NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15142, 5 November 1912, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOTTERS. It will be of interest to-day to recall the names and characteristics Of the men concerned in the gunpowder plot to blow up the Parliament of England on November 5, 1605. Robert Catesbyy the chief instigator of the plot, was a gentleman of family and fortune, and it wa* to Thomas Winter that he first explained his plan. Winter, in his turn, induced Guy FaWkes to join the conspiracy. Fawkes, the mdo-drama-tio villain of the popular creed, had obtained both respect and credit as a soldier of fortune. John, Wright "was one of the greatest swordsmen of the -timet and Thomas Percy -was a distant relation of the : great house whose name he bore. Robert 'Winter 1 and ' Christopher Wright were respectively brothers of the" two conspirators of those names. The remaining figure in the group", Bates, Was a servant of Catesby, who, having discovered what was going on, was taken into the plot in the hope of binding him to them. At midnight on November 4, in the cellar beneath the. House of LordSi • Fawkes was watching over the barrels of gunpowder when he. was arrested. The cellar belonged to one John Bright, and was used .for coal. It was secured by the conspirators :s>r their purpose-on accoant. of its. being directly under the House'of Lords.

The conspirators* house at Lambeth was under, the care of Robert Keyes, a poor Roman Catholic, gentleman, and it was there that the explosives were collected in small quantities at a time. It is interesting to note that iif 1605 : November 5 fell, on a Tuesday.