Gunpowder, Treason & Plot, Thursday 5 November 2009 St Mary Undercroft, Palace of Westminster PROGRAMME NOTES by Roz Sherris, Exmoor Singers of London This last Night the Upper House of Parliament was searched by Sir Thomas Knevett; and one Johnson, Servant to Mr Thomas Percy was there apprehended; who had placed 36 Barrels of Gunpowder in the Vault under the House with a Purpose to blow the King, and the whole company, when they should there assemble. Afterwards divers other Gentle were discovered to be of the Plot. Inscribed in the margin of the Commons Journal for 5 November 1605 (Original hangs in the Noes lobby of the Commons) Thirty years after the Brighton bomb, and eight years on from 9/11, explosive means of dissent and extremists with a cause are still, unhappily, all too topical. This concert, in this place, on the anniversary of one of the earliest attempts at a terrorist act, provides an opportunity to reflect upon a lawyer s son from York for whom the England in which he lived was at variance with his beliefs. Context The Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, had its roots in the Act of Supremacy of 1534, when Henry VIII split with Rome there had already been several problems between the King and the Pope, but the final straw was the Pope s refusal to allow Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. This caused suffering on both sides, with Thomas More among the first who died for his Catholic beliefs, and Thomas Cranmer, Henry s Archbishop of Canterbury, burnt as a heretic under Catherine s daughter Mary (r. 1553-58), who restored the Catholic religion and married the future Philip II of Spain in 1555. During the long reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) the future of the English Church was secured for the time being. But, partly due to various Popish plots (one of which led to the downfall of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587), and the Armada sent by Philip II in 1588, it became increasingly difficult for Catholics to hold positions of power. As we shall see with Byrd, advancement was possible, but many positions required an oath of allegiance to the Queen as Supreme Governor of the church, and increasingly heavy fines, and sometimes prison sentences, were imposed on recusants those who refused to attend Church of England services and take Communion. Penalties for Catholic priests were even more severe: imprisonment for celebrating Mass or possessing Catholic vestments; death, often if the offence was considered treason. Under these difficult conditions, many Catholic families found it politic to stay in their country houses, away from London and the court, and some built secret rooms to hide priests and hold family Mass. Often Catholic women, less visible than their men, took the lead in recusant activities. Most of those involved in the Powder Treason had grown up among a network of such Catholic families, with houses around Coventry and Stratford-upon-Avon. Only Guy Fawkes was an outsider to this world. Such was the state of the Catholic community as the reign of Elizabeth drew to its close. The old Queen resolutely refused to name an heir, but her principal adviser, Robert Cecil, was determined to ensure a smooth transition. The Pope favoured Isabella, daughter of Philip II,
and Cecil did not dismiss her out of hand, but by 1601 he had entered into secret correspondence with his final choice, James VI of Scotland. Any perceived parallel between Robert Cecil, 1st Baron Cecil of Essenden, 1st Viscount Cranborne, 1st Early of Salisbury, later Knight of the Garter and any contemporary parliamentarian is left to the reader s imagination. James himself was very keen to become King of England, and used his considerable political wiles to keep in with both sides. During the Armada crisis, he offered Elizabeth (who had once called him that false Scottish urchin ) loyalty as your natural son and compatriot of your country. But he didn t object to his wife s conversion to Catholicism in around 1600, using her as a convenient front to communicate with Catholics on the Continent, nor did he scotch rumours of his own future conversion. James also verbally promised representatives of English Catholics that he would ease the laws affecting them. Thomas Percy (later one of the plotters), who went to Scotland for the Duke of Northumberland, took this to mean full religious tolerance. When Elizabeth died in March 1603, Cecil s plans went smoothly. There was general celebration with bonfires all over London. Catholics also celebrated, in expectation of relief and at first their optimism seemed justified: fines for recusants were suspended. But, the honeymoon was soon over. In February 1604, James, in what appears to have been a political calculation, ordered Jesuits and priests out of the country and restored the fines for recusancy. It has been suggested that the fines used, at least in part, to subsidise the many Scots who flocked to the English court at this time and who received special favours from the King, causing resentment among Englishmen at home and abroad: There is a natural hostility between the English and the Scots. There has always been one, and at present it keeps increasing. Even were there but one religion in England, nevertheless it will not be possible to reconcile these two nations, as they are, for very long. Conclusion of Guy Fawkes s memorandum to the Spanish Council asking for aid for English Catholics, presented July 1603 (Original in Spanish Archives) In the King s speech at the opening of Parliament on 19 March 1604, while James still stood ostensibly against persecution, I would be sorry to punish their bodies for the error of their minds, he firmly closed the door on any further religious toleration. From thenceforth it would not be lawful for Catholics daily to increase their number and strength in this Kingdom so at some future time they might be in hope to erect their Religion again Some contemporary writers saw James the politician at work again the measures against the Catholics were in part meant to balance similar proscriptions against Puritans. But for militant Catholics, this incendiary speech lit the touchpaper that caused them to take the law into their own hands. The Plot [Catesby] told me the nature of the disease required so sharp a remedy, and asked me if I would give my consent. I told him Yes, in this or what else soever, if he resolved upon it, I would venture my life Tom Wintour s confession, 1605 On Sunday 20 May 1604, five men met at the Duck and Drake in the Strand: Robert Catesby, the charismatic ringleader, Tom Wintour, Jack Wright, Thomas Percy and Guido Fawkes. Catesby and Wintour were cousins, and also old friends of the brothers-in-law Wright and Percy. Fawkes was an outsider, a soldier and expert in laying explosives, whom Wintour had met in Flanders when on an abortive quest for foreign help at Catesby s request. All were able swordsmen. The five agreed on Catesby s plan to blow up parliament and swore an oath of secrecy. They then joined the Sunday Mass in another room of the Inn and took the sacrament of Holy Communion. Soon after, Tomas Percy was, took a house in the precinct of Westminster, where Guido Fawkes was installed under the name of John Johnson as a caretaker. The others returned to their houses in the Midlands.
