:03.079
<v Speaker 1>which to question the ju judicial act. The victim was sacrificed.

79
00:06:04.439 --> 00:06:08.319
<v Speaker 1>So the story had grown, weaving around Anne Boleyn, pity, indeed,

80
00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:13.079
<v Speaker 1>pity which none can withhold, and making her martyr, not

81
00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:20.319
<v Speaker 1>quite saint, yet still not satisfying, still leaving doubt, still

82
00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:24.759
<v Speaker 1>with that heart searching question unanswered. Was she this or

83
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:30.720
<v Speaker 1>libertine and worse, sweet Anne Boleyn, the gentle queen of

84
00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:35.279
<v Speaker 1>a tragic epic, laughing herself at that little neck which

85
00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:39.000
<v Speaker 1>next morning was to be severed by the Calais headsman's sword.

86
00:06:39.959 --> 00:06:44.120
<v Speaker 1>Was she this or a brazen corrupted let us and

87
00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:49.399
<v Speaker 1>pity leave out the word? The Baga de secritus revealed

88
00:06:49.439 --> 00:06:53.959
<v Speaker 1>the documents, neither destroyed by designing hands, nor lost, but

89
00:06:54.120 --> 00:06:58.439
<v Speaker 1>preserved with meticulous care, each order and writ and bill.

90
00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:04.160
<v Speaker 1>Nothing is missing. One recalls the use fraud made of them,

91
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:08.839
<v Speaker 1>and how one's beliefs toppled over beliefs influenced in large

92
00:07:08.839 --> 00:07:12.120
<v Speaker 1>part by that letter of infinite pathos which she wrote

93
00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:17.240
<v Speaker 1>to Henry the Eighth and her protestations of innocence. The

94
00:07:17.319 --> 00:07:21.519
<v Speaker 1>evidence on oath we have not got it satisfied the

95
00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.319
<v Speaker 1>jurors of the different counties in which it was collected.

96
00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:28.800
<v Speaker 1>The indictment based on their return sets out the place,

97
00:07:29.160 --> 00:07:33.399
<v Speaker 1>the date, the personalities and respect of each act charged,

98
00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:39.720
<v Speaker 1>indicating only too plainly the whole revolting story. Mark Smetten,

99
00:07:40.079 --> 00:07:45.079
<v Speaker 1>the court musician accused, pleaded guilty, and being of ignoble birth,

100
00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:50.040
<v Speaker 1>died at the giblet. The others of noble blood suffered

101
00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:54.240
<v Speaker 1>by the acts, and at the end did not protest innocence.

102
00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:58.360
<v Speaker 1>And what was the court which joined in collusion with

103
00:07:58.399 --> 00:08:02.079
<v Speaker 1>Henry the Eighth in this act of unspeakable infamy in

104
00:08:02.160 --> 00:08:06.519
<v Speaker 1>putting to death a discarded queen, That is, if Anne

105
00:08:06.519 --> 00:08:10.480
<v Speaker 1>beheld innocent, and the guilty that of Henry guiltmore read

106
00:08:11.000 --> 00:08:15.079
<v Speaker 1>more shameful a thousand times even than hers, a pact

107
00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:21.120
<v Speaker 1>carefully selected and corrupt tribunal. Let us see the attendant

108
00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:24.040
<v Speaker 1>at the Public Record office in Chancery Lane will bring

109
00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:27.519
<v Speaker 1>you the documents, still in the original white leather pouch

110
00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:31.279
<v Speaker 1>drawn together at the mouth with a leathern thong in

111
00:08:31.319 --> 00:08:34.639
<v Speaker 1>which they have been always kept, and thereon you may

112
00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:38.919
<v Speaker 1>read the names. The trial of the Queen and of

113
00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.279
<v Speaker 1>Lord Rockford, her brother, took place in the tower the

114
00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:47.399
<v Speaker 1>fifteenth May fifteen thirty six. There were the two English

115
00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:50.840
<v Speaker 1>Dukes of Norfolk, the veteran who had won his spurs

116
00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:55.240
<v Speaker 1>at flodden Field in Suffolk, the one English Marquis of Exeter,

117
00:08:56.399 --> 00:09:05.320
<v Speaker 1>the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland, the Queen's early lover, Westmoreland, Darby, Worcester, Rutland,

118
00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:09.720
<v Speaker 1>Sussex and Huntingdon. All those in the peerage save four

119
00:09:11.159 --> 00:09:20.039
<v Speaker 1>lords Audeley de la Ware, Montague, Morley, Dacre, Cobham, Ma Travers, Powis,

120
00:09:20.519 --> 00:09:28.639
<v Speaker 1>Mount Eagle, Clinton, Sandy's, Windsor, Wentworth Burgh and Mordant twenty seven.

