their ships. They returned to England after an absence of six months. What he had seen had made Ralegh more sure than ever that there was boundless wealth to be gained in Guiana. He wrote an account of his journey in the hopes of pursuading others to share his views, but he never raised enough enthusiasm to make people willing to make the great effort which would be needful if they were to win Guiana. In the end, when some of the English were led to think seriously about seeking a new home across the seas, it was to North America, where Ralegh himself had first turned his attention, that they went, and South America was left to the Spaniards. XXXVII. THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. A.D. 1605. WHEN James Stuart, King of Scotland, succeeded Elizabeth upon the English throne as James I., both the Puritans and the Roman Catholics hoped that he would look more kindly upon them than Elizabeth had done. But James disappointed their hopes, and little by little ordered the strict laws made in the time of Elizabeth to be carried out both against Puritans and Catholics. The Catholics were bitterly disappointed, and when James ordered that all Catholic priests should be banished from England, their hatred and rage against the Government led some of the more zealous amongst them to make a desperate plot. The chief of these plotters was Robert Catesby, a man who knew very well how to gain over others to think as he did. When he heard that the Catholic priests were to be banished he gave himself up for a few days to angry and bitter thoughts of revenge, and then he wrote to his cousin Thomas Winter, begging him to come and see him in London on business of importance. Winter came as he was bidden, and found Catesby at Lambeth with a friend of his, John Wright. These three men were all zealous Catholics; they had all suffered for their religion, and had tried by many plots and treasons to help the cause of the Catholics in England. Catesby now told Winter his new plan. He wished to blow up the Parliament House with gunpowder when the King came to open Parliament. Afterwards, when the Government of the country was all in confusion, it would be easy to make a successful rising in favour of the Catholic religion. Catesby did not let Winter leave him till he had agreed to risk his life to aid this plot. A little while afterwards a new conspirator was fetched over from Holland. This was an Englishman named Guido Fawkes, of well-known courage and skill. Another man named Thomas Percy, who was known to be specially angry at the treatment which the Catholics had received, was asked to come to a meeting of the plotters. He burst into the room where they were sitting together with the words, "Shall we always, gentlemen, talk and never do anything?" Catesby told him that they had a plan, and at another meeting, after all five had sworn a solemn oath of secrecy and taken the sacrament together, Catesby told Fawkes and Percy his plan. Their next step was to hire a house which joined on to the Parliament House. Percy leased the house, and Fawkes, so as to be able to go in and out without suspicion, pretended to be Percy's servant; he had been so long out of England that no one knew him. The house had been hired in the spring. The conspirators meant to carry out their horrible plan when Parliament should meet, as was expected, in the following February. For a time they separated and went into the country. In the early winter they met again in London, and then began to work to make a passage through the wall which divided the house they had hired from the Parliament House. They found that the wall was nine feet thick, and though they worked hard for a fortnight they got a very little way into it. As they worked they talked over their plans. They hoped that both James and his eldest son Henry would perish with the Parliament, and that they would then be able to seize the King's younger children and set up a Catholic government in the name of one of them. They were still busy at the wall, when they heard that Parliament was not to meet till October. So, as there was no need for haste, they went again into the country for a while, and told one or two more of their friends and relations, after they had sworn secrecy, of the plot. Then they went back to work at the wall. One day, as they were working, they were alarmed by hearing a rustling sound. Fawkes was sent to find out what it was, and came back to say that a certain woman was selling off a store of coals which she kept in a cellar close at hand. They found out that this cellar ran under the Parliament House, and was just what they wanted for their purpose. They succeeded in hiring it, Percy giving as his reason that he wanted more room for his coals. They were now spared the trouble of working through the wall, and easily opened a door between the house and the cellar. They then put twenty barrels of powder into the cellar, and covered them up thickly with wooden logs and faggots. All was now ready, and they only had to wait till the day when Parliament should meet, which was at last fixed for the fifth of November. As the time drew nearer, Catesby thought it was necessary for the success of the plot to get at least one or two rich men to join it. He chose three rich Catholics named Rokewood, Digby, and Tresham, to whom he told his plan, and who, after some hesitation, were gained over by him to promise their help. Thirteen people now knew the secret. It would not be safe to trust it to any more, but in order to have a number of discontented Catholics ready to help them, Digby agreed to invite a large hunting party for the day of the meeting of Parliament. When he had heard of the success of the plot he intended to tell it to his guests, and bring them at once to the help of the conspirators. Of the three gentlemen to whom Catesby had told the plot, one, Tresham, had not joined with his whole heart, and the more he thought of it the less he liked it. He knew that his own brother-in-law, Lord Monteagle, himself a Catholic, |