only we would have branded them in the Foreheads with the letter L. for Lutheran and reserved them for perpetual bondage This I take God to witness saith my Author I received of those great Lords as upon examination taken by the Council and by Commandment published it to the Army The next day saith he the Queen rode through her Army attended by Noble-Footmen Leicester Essex and Norris then Lord Marshall and divers other great Lords where she made an Excellent Oration to her Army and withal commanded a publick Fast to be kept Her Oration was this MY loving people we have been perswaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people Let Tyrants fear I have alwaies so behaved my self that under God I have alwaies placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my Subjects and therefore I am come amongst you as you see at this time not for my recreation and disport but being resolved in the middest and heat of the battel to live or die amongst you all to lay down for my God and for my Kingdom and for my people my Honour and my Blood even in the dust I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble Woman but I have the Heart and Stomach of a King and of a King of England too and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain or any Prince of Europe should dare to invade the Borders of my Realm to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me I my self will take up Arms I my self will be your General Judge and Rewarder of every one of your vertues in the Field I know that already for your forwardness you have deserved Rewards and Crowns and we do assure you in the word of a Prince that shall be duly paid you In the mean time my Lieutenant General Leicester shall be in my stead than whom never Prince commanded a more Noble or Worthy Subject not doubting but by your Obedience to my General by your Concord in the Camp and your valour in the Field we shall shortly have a famous Victory over those Enemies of my God of my Kingdoms and my people Thus we see the curse of God and his threatning in Scripture accomplished They came out against us one way and they fled seven wayes before us making good even to the astonishment of all Posterity the wonderful Judgments of God poured out commonly upon such vast and proud aspirings After this Glorious Deliverance of our Land by the Power of the Omnipotent and the wild Boar repelled that sought to lay waste Englands fair and fruitful Vineyard our Gracious and Godly Queen who ever held Ingratitude a Capital Sin especially towards Her Almighty Protector as she had begun with Prayer so she ended with Praise commanding solemn Thanksgivings to be celebrated to the Lord of Hosts at the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul in her chief City of London which accordingly was done upon Sabbath day the eighth of September at which time eleven of the Spanish Ensignes the once badges of their bravery but now of their vanity and ignominy were hung upon the lower Battlements of that Church as Palmes of Praise for Englands Deliverance a shew no doubt more pleasing to God than when their spread colours did set out the pride of the Spaniards threatning the blood of so many innocent and faithful Christians Queen Elizabeth her self to be an example unto others upon Sabbath the twenty fourth of September came from her Palace of White-Hall in Westminster through the streets of London which were hung with blew Cloth the Companies of the City standing in their Liveries on both sides with their Banners in goodly order being carried in a Chariot drawn with two Horses to St. Pauls Church where dismounting from Her Chariot at the West door she humbled Her self upon her Knees and with great devotion in an audible voice She praised God as her only Defender who had delivered Her Self and People from the bloody designes of so cruel an Enemy The Sermon then preached tended wholly to give all the glory to God as the Author of this wonderful deliverance and when that was ended Her Majesty Her self with most Princely and Christian Speeches exhorted all the people to a due performance of those religious services of thankfulness which the Lord expected and required of them About the same time the Fair being kept in Southwark the Spanish Flags were hung up at London-Bridge to the great joy of the beholders and eternal infamy of the Spaniards proud attempts as irreligious as unsuccessful But the solemn day appointed for Thanksgiving throughout the Land was the nineteenth of November being Tuesday which accordingly was observed with great joy and praising of God and well it were if it had so continued still being no less a Deliverance than was that of Purim amongst the Jews which they instituted to be kept holy throughout their Generations The Zelanders also to leave a memorial of their thankfulness to God and their faithfulness to our Queen caused Medals of Silver to be stamped having engraven on the one side the Armes of their Country with this Inscription Glory to God alone and on the reverse the Portraicture of great Ships under written the Spanish Fleet and in the Circumference It came It went It was Anno 1588. In other Medals also were stamped Ships floating and sinking and in the reverse Supplicants upon their Knees with this Motto Man proposeth God disposeth 1588. The Hollanders also stamped some Medals with Spanish Ships and this Motto