What Gunpowder Plot Was

171

Gerard, pp. 65, 66.

172

Goodman, i. 104.

173

G. P. B. No. 40. Father Gerard (p. 142) says that we learn on the unimpeachable testimony of Mrs. Whynniard, the landlady, that Fawkes not only paid the last instalment of rent on Sunday, November 3, but on the following day, the day immediately preceding the intended explosion, had carpenters and other work folk in the house for mending and repairing thereof (G. P. B. No. 39). “To say nothing of the wonderful honesty of paying rent under the circumstances, what was the sense of putting a house in repair upon Monday, which on Tuesday was to be blown to atoms?” The rent having fallen due at Michaelmas, is it not probable that it was paid in November to avoid legal proceedings, which might at least have drawn attention to the occupier of the house. As to the rest, the ‘unimpeachable testimony’ is that – not of Mrs. Whynniard, but of Roger James (G. P. B. No. 40), who says that the carpenter came in about Midsummer, not on November 4.

174

Gerard, p. 69.

175

G. P. B. No. 101.

176

See p. 108.

177

G. P. B. No. 39.

178

Gerard, p. 87.

179

Here is another ‘discrepancy,’ which Father Gerard has not noticed. As the ‘cellar’ was not taken till a little before Easter, Percy could not make a door into it about the middle of Lent. My solution is, that in his second examination, on November 6th, Fawkes was trying to conceal the existence of the mine, in order that he might not betray the miners, and therefore antedated the making of the door. See p. 25.

180

Gerard, p. 88.

181

Gerard, p. 89.

182

Gerard, p. 74.

183

See p. 66.

184

See the table in State Papers relating to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, ed. by Prof. Laughton for the Navy Records Society, i. 339.

185

Edinburgh Review, January 1897, p. 200.

186

Gerard, p. 148.

187

We know that Percy visited the house at Westminster at Midsummer. See p. 104.

188

Grange to Salisbury, Nov. 5. —G. P. B. No. 15.

189

Justices of Warwickshire to Salisbury, Nov. 12. —Ib. No. 75.

190

Goodman, i. 102.

191

Gerard, p. 151.

192

Goodman, i. 105.

193

Gerard, p. 152.

194

Warrant, Feb. 8; Commission, Feb. 21; Pass, Oct. 25, 1605. —S. P. Dom., xii. 65; Docquet Book, 1605; S. P. Dom., xv. 106.

195

To the theory that Salisbury wanted inconvenient witnesses disposed of, because the man who shot Percy and Catesby got a pension of two shillings a day, I reply that the Government was more afraid of a rebellion than of testimony. At all events, 2s. at that time was certainly not worth 1l. now, as Father Gerard assumes here, and in other passages of his book. It is usual to estimate the value of money as being about four or five times as much as it is in the present day. The relative price, however, depended so much on the commodities purchased that I hesitate to express myself positively on the subject. The only thing that I am quite clear about is that Father Gerard’s estimate is greatly exaggerated. It is true that he grounds his errors on a statement by Dr. Jessopp that 4,000 marks was equivalent to 30,000l., but the very exaggeration of these figures should have led him to suspect some error, or, at least – as I have recently been informed by Dr. Jessopp was the fact – that his calculation was based on other grounds than the relative price of commodities.