Speaker 1: Hello, and Welcome to Western SIV, episode three nineteen The
Speaker 1: Gunpowder Plot. Puritans, it turned out, weren't the only discontented
Speaker 1: religious group in England. There were still Catholics. Angry Catholics.
Speaker 1: James wooed them in the event that he needed their support,
Speaker 1: but after his coronation he felt confident enough to promptly
Speaker 1: discard them. As a consequence, in February sixteen oh four,
Speaker 1: James banished the remaining Jesuit priests from England defervent Catholics.
Speaker 1: This was an ominous sign. One such young Catholic was
Speaker 1: Thomas Winter, who had already appealed unsuccessfully to fill up
Speaker 1: the third for support. In the same month that James
Speaker 1: banished the Jesuits, he met with his cousin Robert Catesby.
Speaker 1: The plot the two concocted became known as the Gunpowder Plot,
Speaker 1: though the plot is often associated with its third member,
Speaker 1: Guy Fox. In April, Winter traveled to Flanders, from which
Speaker 1: place he brought back Fox himself. Now they're basically called
Speaker 1: the conspirators in all of our sources. In the following month,
Speaker 1: an oath of secrecy was sworn before they made their
Speaker 1: way to a house behind the Church of Saint Clement's, Eastcheap,
Speaker 1: where they met a Jesuit by the name of Gerrard,
Speaker 1: who administered to them the holy sacrament. It was now
Speaker 1: agreed that a house conveniently close to Parliament needed to
Speaker 1: be found, but it wasn't until the beginning of December
Speaker 1: that a suitable property became available. On the eleventh of
Speaker 1: the month they entered the house, carrying with them a
Speaker 1: stock of hard boiled eggs and baked meats. By Christmas Eve,
Speaker 1: the conspirators had dug their way down and, in the
Speaker 1: words of Thomas Winter Quote, wrought under a little entry
Speaker 1: to the wall of Parliament House and under propped it
Speaker 1: as we went with wood end quote. They believed the
Speaker 1: next session of Parliament would begin in February sixteen o five,
Speaker 1: but now they learned that it had been pirogued until
Speaker 1: the following October. That gave them more time. The gunpowder
Speaker 1: in question was being stored at Catesbury's lodging in Lambeth,
Speaker 1: but under conditions of great secrecy and security, it was
Speaker 1: ultimately brought to the House at Westminster. They had already
Speaker 1: made some progress in penetrating the nine foot wall that
Speaker 1: separated the House of Parliament, but their work was impeded
Speaker 1: by an influx of water. They're basically digging next to
Speaker 1: the Thames. One day, soon after the gunpowder had been acquired,
Speaker 1: they heard a rustling sound above their head. Fox went
Speaker 1: outdoor and was cautiously investigating. There he was met by
Speaker 1: Ellen Bright, a coal merchant, who informed him that she
Speaker 1: was leaving the premises. It so happened that her seller
Speaker 1: or vault ran directly under the House of Parliament itself,
Speaker 1: and only took a few minutes, and the two reached
Speaker 1: a deal to acquire this new lodging. An iron gate
Speaker 1: between the basement of the conspirator's house and missus Bright's
Speaker 1: seller was opened, and Fox was quickly able to smuggle
Speaker 1: about thirty six barrels of gunpowder into the neighboring vault.
Speaker 1: It was enough gunpowder to kill thousands of people. By September,
Speaker 1: fresh barrels of gunpower were acquired in order to replace
Speaker 1: those that had been affected by the damp, but funds
Speaker 1: were running low and everyone agreed that they needed to
Speaker 1: bring in three other conspirators with money or property. Thirteen
Speaker 1: men by this time had been discussed in secret, leaving
Speaker 1: thirteen ways for the secret to be betrayed. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the new conspirators, Francis Tresham, had a brother in law,
Speaker 1: Lord Monteagle, and he was actually part of the House
Speaker 1: of Lords. Terrisham desperately wanted his brother in law to
Speaker 1: be spared from the conflagration. Meegel was a staunch Catholic
Speaker 1: who had already defended the church in the House of Lords.