121
00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:34.279
<v Speaker 1>In all menhearethur Io of unblemished honor, the noblest blood

122
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:39.679
<v Speaker 1>in the realm. Lord Wiltshire, one of the four absent earls,

123
00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:43.440
<v Speaker 1>was not called upon to give judgment upon his daughter

124
00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:47.039
<v Speaker 1>and son, but he sat upon the commission and acquiesced

125
00:09:47.080 --> 00:09:50.320
<v Speaker 1>in the finding which condemned the four commoners accused of

126
00:09:50.360 --> 00:09:55.960
<v Speaker 1>adultery with the Queen. That commission consisted besides of Lord Audley,

127
00:09:56.519 --> 00:09:59.919
<v Speaker 1>the Lord Chancellor of England, the Dukes of Norfolk and

128
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.600
<v Speaker 1>in Suffolk, the Earls of Oxford, Westmoreland and Sussex, Lord

129
00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:12.039
<v Speaker 1>Sandy's Thomas Cromwell, Sir William Fitzwilliam, Lord High Admiral, often

130
00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:16.559
<v Speaker 1>called the Nelson of the sixteenth century, Sir William Paulette,

131
00:10:16.679 --> 00:10:19.360
<v Speaker 1>Lord Treasurer, and all the nine judges of the Courts

132
00:10:19.360 --> 00:10:23.519
<v Speaker 1>of Westminster had ever other commoners such a court to

133
00:10:23.559 --> 00:10:27.120
<v Speaker 1>try their cause. Thirty two knights and gentlemen were the

134
00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:30.600
<v Speaker 1>grand jurors who returned true bills on the sworn evidence,

135
00:10:31.159 --> 00:10:33.919
<v Speaker 1>and their names in the counties stood not less high.

136
00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:40.120
<v Speaker 1>Were all these so craven, so despicable, so lacking in

137
00:10:40.200 --> 00:10:43.320
<v Speaker 1>human soul, that, for fear of Henry's displeasure they returned

138
00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:46.879
<v Speaker 1>to finding which they knew to be false, fearful to

139
00:10:46.919 --> 00:10:49.440
<v Speaker 1>do right in the belief that the King desired or wrong,

140
00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:55.000
<v Speaker 1>they accepted concocted evidence, knowing its worthlessness. Was there not

141
00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:59.120
<v Speaker 1>one honest man among them? They had the evidence which

142
00:10:59.159 --> 00:11:03.080
<v Speaker 1>we have not. They answered to their names individually when

143
00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:06.879
<v Speaker 1>called upon for their verdict, and in the two trials

144
00:11:06.919 --> 00:11:11.759
<v Speaker 1>there is not one dissent in voice. Can anybody conceive

145
00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:16.080
<v Speaker 1>that Henry, arbitrary as were his methods, could alone have

146
00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:20.200
<v Speaker 1>suborned the entire House of Peers, the full judicial bench,

147
00:11:20.639 --> 00:11:24.639
<v Speaker 1>the ruling class, without whom government was impossible, the knights

148
00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:27.759
<v Speaker 1>and gentlemen of the counties, and not find among them

149
00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:32.000
<v Speaker 1>one witness to the truth. Who should speak out? These

150
00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:34.440
<v Speaker 1>men who found the guilt of Anne Boleyn were the

151
00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:38.799
<v Speaker 1>flower of England, of its blood, its chivalry, its learning,

152
00:11:39.159 --> 00:11:44.679
<v Speaker 1>its character. If the tribunals appointed do not satisfy, where

153
00:11:44.679 --> 00:11:49.159
<v Speaker 1>should others stronger have been found? The kingdom could not

154
00:11:49.320 --> 00:11:54.480
<v Speaker 1>have produced their like the Baga de secritus. By disclosing

155
00:11:54.600 --> 00:11:58.000
<v Speaker 1>the constitution of the courts and the jurors, has solved

156
00:11:58.120 --> 00:12:01.879
<v Speaker 1>an historic doubt. Either the evidence was such as to