Impius fugit nemine sequente the wicked fly when none pursues Our Queen to shew Her Gratitude as well to the Instruments as to the Author of this great Deliverance assigned certain yearly Rents to the Lord Admiral for his gallant service and many times commended him and the other Captains of Her Ships as men born for the Preservation of their Country The rest She graciously saluted by name as oft as she saw them as men of notable deserts wherewith they held themselves well apaid and those which were Wounded Maimed or Poor She rewarded with competent Pensions The Lord of Hosts having thus dispelled this Storm the Queen dissolved Her Camp at Tilbury and not long after the Earl of Leicester ended his dayes having been a Peer of great Estate and Honour but liable to the common destiny of Great Ones whom all men magnifie in their life time but few speak well of after their Death This Admirable Deliverance was congratulated by almost all other Nations especially by all the reformed Churches and many Learned Men celebrated the same in Verse amongst which I shall onely mention two The first was that Poem made by Reverend Mr. Beza Translated into all the chief Languages in Christendom to be perpetuated to all ensuing Posterity It
requiring him to oversee all the places to which his Majesty was to repair Hereupon these two Counsellors shewed the Letter to the Earls of Worcester and Northampton and all concluded how slight soever the contents seemed to appear to acquaint the King himself with the same which accordingly was done by the Earl of Salisbury who upon Friday in the Afternoon being All-Saints day taking the King into the Gallery at White-hall communicated the Letter to him which was as followeth My Lord OVT 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 off your attendance at this Parliament For God and Man have concurred to punish the wickedness of this time And think not slightly of this advertisement but retire your self into your 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 contemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm For the danger is past so soon as you have burnt the Letter and I hope God will give you the Grace to make a good use of it to whose holy protection I commend you His Majesty after reading this Letter pausing a while and then reading it again delivered his judgment that the stile of it was too quick and pithy to be a Libel proceeding from the superfluities of an idle brain and by these words That they should receive a terrible blow at this Parliament and yet not see who hurt them he presently apprehended that a sudden danger by a blast of Gunpowder was intended by some base Villain in a Corner though no insurrection rebellion or desperate attempt appeared But the Earl of Salisbury perceiving the King to apprehend it deeplier than he expected told his Majesty that he judged by one sentence in it that it was written either by a Fool or a Mad-man For said he If the danger be past as soon as you have burnt the Letter then the warning is to little purpose when the burning of the Letter may prevent the danger But the King on the contrary considering the former sentence That they should receive a terrible blow at this Parliament and yet should not see who hurt them joining it with this other sentence did thereupon conclude that the danger mentioned should be very sudden by some blast of Gun-Powder interpreting as soon for as quickly and therefore wished that the rooms under the Parliament-House should be thoroughly searched before Himself or Peers should sit therein Hereupon it was concluded that the Lord Chamberlain according to his Office should view all the rooms above and below but yet to prevent idle rumors and to let things ripen further it was resolved that this search should be deferred till Munday the day immediately before the Parliament and that then it should be done with a seeming slight eye to avoid suspect According to this conclusion the Earl of Suffolk Lord Chamberlain upon Munday in the Afternoon accompanied with the Lord Monteagle repaired into those under rooms and finding the Cellar so fully stored with Wood and Coals demanded of Fawkes the counterfeit Johnson who stood there attending as a servant of small repute Who owed the place He answered that the Lodgings belonged to Mr Thomas Percy and the Cellar also to lay in his Winter-provision himself being the Keeper of it and Mr Percies Servant whereunto the Earl as void of any suspicion told him that his Master was well provided against Winter blasts But when they were come forth the Lord Monteagle told him that he did much suspect Percy to be the Inditer of the Letter knowing his affection in Religion and the friendship betwixt them professed so that his heart gave him as he said when he heard Percy named that his hand was in the act The Lord Chamberlain returning related to the King and Council what he had seen and the suspicion that the Lord Monteagle had of Percy and himself of Johnson his man all which increased his Majesties jealousie so that he insisted that a narrower search should be made and the Billets and Coals turned up to the bottom of the same mind also were all the Privy-Counsellors then present but for the manner how the search was to be made they agreed not among themselves For on the one part they were very solicitous for the Kings safety concluding that there could not