Speaker 1: The other conspirators, however, weren't sure about making exceptions however
Speaker 1: well meant. Monteagle was sitting down for dinner on the
Speaker 1: twenty sixth of October at his house when a letter
Speaker 1: was suddenly brought in by a messenger. He glanced at
Speaker 1: it and then requested one of his gentlemen to read
Speaker 1: it aloud. It read as follows, my Lord, out of belove,
Speaker 1: I bear you of your friends. I have a care
Speaker 1: of your preservation. Therefore, I would advise you, as you
Speaker 1: tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of
Speaker 1: your attendance at this parliament. So the letter began. The
Speaker 1: correspondence went on to warn that there will be a
Speaker 1: terrible blow this parliament, yet no one will know who
Speaker 1: struck it. Now Monteagle immediately set out for Whitehall with
Speaker 1: the letter in hand. He may have been a Catholic,
Speaker 1: but he was also an Englishman. He came down to
Speaker 1: see Robert Cecil, the newly created Earl of Salisbury, and
Speaker 1: took Salisbury into an adjoining room, showing him the document.
Speaker 1: Cecil was inclined at first to dismiss this matter as
Speaker 1: a false alarm, but on consulting his colleagues, the possibility
Speaker 1: of a gunpowder explosion as the quote unquote terrible blow
Speaker 1: was discussed. Now the King was a hunting at Royston,
Speaker 1: and upon his return to London at the beginning of November,
Speaker 1: the letter was shown to him. Instantly he agreed that
Speaker 1: the discussion enclosed therein involved fire and powder. On the
Speaker 1: afternoon of Monday, the fourth of November, Suffolk and Monteagle
Speaker 1: began their search on the excuse that they were looking
Speaker 1: for some property belonging to the King. Didn't take long
Speaker 1: for them to come upon the home that had been
Speaker 1: rented by Catesby guy Fox opened the door of the cellar,
Speaker 1: displaying an enormous amount of wood and a ton of gunpowder.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for the King to send a
Speaker 1: subsequent search of soldiers, at which time more gunpowder was uncovered.
Speaker 1: Fox made no attempt to fight or to flee. He
Speaker 1: admitted that he intended to blow up the King and
Speaker 1: the two houses of Parliament the following morning. It seems
Speaker 1: he was prepared to light a slow match and then
Speaker 1: make his way to Wapping and from there take a
Speaker 1: vote to France. When he was asked later informal questioning
Speaker 1: by the Council the reason for procuring so much gunpowder,
Speaker 1: he replied that he wanted quote to blow the Scottish
Speaker 1: beggars back to their native mountains end quote. Shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: James was told of Fox's capture and gave thanks for
Speaker 1: this miracle. But it was perhaps not a miracle at all.
Speaker 1: There's a very good chance that Francis Tresham and Lord
Speaker 1: Monteagle may have conspired in the production of the letter
Speaker 1: as a device to gain the favor of the King.
Speaker 1: It has also been suggested over the centuries that Robert Cecil,
Speaker 1: Lord Salisbury, was aware of the conspiracy but allowed it
Speaker 1: to go forward as a way of catching out the Catholics.
Speaker 1: This is highly unlikely, though not impossible. News of Fox's
Speaker 1: arrest spread quickly. KTS By and the other remaining conspirators
Speaker 1: fled London. Their only hope now was to create the
Speaker 1: right conditions for a Catholic rising in the countryside, most
Speaker 1: likely in the North. It didn't happen, Just like in
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's reign, Those who desperately wanted to see in English
Speaker 1: rising desperately overestimated the likelihood that one might occur. On
Speaker 1: January twenty seventh, sixteen oh six, Fox and the other
Speaker 1: conspirators were tried for treason. All but one pleaded not guilty,
Speaker 1: and their innocence they were executed a few days later.
Speaker 1: The remaining Jesuits, who hadn't come up with the plot
Speaker 1: but had condoned it, were executed a few days after that,
Speaker 1: So ended the Gunpowder plot. I honestly think the most
Speaker 1: interesting part of the whole affair, apart from its ludicrousness,
Speaker 1: is how close it came to fruition. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: it would have worked had all those beryls taken out
Speaker 1: Parliament and the king. Certainly the whole Kingdom would have
Speaker 1: been pitched forward into chaos if nothing else. Whether or
Speaker 1: not that would have ended with the restoration of some
Speaker 1: sort of a Catholic monastery well, that seems a lot
Speaker 1: less likely. The King himself, despite his miraculous survival, was
Speaker 1: not comforted. The Venetian ambassador reported that quote the King
Speaker 1: is in terror. He does not appear, nor does he
Speaker 1: take his meals in public as usual. He lives in
Speaker 1: the innermost rooms, with only his scotsmen about him end quote.