There followed a period of frustrated anticipation, as the Opening of the next session of Parliament was delayed from February 1605 to October, then November 1605, due to fears of plague in London. During this time gunpowder was hoarded in Catesby s house in Lambeth then taken across the river to Fawkes. It is also possible that an attempt was made to tunnel into Westminster (though no evidence of a tunnel has ever been found, so this may be an invention of the authorities). In March 1605 Thomas Percy negotiated the lease of a storeroom near his Westminster house. Crucially this cellar was at ground level, with the House of Lord s chamber above. More conspirators, including Kit Wright (Jack s brother), Robert Wintour and John Grant (Tom s brother and brother-in-law) were recruited to help with the second phase of the plan the seizure of James s 9-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth (then in the charge of Lord Harrington near Coventry) as figurehead ruler. This also required rich men with servants and stables of horses, so Sir Frances Tresham, Ambrose Rookwood, and Sir Everard Digby were persuaded into the scheme by the magnetic Catesby. All was in readiness for the State Opening of Parliament on Tuesday 5 November. Discovery By October 1605 there were 13 people at the centre of the conspiracy and, not surprisingly, rumours began to spread within the wider Catholic community and beyond. Then, on the evening of 26 October, a letter for Lord Monteagle, a prominent Catholic, was given to one of his servants in the street. It contained this anonymous warning: My Lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care of your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift your attendance at this Parliament; for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness of this time. And think not slightingly of this advertisement, but retire yourself into the country where you may expect the event in safety. For though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament; and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be condemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm; for the danger is passed as soon as you have burnt the letter. And I hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you. Monteagle took the letter straight round to the house of Robert Cecil (now Lord Salisbury etc) in Whitehall. Salisbury then did nothing further about the letter until James returned from a hunting trip on 1 November, then left it to the King to discover the hidden meaning. After another hiatus, a search of Parliament was ordered on the evening of Sunday 3 November, when a strange man and a heap of faggots were noticed in the cellar rented by Thomas Percy. Finally, the next evening, another search uncovered the 36 barrels of gunpowder and the man, who gave his name as John Johnson, was arrested. Salisbury s sang-froid throughout this episode raises the suspicion that he already had a pretty good idea of where to look and what he would find there. The author of the letter has never been identified, but some suggest that Monteagle himself contrived it, having heard something of the Plot from his brother-in-law, Francis Tresham. Programme Thomas Campion (1567-1620) Of Catesby, Fawkes and Garnet Ballads on the theme of the Gunpowder Plot continued to be written into the 19th century, attesting to the legend s grip on the national consciousness (and the invocation of the Plot by more than one Government in dealing with Catholic problems); but the one with which tonight s entertainment begins appears to be the only surviving synoptic ballad on the subject, published during the reign of James I (Stowe MS 182, fols 47-47 v ).
