enterprise from others of its class. They were mostly
young men; they _were_ nearly all connected by ties of blood or
marriage; two-thirds of them, if not more, were perverts from
Protestantism; and so far from being the vulgar, brutal miscreants
usually supposed, they were--with one exception--gentlemen of name and
family, and some of good fortune; educated and accomplished men, who
honestly believed themselves to be doing God service. It is instructive
to read their profound conviction that they were saving their country's
honour, furthering their own salvation, and promoting the glory of God.
The slaughter of the innocents which necessarily attended their project
was lamentable indeed, but inevitable, and gave rise to as little real
compunction as the eating of beef and mutton. These men were by no
means heartless; they were only blind from ignorance of Scripture, and
excess of zeal in a false cause.

The original propounder of the plot was unquestionably Robert Catesby,
of Ashby Saint Ledgers, a Northamptonshire gentleman of ancient ancestry
and fair estate. He first whispered it in secret to John Wright, a
Lincolnshire squire, and soon afterwards to Thomas Winter, a younger
brother of the owner of Huddington Hall in Worcestershire, and a distant
cousin of an old friend of some of my readers--Edward Underhill, the
"Hot Gospeller." Thomas Winter communicated it in Flanders to Guy
Fawkes, a young officer of Yorkshire birth, and these four met with a
fifth, Thomas Percy, cousin and steward of the Earl of Northumberland.
The object of the meeting was to consider the condition of the Roman
Catholics, with a view to taking action for its relief. There was also
a priest in the company, but who he was did not transpire, though it is
almost certain to have been one of the three Jesuits chiefly concerned
in the plot--John Gerard, Oswald Greenway, or Henry Garnet. Percy,
usually fertile in imagination and eager in action, was ready with a
proposition at once. He said--

"The only way left for us is to kill the King; and that will I undertake
to do. From him we looked for bread, and have received nought save
stones. Let him be prayed to visit my Lord Mordaunt at Turvey, where a
masque may be had for him; and he once there, in the house of one of us
(though my Lord be not known so to be), he is at our mercy. How say
you, gentlemen?"

"Nay, my son," replied the priest. "There is a better course in hand--
even to c