Speaker 1: James seemed subdued and melancholy, occasionally benting his anger against Catholics,
Speaker 1: writing quote, I shall most certainly be obliged to stain
Speaker 1: my hands with their blood, though sorely against my will
Speaker 1: end quote. Luckily it did not come to that the
Speaker 1: members of Commons had going on with their ordinary business
Speaker 1: of the day, In fact, the very day they were
Speaker 1: supposed to have been blown to smithereens. By May sixteen
Speaker 1: o six, they had passed an Act quote for the
Speaker 1: better discovering and repression of Popish recusants end quote. Catholics
Speaker 1: were now required to attend Anglican services and receive communion
Speaker 1: at least once per year. If you did not, then
Speaker 1: you could be fined or have your property seized. No
Speaker 1: known Catholic could be a doctor or a lawyer. Neither
Speaker 1: could they travel more than five miles of their home
Speaker 1: or ever come within ten miles of London. These measures
Speaker 1: did not end Catholicism in England. They just pushed the
Speaker 1: Catholics into the shadows. By and large, Catholics simply withdrew
Speaker 1: from public life during James's reign. Only ultra Catholics kept
Speaker 1: trying to support the pope. But even then, James did
Speaker 1: not want to see either the Puritans or the Catholics
Speaker 1: made martyrs, so these measures were rarely enforced. I guess
Speaker 1: what we learn is it was just a lot easier
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century to make laws than it was
Speaker 1: to enforce them. James was very different from Elizabeth. She
Speaker 1: loved crowds. He detested them to an extent. This is
Speaker 1: explained by his desperate fear of assassins. If a crowd
Speaker 1: formed around him, James would cry out and attempt to escape,
Speaker 1: but he didn't stay in the palace all the time,
Speaker 1: cloistered away. James absolutely loved hunting. He justified it on
Speaker 1: the grounds that hunting was vigorous and good for his health.
Speaker 1: But religion and gunpowder plots aside, the biggest issue of
Speaker 1: James's reign was money. James was continually and heavily in debt.
Speaker 1: He thought he had come into this realm of plenty
Speaker 1: of gold, but he soon found the treasury bear or rather,
Speaker 1: I suppose he emptied it too quickly. He bought boots
Speaker 1: and silk stockings and beaver hats like they were going
Speaker 1: out of style. Court ceremony suddenly became more lavish, with
Speaker 1: the arrival of evermore quote unquote gentlemen extraordinary. There was
Speaker 1: a vogue at court for gambling. The king loved masks
Speaker 1: and feats, which were for him a true sign of
Speaker 1: a sovereign's power. He wished to have a mask on
Speaker 1: the night of Christmas, whereupon he was told that it
Speaker 1: was not in fashion. James's response was telling, what do
Speaker 1: you tell me of the fashion? I will make it
Speaker 1: a fashion. Certainly, a lot of the Crown's money went
Speaker 1: to his favorites, and favorites, unlike during the Tutor years,
Speaker 1: are going to play a major role during the reigns
Speaker 1: of James the First and his son Charles. Yet, reasons
Speaker 1: other than favoritism can be given for the king's indebtedness.
Speaker 1: There had been a steady rise in prices due to
Speaker 1: inflation all the way back to the beginning of Elizabeth's reign,
Speaker 1: there was a reluctance of landowners to pay further taxation.
Speaker 1: All of this contributed to the rise of expenditure of
Speaker 1: the court above its income. The cost of an extended
Speaker 1: royal household, complete with wife and three children, was also
Speaker 1: very high. Queen Anne was extravagant and devoted to the
Speaker 1: delights of a fashionable London. Her husband had proposed that
Speaker 1: she might confine herself to the three thousand dresses in
Speaker 1: the previous queen's wardrobe, but she did not care for
Speaker 1: the old fashions. Sometimes Queen Anne would appear at court
Speaker 1: dressed as a goddess or a nymph, even an Eastern
Speaker 1: or Arab princess. To pay his expenses, James instituted new
Speaker 1: taxes which were called impositions. These were import taxes. One
Speaker 1: merchant decided to test the validity of these impositions on currents.