157
00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:06.000
<v Speaker 1>satisfy reasonable men, or Englishmen at this time had sunk

158
00:12:06.039 --> 00:12:09.679
<v Speaker 1>into a morass of infamy and impotency of which we

159
00:12:09.759 --> 00:12:14.360
<v Speaker 1>have believed our country clean. They were the Englishmen of

160
00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:18.960
<v Speaker 1>the Reformation. Call us Hans or what you will, if

161
00:12:18.960 --> 00:12:22.120
<v Speaker 1>we are descendants of forefathers who shared with Henry the

162
00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:26.799
<v Speaker 1>Eighth the guilt of this cowardly crime. Let us bury

163
00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:30.120
<v Speaker 1>our pride of race under the disgrace to me. It

164
00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:35.039
<v Speaker 1>is incredible if consolation lie in that fact. Let us

165
00:12:35.080 --> 00:12:38.679
<v Speaker 1>admit that error is always possible with all parliaments, all

166
00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:43.360
<v Speaker 1>judges with the largest numbers. But this trial and judgment

167
00:12:43.440 --> 00:12:48.559
<v Speaker 1>were honest. Against the reveled fact stands a legend, And

168
00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:53.559
<v Speaker 1>the legend must go the records of another queen's wrong

169
00:12:53.679 --> 00:12:56.440
<v Speaker 1>fill in all fifty three members in the Great Baga.

170
00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:02.440
<v Speaker 1>Catherine Howard, a plump little person, radiant with that immeasurable

171
00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:06.639
<v Speaker 1>gift of youth. She was but twenty two, and pleasing.

172
00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:10.519
<v Speaker 1>She must have been to Henry's eye almost we forget

173
00:13:10.519 --> 00:13:13.679
<v Speaker 1>her admitted frailties in the remembrance of that weird scene.

174
00:13:13.720 --> 00:13:16.639
<v Speaker 1>By candle light in the gloomy tower. The night before

175
00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:21.559
<v Speaker 1>her execution, she desired that the block on which she

176
00:13:21.679 --> 00:13:24.320
<v Speaker 1>was to be beheaded might be brought to her, that

177
00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:28.120
<v Speaker 1>she might learn how she was to place herself. This

178
00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:33.039
<v Speaker 1>was done, and she made the experiment, wrote the ambassador Chupius,

179
00:13:34.039 --> 00:13:37.480
<v Speaker 1>and so prepared. On a February morning, she went out

180
00:13:37.559 --> 00:13:40.879
<v Speaker 1>into the sunrise of her last day, for the execution

181
00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:45.919
<v Speaker 1>had been fixed for seven o'clock. These other parchments at

182
00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:49.720
<v Speaker 1>my elbow, separated in time but by a few years,

183
00:13:50.200 --> 00:13:52.720
<v Speaker 1>are the papers of the trial of a third Queen,

184
00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:57.159
<v Speaker 1>the Lady Jane Gray, the pitiful queen of a nine

185
00:13:57.240 --> 00:14:01.320
<v Speaker 1>days reign. The charge against her is of high treason,

186
00:14:01.799 --> 00:14:06.080
<v Speaker 1>and specifically that she signed various writings Jane the Queen

187
00:14:06.840 --> 00:14:11.200
<v Speaker 1>against her allegiance. The commission is addressed in the first

188
00:14:11.279 --> 00:14:15.039
<v Speaker 1>instance to Thomas White, Mayor of the City of London,

189
00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:19.360
<v Speaker 1>other names following, and the precept to the Constable of

190
00:14:19.399 --> 00:14:22.480
<v Speaker 1>the Tower, commanding him to bring her to Guildhall for

191
00:14:22.600 --> 00:14:30.320
<v Speaker 1>trial is signed by me Thomas White, and afterwards T. Norfolk,

192
00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:35.039
<v Speaker 1>the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshall of England. It is

193
00:14:35.080 --> 00:14:38.200
<v Speaker 1>the acknowledgment of the Lord Mayor's precedence in the city.

