ger and discomfort. Percy, therefore, in March, 1604, "began
to labour earnestly" with Mr Wyniard and his wife to obtain these
houses. Mrs Wyniard seems chiefly to have attended to this business;
her husband was not improbably incapacitated by age or ill-health.
Percy's efforts proved successful. He was accepted as tenant by the
Wyniards at a rent of 12 pounds per annum, Mr Ferris being bought out
with 30 pounds for his good-will and 5 pounds more "in consideration of
the charges of the house." The agreement was signed on the 24th of May.

The next united act of these five exemplary gentlemen was to meet at a
house "in the fields behind Saint Clement's Church, near the arch, near
the well called Saint Clement's Well." This seems to have been the
residence of the Jesuit priest Gerard; but it is uncertain whether it
was identical with that of Percy, or with that of Mrs Herbert, where
Fawkes had apartments, both which are also described as "beyond Saint
Clement's." Gerard, who was in the company, was with delicate
consideration left in an upper room, where he was provided with all
necessaries for the celebration of mass, while the conspirators
proceeded to business alone in the lower apartment. Taking a primer in
his hand, Catesby administered to his four accomplices this oath, which
he also took himself:--

"You swear by the blessed Trinity, and by the Sacrament which you now
propose to receive, never to disclose directly or indirectly, by word or
circumstance, the matter that shall be proposed to you to keep secret,
nor desist from the execution thereof till the rest shall give you
leave."

Then they passed into the upper room, where Gerard stood ready robed,
and received the host from his hands--with what "intention" being
unknown to him, if the assertion of the conspirators may be believed.

I have gone rather too far, chronologically speaking, in order to tell
this part of the story straight through; and now we must go back a
little. About four months before this oath was taken, in January, 1604,
was held the famous conference of bishops at Hampton Court. The King,
who, though baptised a Roman Catholic, had been educated as a
Presbyterian, propounded various queries to the hierarchy concerning
practices which puzzled him in the Church of England, of which he was
now the supreme head upon earth. In the first place, he desired to know
the meaning of the rite of confirmation: "if they held the sacrament of