be too much caution used for preventing his danger and yet on the other part they were all extreme loth in case this Letter should prove nothing but the evaporation of some idle brain that a too curious search should be made lest if nothing were found it should turn to the great scandal of the King and State as being so suspicious upon every light and frivolous toy Besides it would lay an ill-favoured imputation upon the Earl of Northumberland one of his Majesties greatest Subjects and Counsellors This Thomas Percy being his Kinsman and intimate Friend Yet at last the search was concluded to be made but under colour of searching for certain Hangings belonging to the House which were missing and conveyed away Sir Thomas Knevet a Gentleman of his Majesties Privy-Chamber and a Justice of Peace in Westminster was imployed herein who about midnight before the Parliament was to begin went to the place with a small but trusty number of persons and at the door of the entrance to the Cellar finding one who was Guy Fawkes at so unseasonable an hour Cloked and Booted he apprehended him and ransacking the Billets he found the Serpents Nest stored with thirty six Barrels of Powder and then searching the Villain he found about him a dark Lanthorn three Matches and other instruments for blowing up the Powder And Fawkes being no whit daunted instantly confessed his guiltiness and was so far from repentance as he vowed that had he been within the House as indeed he was but immediately come forth from his work he would certainly have blown up the House with himself and them all and being brought before the Council he lamented nothing so much as because the deed was not done saying that the Devil and not God was the discoverer of it And indeed when this Prisoner was first brought into Whitehall in respect of the strangeness of the thing no man was restrained from seeing and speaking with him and not long after the Lords of the Council examined him But he put on such a Romane resolution that both to the Council and to all others that spake to him that day he seemed fixed and settled in his resolution of concealing his complices and notwithstanding the horror of the fact the guiltiness of his Conscience his sudden surprize the terror which should have been stricken into him by coming into the presence of
hope of the Spaniards For by Her command the next day after the Spaniards had cast Anchor the Lord Admiral made ready eight of his worst Ships filled with wild-fire pitch rosin brimstone and other combustible matter their Ordnance were charged with Bullets Stones Chains and such like things fit instruments of death and all the men being taken out upon the Sabbath day July the twenty eighth at two of the clock after midnight were they let drive with Wind and Tide under the guidance of Young and Prowse amongst the Spanish Fleet. And so the Pilots returning and their trains taking fire such a sudden thunderclap was given by them that the affrighted Spaniards it being the dead time of the night were amazed and stricken with an horrible fear lest all their Ships should have been fired by them And to avoid this present mischief being in great perplexity they had no other remedy to avoid these deadly Engines and murthering inventions than by cutting their Cables in sunder the time being too short to weigh up their Anchors and so hoising up their Sails to drive at random into the Seas in which hast and confusion the greatest of their Galliasses fell foul upon another Ship and lost her Rudder and so floted up and down and the next day fearfully making towards Callis ran aground upon the sands where she was set upon by the English This Galliass was of Naples Her General was Heugh de Moncado who fought the more valiantly because he expected present help from the Prince of Parma But Sir Amias Preston gave such a fierce assault upon her that Moncado was shot dead with a Bullet and the Galliass boarded wherein many of the Spaniards were slain and a great many others leaping into the Sea were drowned only Don Antonio de Matiques a principal Officer had the good hap to escape and was the first man that carried the unwelcome news into Spain that their Invincible Navy proved vincible This huge bottom manned with four hundred Souldiers and three hundred Slaves that had in her fifty thousand Ducats of the Spanish Kings treasure fell into the English mens hands a reward well befitting their valour who sharing it merrily amongst them and freeing the miserable Slaves from their Fetters would have fired the empty Vessel but Monsieur Gourden Governour of Callis fearing that the fire might endanger the Town would not permit them to do it bending his Ordnance against those which attempted it Had not this politick Stratagem of the Fire-ships been found out it would have been very difficult for the English to have dislodged them for those huge Ships had their bulks so strengthened with thick Planks and massie Beams that our Bullets might strike and stick and yet never pass through them So that the greatest hurt which our English Canon did was only by rending their Masts and Tacklings The Spaniards report that the Duke of Medina when these burning Ships approached commanded the whole Fleet to weigh Anchor to avoid them yet so as having shunned the danger presently every Ship to return to her former station which accordingly he did himself giving