194
00:14:38.759 --> 00:14:41.440
<v Speaker 1>As in all cases where the trial was at Guildhall,

195
00:14:42.799 --> 00:14:47.600
<v Speaker 1>she came on foot while this unnecessary humiliation, one wonders,

196
00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:52.840
<v Speaker 1>and so returned. Cranmer and Guilford Dudley were with her,

197
00:14:53.399 --> 00:14:58.759
<v Speaker 1>and with her pleaded guilty. Judgment against the Lady Jane Gray,

198
00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:02.159
<v Speaker 1>that she be burnt to live on Tower Hill, or beheaded,

199
00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:06.519
<v Speaker 1>as the Queen shall please. Oh the horror of those

200
00:15:06.600 --> 00:15:11.679
<v Speaker 1>times of butchery that could admit such a sentence. I

201
00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:14.559
<v Speaker 1>have said that the Baga de Secritis contains nothing of

202
00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:17.679
<v Speaker 1>the trial of Charles the First, but packed into it

203
00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:22.639
<v Speaker 1>are the papers of the regicides. Listen to the legal phraseology.

204
00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:29.399
<v Speaker 1>When a king dies violently, they John lythe and forty

205
00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:33.480
<v Speaker 1>seven others proposed and consulted to murder the said king,

206
00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:37.000
<v Speaker 1>and took upon themselves authority and power to put the

207
00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:42.320
<v Speaker 1>said king to death, an execution of which traitorous design viz.

208
00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:47.039
<v Speaker 1>Thirty January in the parish of Saint Martin in the fields. They,

209
00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:50.639
<v Speaker 1>together with a certain man whose name is unknown to

210
00:15:50.679 --> 00:15:54.120
<v Speaker 1>the jurors, having a visor upon his face, and being

211
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:58.120
<v Speaker 1>clad in a frock, assaulted the same king, and the

212
00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:00.879
<v Speaker 1>said unknown man, with an act which he held in

213
00:16:00.919 --> 00:16:04.279
<v Speaker 1>both his hands, struck the said king upon his neck

214
00:16:04.799 --> 00:16:11.480
<v Speaker 1>and divided his head from his body. Afterwards, William Hewitt

215
00:16:11.559 --> 00:16:15.039
<v Speaker 1>was hurried to execution as the headsman, but as fate

216
00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:18.799
<v Speaker 1>leaves unsolved the mysterious identity of the masked man on

217
00:16:18.879 --> 00:16:23.759
<v Speaker 1>the scaffold raised outside the banqueting house at Whitehall, colder

218
00:16:23.799 --> 00:16:26.519
<v Speaker 1>words than those sighted could not be used. For the

219
00:16:26.559 --> 00:16:30.759
<v Speaker 1>most common crime. It is with the toll of death

220
00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:34.679
<v Speaker 1>that the great Baga has been stuffed rare. Indeed, is

221
00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:38.399
<v Speaker 1>it to light upon an acquittal? Here I find a

222
00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:43.000
<v Speaker 1>man otherwise, John Johnson, a figure swollen with a great

223
00:16:43.159 --> 00:16:47.720
<v Speaker 1>crime which still we recall each year. Do you know

224
00:16:47.879 --> 00:16:53.720
<v Speaker 1>John Johnson? A complete stranger? He seems. It is Guy Fawx,

225
00:16:53.759 --> 00:16:57.240
<v Speaker 1>who alone fills the bill of gunpowder plot as arch

226
00:16:57.279 --> 00:17:01.039
<v Speaker 1>conspirator and desperado, with a name, ring and sounding down

227
00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:05.400
<v Speaker 1>the sentries louder than ever Johnson would have done. I

228
00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:08.519
<v Speaker 1>could not bring myself to light squibs and Catherine Wheels

229
00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:12.400
<v Speaker 1>to celebrate Johnson. It was the name that Fox gave

230
00:17:12.480 --> 00:17:16.160
<v Speaker 1>when bound hand and foot and under strong guard, he

231
00:17:16.319 --> 00:17:19.000
<v Speaker 1>was brought into King James's presence in the Royal bed

232
00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:22.039
<v Speaker 1>Chamber at Whitehall at one o'clock in the morning of

233
00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:25.960
<v Speaker 1>his arrest, when the Privy Council was hastily assembled there,

234
00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:30.079
<v Speaker 1>and he would say nothing save with a wry smile.

235
00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:34.119
<v Speaker 1>Then his purpose was to blow the Scots back to

236
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:41.279
<v Speaker 1>Scotland again. Fox's crushed indictment of portentous length has been

237
00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:44.359
<v Speaker 1>tumbled into the Baga, and in it I read that

238
00:17:44.440 --> 00:17:50.759
<v Speaker 1>Thomas Winter Guy Fox, Otherwise, Johnson, Keys, Robert Winter, Grunt,

239
00:17:51.279 --> 00:17:55.640
<v Speaker 1>Rookwood and Bates were charged that they conspired and attempted

240
00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:00.319
<v Speaker 1>to blow up the King, Queen, Prince Henry, as well

241
00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:06.119
<v Speaker 1>as the Knights, citizens and burgesses in Parliament assembled with gunpowder.