Speaker 1: He simply refused to pay the customs agent as they
Speaker 1: approached his card on the docks. He took the case
Speaker 1: all the way up to the Exchequer, which ruled in
Speaker 1: the Crown's favor, But then Parliament took up the matter.
Speaker 1: The Commons had not been impressed by these impositions. After all,
Speaker 1: it was a long established principle that the crown should
Speaker 1: live of its own. The king held vast lates and lands,
Speaker 1: he was supposed to pay his expenses out of that. Taxes,
Speaker 1: it was universally agreed at the time, were extraordinary, only
Speaker 1: to be raised in the times of war. The first
Speaker 1: Parliament of James the First was summoned for five sessions
Speaker 1: from March sixteen oh four to February sixteen eleven, and
Speaker 1: in that l long period it acquired the beginning of
Speaker 1: a corporate identity, largely lacking during the reign of Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: more business was enacted and parliament set progressively for longer.
Speaker 1: In sixteen oh seven, for example, the comments instituted a
Speaker 1: Committee of the Whole House. This committee could elect its
Speaker 1: own chairman, as opposed to the Speaker, who was still
Speaker 1: chosen by the Monarch, and debate could go on as
Speaker 1: long as Parliament wished. It was at the time seen
Speaker 1: as a remarkable invention, and might be considered an early
Speaker 1: warning sign of the strife between court and parliament. Now
Speaker 1: the king also still had another major opponent. A legal
Speaker 1: dispute had arisen. Was there a distinction between those Scots
Speaker 1: born before James's ascension to the English throne and those
Speaker 1: born afterwards. This gets back to that original question that
Speaker 1: we had discussed earlier. Is there such a thing now
Speaker 1: as Great Britain or are we still talking about the
Speaker 1: Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. The King
Speaker 1: argued that those born after his ascension were naturalized by
Speaker 1: common law and therefore could hold office in England. James
Speaker 1: turned to the judges, whom he assumed would take his part.
Speaker 1: One of them refused to do so, and his name
Speaker 1: was Sir Edward Coke. Sir Edward Coke had been a
Speaker 1: judge of the Common Plae since sixteen oh five, and
Speaker 1: he was an impassioned expert of English common law. James,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, had no real conception of common law,
Speaker 1: having been educated in what was very different legal proceedings
Speaker 1: in Scotland. Coke believed, for example, that both the sovereign
Speaker 1: and the subject were accountable to a body of ancient
Speaker 1: law that had been conceived in practice and clarified by usage.
Speaker 1: It represented immorial general custom, but it was also a
Speaker 1: law very much grounded in reason. This was not, however,
Speaker 1: the King's opinion. He had already firmly stated that the
Speaker 1: King is above the law, both as the author of
Speaker 1: the law and the one who gives it. Strength. From this,
Speaker 1: it could be construed that the King possessed an arbitrary authority.