a signal to the rest to do the like by discharging one of his great Guns but in this general consternation the warning was heard but of a few the rest being scattered all about which for fear were driven some into the wide Ocean and other upon the shallows of Flanders July the twenty ninth after this miserable disaster the Spaniards ranging themselves into the best order they could approached over against Graveling where once again the English getting the wind of them deprived them of the conveniency of Callis road and kept them from supply out of Dunkirk from whence rested their full hope of support In the mean while Drake and Fenner played incessantly with their great Ordnance upon the Spanish Fleet and with them presently joined Fenton Southwel Beeston Cross Riman and lastly the Lord Admiral himself with the Lords Thomas Howard and Sheffield On the other hand the Duke of Medina Leva Oquenda Richalde and others of them with much ado got clear off the shallows and sustained the charge as well as they could yet were most of their Ships pittifully torn and shot through the fight continuing from morning till night which indeed proved very dismal to the Spaniards for therein a great Gallion of Biscay perished the Captains whereof to avoid ignominy or to be reputed valorous desperately slew each other In which distress also two other great Ships presently sunk The Gallion Saint Matthew under the command of Don Diego Piementelli coming to rescue Don Francisco de Toledo who was in the Saint Philip was together with the other miserably torn with shot their tacklings spent and their bulks rent so that the water entred in on all sides which fight was maintained against them by Seimore and Winter In which distress they were driven near Ostend where again they were shot through and through by the Zelanders Their desperate condition being known the Duke of Medina sent his own Skiff for Don Diego Piementelli Camp-master and Colonel over thirty two Bands But he in a Spanish Bravado refused to leave his Ship and like a Souldier assayed every way to free himself But being unable to do it he forthwith made towards the Coast of Flanders where being again set upon by five Dutchmen of War was required to yield which finally he did unto Captain Peter Banderduess who carried him into Zeland aud for a Trophy of his Victory hung up his Banner in the Church of Leiden whose length reached from the very roof to the ground Another also of the Spanish Ships coasting for Flanders was cast away upon the sands Francisco de Toledo also being likewise a Colonel over thirty two Bands in the other Gallion taking his course for the Coast of Flanders his Ship proved so leak that himself with some others of the chief betook themselves to their Skiff and arrived at Ostend the Ship with the residue being taken by the Flushingers The Spaniards now finding their welcome into England far worse than they expected were content to couch their Fleet as close together as they could not seeking to offend their Enemies but only to defend themselves and the wind coming to the South-west in the same order they passed by Dunkirk the English still following them at the heels But lest the Prince of Parma should take this advantage to put forth to Sea the Lord Admiral dispatched the Lord Henry Seimore with his Squadron of small Ships to the Coast of Flanders to join with those Hollanders which there kept watch under Justin of Nassau their Admiral This Holland Fleet consisted of thirty five Ships furnished with most skilful Mariners and twelve hundred Musqueteers old experienced Souldiers whom the States had culled out of several Garisons Their charge was to stop up the Flemish Havens and to prevent entercourse with Dunkirk whither the Prince of Parma was come and would fain have
digging Tools betook themselves to their Weapons having sufficient shot and Powder in the House and fully resolving rather to die in the place than to yield or be taken The cause of this their fear was a noise that they heard in a room under the Parliament House under which they meant to have Mined which was directly under the Chair of State but now all on a sudden they were at a stand and their Countenances cast each upon other as doubtful what would be the Issue of their enterprize Fawkes scouted out to see what he could discover abroad and finding all safe and free from suspicion he returned and told them that the noise was only occasioned by the removal of Coals that were now upon Sale and that the Cellar was to be let which would be more commodious for their purpose and also would save their labour for the Mine Hereupon Thomas Percy under pretence of Stowage for his Winter provision and Coals went and hired the Cellar which done they began a new Conference wherein Catesby found the weight of the whole work too heavy for himself alone to support for besides the maintenance of so many persons and the several Houses for the several uses hired and paid for by him the Gunpowder and other Provisions would rise to a very great sum and indeed too much for one mans Purse He desired therefore that himself Percy and one more might call in such persons as they thought fit to help to maintain the charge alledging that they knew men of worth and wealth that would willingly assist but were not willing that their names should be known to the rest This request as necessary was approved