242
00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:10.519
<v Speaker 1>And I am left more than ever with puzzling wonder

243
00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:15.559
<v Speaker 1>why gunpowder plot was not unmasked earlier, this apart from

244
00:18:15.559 --> 00:18:17.759
<v Speaker 1>the fact that the knowledge was in the keeping of

245
00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:25.279
<v Speaker 1>thirteen conspirators auspicious number. On the eleventh December sixteen o four,

246
00:18:26.079 --> 00:18:30.079
<v Speaker 1>these men began to dig with great labor a mine

247
00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:33.519
<v Speaker 1>under the Parliament House, even to the middle of the

248
00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:38.000
<v Speaker 1>wall of the said Parliament House, such foundation being of

249
00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:41.839
<v Speaker 1>the thickness of three yards, with the intention of placing

250
00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:45.480
<v Speaker 1>a large quantity of gunpowder therein for the purpose of

251
00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:51.839
<v Speaker 1>carrying their treasonable intentions into effect. Finding the job tough,

252
00:18:52.359 --> 00:18:57.039
<v Speaker 1>they hired through Percy, a fellow conspirator, a neighboring house

253
00:18:57.119 --> 00:18:59.680
<v Speaker 1>which had the advantage of a cellar going right under

254
00:18:59.680 --> 00:19:03.960
<v Speaker 1>the House of Lords, And on twentieth March next did

255
00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.039
<v Speaker 1>remove twenty barrels of gunpowder from the house of Percy

256
00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:12.000
<v Speaker 1>into the said cellar. Then on the thirty first July,

257
00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:16.680
<v Speaker 1>fearing that their explosive had become damp, they brought into

258
00:19:16.680 --> 00:19:20.920
<v Speaker 1>the cellar ten more barrels of powder. No suspicion had

259
00:19:20.920 --> 00:19:26.039
<v Speaker 1>been aroused further. The plotters, on the twentieth September following,

260
00:19:27.039 --> 00:19:31.240
<v Speaker 1>brought into the cellar four hogsheads filled with gunpowder, and

261
00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:35.240
<v Speaker 1>also various iron bars and stones, took place upon the same,

262
00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:39.240
<v Speaker 1>and placed them thereon, and in order that the same

263
00:19:39.640 --> 00:19:45.000
<v Speaker 1>might not be seen, covered them with faggots. What was

264
00:19:45.039 --> 00:19:50.599
<v Speaker 1>the sleepy Westminster watchdoing? Months were passing, eleven months in

265
00:19:50.680 --> 00:19:55.200
<v Speaker 1>all in which digging was going on. Barrels and hogsheads

266
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.839
<v Speaker 1>of gunpowder and missiles for the explosion were being rolled

267
00:19:58.839 --> 00:20:02.359
<v Speaker 1>in from the street till thirty four powder barrels in

268
00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:05.559
<v Speaker 1>all were stored, and no one in authority was a

269
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:10.359
<v Speaker 1>penny the wiser. The fourth November came eve of the

270
00:20:10.359 --> 00:20:14.480
<v Speaker 1>Parliament's meeting, and that night Fox was found in flagerente

271
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:18.720
<v Speaker 1>de licto in the cellar, watching beside the barrels, with

272
00:20:18.880 --> 00:20:23.480
<v Speaker 1>touchwood and matches about him. His signature to the confession

273
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:26.519
<v Speaker 1>extorted from him when on the rack you may see

274
00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:31.279
<v Speaker 1>in the Public Record Office the trembling broken lines, testifying

275
00:20:31.279 --> 00:20:34.160
<v Speaker 1>that the poor wretch had been so nerve shattered by

276
00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:39.160
<v Speaker 1>his torture that he could not grasp the pen. Now

277
00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:41.960
<v Speaker 1>we make amends for the lack of caution shown when

278
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:46.039
<v Speaker 1>gunpowder plot was hatching, And though three centuries have passed

279
00:20:46.079 --> 00:20:49.359
<v Speaker 1>since the peril, still each time that Parliament meets for