A broadside would often name a popular tune to which the ballad could be sung, but in practice the assembled company would use any favourite tune of the appropriate metre. This ballad, does not specify a tune, so we have selected the contemporary poet and composer Thomas Campion s I care not for these ladies, from his first Book of Ayres, a collection of lute songs published in 1601 and still popular at the time of these events. Only three names are mentioned in the ballad: Catesby, instigator of the Plot; Fawkes, the outsider who was caught on the scene; and Garnet. Father Henry Garnet, Superior of the Jesuits in England, was not strictly one of the group. He heard of the Plot from Catesby and another priest, Father Oswald Testimond (aka Greenway), under the seal of the confession in the Summer of 1605. Garnet was horrified, and did his utmost to dissuade Catesby from such violent action, but felt he could not pass the information on because of the way he came by it. This scruple was to cost him dear. Thomas Morley (1557-1602) O Grief, e en on the bud Morley, a pupil of Byrd, was a brewer s son from Norwich who graduated from Oxford in 1588. He was a prolific composer of instrumental pieces and madrigals, and also wrote A Plaine and Easie Introdcution to Practicall Musicke in 1597, a manual of composition and performance practice which remained popular well into the 18th century. In 1601, Elizabeth s favourite, the Earl of Essex, tried to bring down Robert Cecil, whom he thought too powerful, by force of arms. Amongst his supporters were Robert Catesby, Jack Wright and Tom Wintour, core plotters. The rebellion quickly failed and cost Essex his head, but also landed Catesby with a 3000 fine, forcing him to sell his family home. Robert Parsons (c. 1530-1572) Te Deum laudamus; Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel This is an example of how composers coped with the transition to the new order of service in the 1550s. Services continued in Latin until the end of Henry VIII s reign, but in 1549 an English Book of Common Prayer was produced by a consultation of Bishops, probably led by Thomas Cranmer. For Matins, only the Te Deum is retained from the non-biblical material contained in the Catholic Service. Parsons uses this brand new text for his First Great Service for Matins, though the scale and double-choir polyphony of the setting echoes the Catholic tradition. Parsons Anglican service is still in use today. Edward Fawkes, Guy s father, was a notary public and later Registrar of the Exchequer Court in York. Such a public position would have required him to swear the Oath of Supremacy, which suggests he was a Protestant, and Guy s baptism at St Michael-le-Belfry, York on 16 April 1570 tends to support this. However, Edward died in 1579, and Guy s mother subsequently married Denis Bainbridge who came from a strongly recusant family in West Yorkshire. It may be that Guy converted to Catholicism in this new environment, but it is also conceivable that Edward left his true religion at home with his wife and children to protect his career. Peter Philips (c. 1560-1628) Ave Regina caelorum Philips was a boy chorister at St Paul s Cathedral under the Catholic choirmaster, Sebastian Westcote, who had taught Byrd some 20 years earlier. In 1582 Philips, left England for Flanders because of his Catholicism, and in 1585 entered the service of another Catholic exile, Thomas, third Baron Paget, who later settled in Antwerp, where Philips remained after Paget s death. In 1593, on his way back from a trip to Antwerp, Philips was denounced by a compatriot for complicity in a plot on Queen Elizabeth s life, and imprisoned at the Hague, though he was soon acquitted and released without further charges. By 1597 he had moved to Brussels and was become organist to Albert, Archduke of Austria, Governor of the Low Countries with his wife, Isabella.
In 1592, Guy Fawkes sold up his farm in Yorkshire and went to the Low Countries to join the army of Spain. He distinguished himself at the Siege of Calais four years later, and it was probably from this mother of military invention that he learned to handle explosives. This antiphon of the Blessed Virgin Mary would have been in performance at the time. Orlando di Lasso (c. 1532-1594) Matona mia cara Lasso was born in Mons in modern Belgium, but left the Low Countries aged about 12 to further his vocal studies in various Italian cities, culminating in his appointment as choirmaster in Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, Rome in 1553. Only a year later he left and travelled around Europe, returning to the Low Countries for the publication of his early compositions in 1555. He then joined the court of Albrecht V of Bavaria in Munich. While there he heard Germans speaking Italian with a thick accent, wonderfully captured in this bawdy song. The imagined singer is a German soldier, presumably fighting in the Low Countries against the forces of Spain, and the text is full of multilingual puns which are rather lost in translation, and perhaps better so. Fawkes was well-respected in the Low Countries: Father Testimond (who had attended the same school as Fawkes) described him as pleasant of approach and cheerful of manner, opposed to quarrels and strife loyal to his friends. But he had only reached the rank of ensign by 1602, perhaps lacking funds for advancement in 1599 he was said to be in great want. Fawkes s family crest was the falcon, coincidentally referred to in this madrigal. Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) Magnificat sexti toni In 1583, while working in Rome, Victoria dedicated his next volume of masses to Philip II of Spain, with a plea to be allowed to return to Spain as a priest. Philip granted this request, and appointed him chaplain to his sister, Dowager Empress Maria, at the Royal Convent of the Barefoot Nuns of St Clare in Madrid, where he remained until his death in 1611, occasionally publishing collections of his compositions. This theatrical setting of the Magnificat for three choirs of unequal voices is typical of the Continental music of the time, and its public and demonstrative nature is the complete antithesis of Byrd s secret style. The Magnificat was retained in the new Protestant order of service, despite being a prayer said by Mary, who suffered a substantial loss of status in the new Church. Guy Fawkes travelled from Flanders to the Spanish court in July 1603 to plead for armed help for English Catholics. By this time, Philip II had been succeeded by his son, Philip III, who was far more conciliatory towards England. Fawkes was listened to courteously, but sent away empty-handed, the only lasting effect of his Spanish sojourn being the transformation of his name to Guido Fawkes. John Bennet (c. 1570-c. 1615) Weep, O mine eyes Little is known about Bennet s life even his dates of birth and death are estimated from the dates of his published compositions. Weep, O my eyes is a homage to John Dowland s famous Flow, my teares, one of the most famous lute songs of the period. Officially, Dowland was employed by James VI s sister-in-law, the Queen of Denmark between 1598 and 1606. But he also spied for Robert Cecil an intercepted letter survives in the Danish Royal Archives from one of Cecil s minions to Dowland, ordering him to gather information from the Danish court. After Guy Fawkes s arrest, the other conspirators were pursued. On 8 November four including Catesby and Percy, were killed and three more including Tom Wintour, injured and captured in a last stand at Holbeach House, Staffordshire. Tresham was arrested in London on 12 November, and the remainder were caught or gave themselves up, the last being Robert Wintour on 9 January 1606.