and therefore ceasing to dig any further in the Vault knowing that the Cellar would be fitter for their purpose they removed into it twenty Barrels of Gunpowder which they covered with a thousand Billets and five hundred Faggots so that now their lodging rooms were cleared of all suspicious provision and might be freely entered into without danger of discovery But the Parliament being again Prorogued to the fifth of November following these persons thought sit that for a while they should again disperse themselves all things being already in so good a forwardness and that Guy Fawkes should go over to acquaint Sir William Stanley and Master Hugh Owen with these their proceedings yet so as the Oath of secresie should be first taken by them For their design was to have Sir Stanley's presence so soon as the fatal blow should be given to be a Leader to their intended stratagems whereof as they thought they should have great need and that Owen should remain where he was to hold correspondency with Foreign Princes to allay the odiousness of the fact and to impute the Treason to the discontented Puritanes Fawkes coming into Flanders found Owen unto whom after the Oath he declared the Plot which he very well approved of but Sir William Stanley being now in Spain Owen said that he would hardly be drawn into the business having suits at this time in the English Court yet he promised to ingage him all he could and to send him into England with the first so soon as their Plot had taken effect Upon this Fawkes to avoid further suspicion kept still in Flanders all the beginning of September and then returning received the Keyes of the Cellar and laid in more Powder Billets and Faggots which done he retired into the Country and there kept till the end of October In the mean time Catesby and Percy meeting at the Bath it was there concluded that because their number was but few Catesby himself should have power to call in whom he would to assist their design by which Authority he took in S ir Everard Digby of Rutlandshire and Francis Tresham Esquire of Northamptonshire both of them of sufficient state and wealth For Sir Everard offered fifteen hundred pounds to forward the action and Tresham two thousand But Percy disdaining that any should out-run him in evil promised four thousand pounds out of the Earl of Northumberlands Rents and ten swift Horses to be used when the blow was past Against which time to provide ammunition Catesby also took in Ambrose Rookwood and John Grant two Recusant Gentlemen and without doubt others were acquainted also with it had these two grand Electors been apprehended alive whose own tongues only could have given an account of it The business being thus forwarded abroad by their complices they at home were no less active For Percy Winter and Fawkes had stored this Cellar with thirty six Barrels of Gunpowder and instead of shot had laid upon them Bars of Iron logs of Timber massie Stones Iron Crowes Pick-Axes and all their working Tools and to cover all great store of Billets and Faggots so that nothing was wanting against that great and terrible day Neither were the Priests and Jesuits slack on their parts who usually concluded their Masses with Prayers for the good success of their expected hopes about which Garnet made these Verses Gentem aufer perfidam credentium de finibus Vt Christo laudes debitas persolvamus alacriter And others thus Prosper Lord their pains that labour in thy cause day and night Let Heresie vanish away like smoke Let their memory perish with a crack like the ruine and fall of a broken house Upon Thursday in the Evening ten days before the Parliament was to begin a Letter directed to the Lord Monteagle was delivered by an unknown person to his footman in the street with a strait charge to give it into his Lords own hands which accordingly he did The Letter had neither date nor subscription and was somewhat unlegible so that the Nobleman called for one of his servants to assist him in reading it the strange contents whereof much perplexed him he not knowing whether it was writ as a Pasquil to scare him from attendance at the Parliament or as matter of consequence and advice from some friend Howsoever though it were now Supper-time and the night very dark yet to shew his loyalty to his Sovereign he immediately repaired to Whitehall and imparted the Letter to the Earl of Salisbury then principal Secretary who reading the Letter and hearing how it came to the Lord Monteagles hands highly commended his Prudence and Loyalty for discovering it telling him plainly that whatsoever might be the event yet it put him in mind of divers Advertisements wherewithal he had acquainted both the King and his Council of some great business which the Papists were in hand with both at home and abroad against this Parliament pretending a Petition to the King and Parliament for a toleration of their Religion but withal giving out that it should be delivered in such an order and so well backed that the King should be loth to refuse their request Then did the Earl of Salisbury presently acquaint the Lord Chamberlain therewith who deemed the matter not a little to concern himself his Office