280
00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:53.000
<v Speaker 1>a new session, the beefeaters conduct their search for powder

281
00:20:53.039 --> 00:20:58.160
<v Speaker 1>barrels in the vaults below the Parliament House. A curious crime,

282
00:20:58.200 --> 00:21:01.559
<v Speaker 1>of which the Baga contains the whole story, is that

283
00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:05.680
<v Speaker 1>by Edward Squire, a yeoman of London, in his attempt

284
00:21:05.720 --> 00:21:10.519
<v Speaker 1>to poison Queen Elizabeth. Squire had attached himself to Philip

285
00:21:10.559 --> 00:21:14.200
<v Speaker 1>of Spain when he was preparing an armada for invasion

286
00:21:14.200 --> 00:21:18.880
<v Speaker 1>of England and attempting the life of Great Elizabeth. This

287
00:21:19.039 --> 00:21:23.200
<v Speaker 1>man brought back with him from Seville a poisonous confection

288
00:21:23.759 --> 00:21:26.680
<v Speaker 1>contained in a double bladder, to the intention that he

289
00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:30.160
<v Speaker 1>should smear the pommel of the Queen's saddle therewith when

290
00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:33.119
<v Speaker 1>the Queen was about to ride, in order that she

291
00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:38.079
<v Speaker 1>putting her hand on the pommel might be poisoned. He

292
00:21:38.200 --> 00:21:41.039
<v Speaker 1>actually obtained admittance to the court yard, where the Queen's

293
00:21:41.119 --> 00:21:44.039
<v Speaker 1>riding horse was awaiting her, and rubbed some of the

294
00:21:44.039 --> 00:21:47.400
<v Speaker 1>poison on the pommel of the saddle, exclaiming loudly at

295
00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:51.920
<v Speaker 1>the same time, God save the Queen for the purpose

296
00:21:51.960 --> 00:21:55.960
<v Speaker 1>of better concealing his treason. But his clumsiness betrayed him

297
00:21:56.839 --> 00:22:03.200
<v Speaker 1>judgment as against all traders. Timothy Pinchard forged the likeness

298
00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:06.440
<v Speaker 1>of Elizabeth's seal to counterfeit rits of the Queen's bench.

299
00:22:07.000 --> 00:22:10.960
<v Speaker 1>And this was his savage sentence, that he should be

300
00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:14.920
<v Speaker 1>put in the pillory upon two successive market days in cheapside,

301
00:22:15.559 --> 00:22:17.839
<v Speaker 1>and on the first day should have one ear nailed

302
00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:20.680
<v Speaker 1>to the pillory, and on the second day his other

303
00:22:20.759 --> 00:22:25.119
<v Speaker 1>ear nailed to the pillory, in such manner that he should,

304
00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:28.319
<v Speaker 1>by his own proper motion, be compelled to tear away

305
00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:32.599
<v Speaker 1>his two ears from the wood. Elizabeth had a short

306
00:22:32.640 --> 00:22:38.039
<v Speaker 1>way with vagabondage. It was charged against Roland and Thomas Gabriel,

307
00:22:38.680 --> 00:22:44.279
<v Speaker 1>Lawrence Banister, and Christopher Jackson on indictment found at Aylesbury,

308
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.079
<v Speaker 1>that they did keep company with four persons, but one

309
00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:53.119
<v Speaker 1>of whom Diego, bears a foreign name, vulgarly called in

310
00:22:53.200 --> 00:23:00.400
<v Speaker 1>calling themselves Egyptians, and counterfeited, transformed and altered themselves in dress, land, language,

311
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:05.519
<v Speaker 1>and behavior to such vagabonds called Egyptians, contrary to statute

312
00:23:06.920 --> 00:23:11.480
<v Speaker 1>judgment that they are to be hanged. Why this petty

313
00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:14.759
<v Speaker 1>felony should figure among the historic trials in the Bogadai

314
00:23:14.839 --> 00:23:18.759
<v Speaker 1>secretis I do not know. But these and many other

315
00:23:18.839 --> 00:23:21.839
<v Speaker 1>names of men of mean condition stand on equity with

316
00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:25.599
<v Speaker 1>the ill fated dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, with Surrey

317
00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:30.519
<v Speaker 1>and Somerset, Essex and Cobham in the State Calendar of Crime,

318
00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:33.400
<v Speaker 1>end of Chapter eleven,