Mass for five voices William Byrd (1543-1623) Byrd and his former teacher Tallis were granted the monopoly of music printing by Queen Elizabeth in 1575. However, Byrd s Catholic roots became increasingly important to him and his house was one of those listed as centres of Catholic activity in a 1585 Bill for the utter extirpation of Popery. His motets at this time increasingly set texts pleading for God s help and bemoaning persecution. But Byrd s musical skills, and his friends at court seem to have protected him from any serious charges. Nevertheless, the publication of three masses (for three, four and five voices) in the early 1590s was notably courageous. They were printed with a plain cover bearing only Byrd s name. The masses were almost certainly composed for Lord Petre of Writtle, a patron of Byrd s, who was also the leader of the Catholic community in Essex, for performance during clandestine services held in private houses. When questioned after his capture, John Johnson immediately admitted his intention had been to blow up the King and the Lords. The next day, the King wrote that the gentler Tortures are to be first used unto him et sic per gradus per ima tenditur [and so by degrees proceeding to the worst]. The effects of this persuasion can be clearly seen in the signature on his confession of 8 November. When David heard Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) Tomkins was born in St David s, Wales, where his father was a vicar choral of the cathedral. He became a choral instructor at Worcester Cathedral in 1596, and worked on-and-off until 1646, then losing his job as a result of the Civil War. But he also moved in London musical circles, as a contributor to Morley s Triumphs of Oriana (1601) and a pupil of Byrd (Tomkins dedicated one of his madrigals to his teacher). The eight surviving conspirators were tried in Westminster Hall on 27 January 1606, for high treason. All, apart from Sir Everard Digby, pleaded Not Guilty. By the end of the day all were convicted and sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered. On Thursday 30 January, Digby, Bates, Robert Wintour and Grant were executed in St Paul s Churchyard. The following day Tom Wintour, Rookwood, Keyes and, finally, Fawkes suffered the same fate in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. The details of their punishment are not recounted here, but are still shocking four centuries later. Aftermath There was one more direct victim of the Plot. In his speech to Parliament on 9 November 1605, James made no allegations against priests or against the general Catholic community. But this restraint soon vanished, partly due to Thomas Bates s confession (later retracted) which implicated Fathers Grant and Testimond, and many Catholic households were subjected to rigorous searches. During one of these, at Hindlip, Father Garnet was taken. He too was tried and found guilty, and on Saturday 3 May, he too was hung, drawn and quartered at St Paul s Churchyard. The effect on the Catholic community of the Plot itself, and of losing their spiritual leader in England, must have been devastating. King James ruled until 1625, and perhaps his most lasting memorial is the Authorised King James Bible, compiled between 1604 and 1611. His son, Charles I, took one of his father s dictums hold no Parliaments, but for the necesitie of new Lawes, which would be but seldome, to extremes, with disastrous consequences. When fleeing the roundheads, the future Charles II is said to have made use of priest holes to avoid capture. English Catholics continued to be the object of suspicion on the Monument to the Great Fire of 1666 the phrase But Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched was added in 1681. Nevertheless, on his deathbed Charles II converted to Catholicism, as his brother and successor, James II, had already done some years earlier. Parliament, much stronger by the 1680s than in James I s day, and the Church of England baulked at a Catholic monarch, and encouraged the Glorious Revolution which replaced James II with his
Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange (who set food in England on 5 November 1688). And when neither William and Mary nor Anne produced any heirs, the Act of Succession of 1701, which prohibited a Catholic monarch, brought George, Elector of Hanover, to the throne. His claim rested on his grandmother, James s daughter Elizabeth, the girl selected by the figurehead ruler by the Plotters.