he was made to believe by his Companions that he should be bountifully rewarded for that his good service to the Catholick Cause now perceiving that on the contrary his Death had been contrived by them he thereupon freely confessed all that he knew concerning that horrid Conspiracy which before all the tortures of the rack could not force him unto The truth of all this was attested by Mr William Perkins an eminent Christian and Citizen of London to Dr Gouge which Mr Perkins had it from the mouth of Mr Clement Cotton that made our English Concordance who also had it from the Relation of Mr Pickering himself The Names of those that were first in this Treason and laboured in the Mine were Robert Catesby Robert Winter Esquires Thomas Percy Thomas Winter John Wright Christopher Wright Guy Fawkes Gentlemen and Bates Catesbies man Persons made acquainted with it and Promoters of it were Sir Everard Digby Knight Ambrose Rookwood Francis Tresham Esquires John Grant Gentleman Robert Keyes This prodigious contrivance did not only stupifie the whole Kingdom with consternation and amazement but Foreign Princes at least seemed to wonder at it also and though for the propagation of the Catholick cause they might have Conscience enough to wish that it had taken effect yet they had policy enough to congratulate the discoverers and some of them to take off the asperity of the suspect sweetned their expressions with many rich gifts to our King and Queen The Parliament by reason of the hurry occasioned hereby met not till the ninth of November at which time Henry Lord Mordant and Edward Lord Sturton not coming to the Parliament according to their Writ of Summons were suspected as having knowledge of the Conspiracy and so was the Earl of Northumberland from some presumptions and all three were Committed to the Tower The two Barons after a while were redeemed by fine in Starchamber but the Earl continued a Prisoner there for many years after How the Parliament was affected for this great deliverance of the whole Kingdom from ruine and destruction will appear by the Act which they made to have the fifth of November for ever solemnized with Publick Thanksgiving wherein they imputed the discovery of the Treason to the inspiring the King with a divine spirit to interpret some dark Phrases of the Letter above and beyond all ordinary construction they attainted also the blood of those Traytors that were executed as also of those that were slain at Holbach-House or that died in Prison and the King being not unmindful of the Lord Monteagle the first discoverer of this Treason gave him and his Heirs for ever two hundred pounds a year in Fee-Farm Rents and 500l l a year besides during his life as a reward for his good service But now to the Act it self An Act for a Publick Thanksgiving to Almighty God every year on the fifth of November FOrasmuch as Almighty God hath in all Ages shewed his Power and Mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of his Church and in the protection of Religious Kings and States and that no Nation of the Earth hath been blessed with greater benefits than this Kingdom now enjoyeth having the true and free profession of the Gospel under our most Sovereign Lord King James the most Great Learned and Religious King that ever reigned therein enriched with a most hopeful and plentiful Progeny proceeding out of his Royal Loyns promising the continuance of this happiness and profession to all Posterity the which many malignant and Devillish Papists Jesuits and Seminary Priests much envying and fearing conspired most horribly when the Kings most Excellent Majesty the Queen the Prince and all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons should have been Assembled in the Vpper House of Parliament upon the fifth day of November in the year of our Lord 1605. suddenly to have blown up the said House with Gunpowder an invention so inhumane barbarous and cruel as the like was never before heard of and was as some of the principal Conspirators confess purposely devised and concluded to be done in the said House that where sundry necessary and Religious Laws for preservation of the Church and State were made which they falsly and slanderously term cruel Laws enacted against them and their Religion both place and persons should be all destroyed and blown up at once which would have turned to the utter ruine of this whole Kingdom had it not pleased Almighty God by inspiring the Kings most Excellent Majesty with a divine spirit to interpret some dark phrases of a Letter shewed to his Majesty above and beyond all ordinary construction thereby miraculously discovering this hidden Treason not many hours before the appointed time for the Execution thereof Therefore the Kings most Excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all his Majesties faithful and loving Subjects do most justly acknowledge this great and infinite blessing to have proceeded meerly from Gods great mercy and to his most holy name do ascribe all Honour Glory and Praise And to the end this unfeigned thankfulness may never be forgotten but be had in a perpetual remembrance that all Ages to come may yield praises to his Divine Majesty for the same and have in memory this joyful day of deliverance Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and by the Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That all and singular Ministers in every Cathedral and Parish Church or other usual place for Common-Prayer within this Realm of England and the Dominions of the same shall alwaies upon the fifth day of November say Morning