Speaker 1: James alleged, for example, that he was allowed to decide
Speaker 1: cases in person. Coke disagreed a case he said could
Speaker 1: only be judged in a law court. The two obviously
Speaker 1: did not get along. Any opinion that James was subject
Speaker 1: to the law utterly infuriated him, Yet he wasn't ready
Speaker 1: yet to make that sort of a fight. In sixteen
Speaker 1: oh five, one of the King's learned council presented him
Speaker 1: with a treatise that summed up the spirit of this
Speaker 1: new age. Francis Bacons of the proficience and advancement of
Speaker 1: learning divine and human has better been known to us
Speaker 1: today as the advancement of learning. It can justifiably be
Speaker 1: said to have changed the terms of human understanding and
Speaker 1: our nature of knowledge. Bacon had been a royal servant
Speaker 1: for some years under the patronage of his uncle, Lord Berry,
Speaker 1: and had been first enlisted in the court of Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: But the advent of a new King promised more tangible rewards,
Speaker 1: and soon after the Ascension, Bacon provided James with texts
Speaker 1: of advice on such matters as the Union of Scotland
Speaker 1: and England and ecclesiastical policy. Yet the advancement of learning
Speaker 1: was a work in quite another key, and one that
Speaker 1: helped create the climate of scientific rationalism that would eventually
Speaker 1: characterize the entire seventeenth century. Now, Bacon first had to
Speaker 1: clear away all the inherited knowledge that came before the
Speaker 1: early pages of the treatise. He denounces old studies in
Speaker 1: which men study words and not matter. Words and not
Speaker 1: matter had been the foundation for traditional learning for centuries,
Speaker 1: and was grounded in the humanism of the Renaissance as
Speaker 1: well as the scholastic theology of the Middle Ages. But
Speaker 1: Bacon declared, quote that men have withdrawn themselves too much
Speaker 1: from the contemplation of nature and the observations of expertise,
Speaker 1: and have tumbled up and down in their own reasons
Speaker 1: and conceits. In other words, it was time to pick
Speaker 1: your head up out of the books and look at
Speaker 1: the world if you wanted to learn something about the world.
Speaker 1: He further observed quotes this kind of degenerate learning word
Speaker 1: learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who, having sharp
Speaker 1: and strong wits, and abundance of leisure and small variety
Speaker 1: of reading, but their wits being shut up in the
Speaker 1: cells of a few authors cheerfully Aristotle their dictator, as
Speaker 1: their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries
Speaker 1: and colleges, and knowing little history either of nature or
Speaker 1: of time, did out of no great quantity of matter
Speaker 1: and infinite agitation of wit spin unto us those laborious
Speaker 1: webs of learning which are extant in their books, cobwebs
Speaker 1: of learning, admirable for fineness of threat and work, but
Speaker 1: of absolutely no substance and no profit end quote. Bacon
Speaker 1: was assaulting the methods and principles of previous human learning
Speaker 1: that had dominated for centuries in favor of experiment and observation.
Speaker 1: He believed that this was the central tenet of actual science,
Speaker 1: and for him the purpose was also different because the
Speaker 1: purpose of all learning, for Bacon was to promote the
Speaker 1: benefit and prosperity of humankind. It wasn't thinking about the
Speaker 1: world beyond life after death, which had been the purpose
Speaker 1: of all learning throughout the Middle Ages. The purpose, then
Speaker 1: was to contemplate man's existence vis a v a distant God.
Speaker 1: For Bacon, it was about making life better right now.
Speaker 1: It is interesting that a man like Bacon would rise
Speaker 1: under the reign of James the First. He was a Puritan,
Speaker 1: or at least a puritanical disposition. He did not believe
Speaker 1: in divine authority at all. He believed individualism. He believed
Speaker 1: in observation, not contemplation, as the source of reason. Bacon,
Speaker 1: in other words, just doesn't make a ton of sense
Speaker 1: in James's court. That again, though, might be an indication
Speaker 1: not that Bacon was out of place, but that James
Speaker 1: was the divine right of kings, was increasingly out of
Speaker 1: touch with modernity. On the cover of one of Bacon's
Speaker 1: most important works, there is depicted a ship sailing smoothly
Speaker 1: through the pillars of Hercules, long believed to be the
Speaker 1: end of the world. Bacon, like many men of his age,
Speaker 1: no longer accepted conventional norms. To see was to believe,
Speaker 1: not to read Aristotle. Honestly, James feels a bit out
Speaker 1: of step with the young men pushing forward the boundaries
Speaker 1: of the human imagination in the seventeenth century, and perhaps,
Speaker 1: as we will see that was one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that things would get out of hand so quickly. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in supporting the show, there's two links
Speaker 1: in the show notes. One is to the website and
Speaker 1: the other is to a free trial of Western SIV
Speaker 1: two point zero. You can click on that and it'll
Speaker 1: pop up wherever you're listening to this website. For one
Speaker 1: dollar a month, it's twelve dollars a year. You can
Speaker 1: get ad free in early versions of the show you
Speaker 1: just listened, and for upwards of two and more dollars
Speaker 1: a month you can get access to a whole different
Speaker 1: panoply of different shows that we've put forth. Thank you
Speaker 1: for the support. As always,