Prayer and give unto Almighty God thanks for this most happy deliverance and that all and every person and persons inhabiting within this Realm of England and the Dominions of the same shall alwaies upon that day diligently and faithfully resort to the Parish Church or Chappel accustomed or to some usual Church or Chappel where the said Morning Prayer Preaching or other service of God shall be used and then and there to abide orderly and soberly during the time of the said Prayer Preaching or other service of God there to be used and ministred And because all and every person may be put in mind of this duty and be the better prepared to the said holy service Be it Enacted by the Authority aforesaid that every Minister shall give warning to his Parishioners publickly in the Church at Morning Prayer the Sunday before every such fifth of November for the due observation of the said day And that after Morning Prayer or Preaching on the said fifth day of November they read distinctly and plainly this present Act. Upon the Powder-Plot OH Murtherous Plot Posterity shall say 'S Vnholyness o'reshoots Caligula The Pope by this and such designs 't is plain Out-Babels Nimrod and out-Butchers Cain Monteagle's Letter was in dubious sence And seem'd a piece of
Stygian Eloquence The Characters look'd just like conj'ring spells For this bout Hell here spoke in Parables The Popes and Devil's Signet were set to 't The Cloven Miter join'd to th' cloven foot Thus were our Senates like to be betray'd By a strange Egg in Peters Chair 't was laid For had the Serpent hatcht it the device Had prov'd to us a bainful Cockatrice But Fawkes his bafled hopes only bequeath Instead of Comforts thoughts of sudden death Like Hamans Fate he only must aspire To the just advance of fifty Cubits higher But couldst thou think thou monstrous Beast of Rome To Massacre at one sad blow by Doom And cast them down whom Heaven decreed to stand Dark Lanthorns whilst Truths Candlestick is here Thy Purple Plots our Nation need not fear The Beastly Whore may lay her Trump'ries by Vntil our sins are of her purple-die A Narrative of the visible hand of God upon the Papists by the downfal in Black-Friers London Anno Christi 1623. ON the Lords day October the twenty sixth according to the English account but November the fifth according to the Popish account went far and near that one Drury a Romist Priest a man of parts and eminent gifts would preach that day in the afternoon in a fair house in Black-Friers London whither all that would might freely come and hear him Upon this report very many Protestants as well as Papists Scholars as well as others assembled thither about three a Clock in the Afternoon That mansion house was now inhabited by the French Ambassador and the Sermon was to be in a Garret into which there were two passages One out of the Ambassadors withdrawing room which was private the other more common without the great gate of the said mansion house Under this Garret was another large chamber which one Redyate another Romish Priest had hired for himself Unto whom Papists frequently repaired to hear Mass and make confessions Under this room was the aforesaid withdrawing chamber of the Ambassadors supported with strong Arches of stone being immediately over the entrance into the great house And at the South-end of the Garret and on the West-side thereof there were bed-chambers and Closets which other Priests had hired for themselves The bed-chamber at the South-end was severed from the Garret only by a partition of Wainscote which was taken down for the Sermon-time The length of the Garret from North to South was almost 40 foot the breadth about 16 foot The two aforesaid passages met on one pair of stairs leading to the Garret which had only that one door leading into it More came to this place than possibly it could hold so that many for want of room returned back again others went into the aforesaid Redyates chamber and tarried with him The whole Garret rooms adjoyning door and top of the stairs were as full as they could hold In the Garret were set chairs and stools for the better sort most of the women sate on the floor but most of the men stood thronged together Inall about 200 were there assembled In the midst was a table and a chair for the Preacher All things thus prepared and the multitude assembled about three a clock the expected Preacher having on a Surplice girt about his middle with a linnen girdle and a tippet of Scarlet on both his shouldiers came in being attended by a man that brought after him his Book and Hour-glass As soon as he came to the table he kneeled down with shew of private devotion for a little while then rising up and turning himself to the people he crossed himself took the book which was said to be a Rhemish Testament out of his mans hands and the hour-glass being set on the table he opened the book read the Gospel appointed by the Romish Calender for that day being the twenty first Sunday after Pentecost The Gospel was in Mat. 18. 23 c. The Text being read he sate down put on a red cap over a white linnen one turned up about the brims He made no audible prayer but having read his Text which was the parable of forgiving debts he spake something of the occasions of it and then propounded these three special points to be handled 1. The debt we owe to God 2. The mercy of God in forgiving it 3. Mans unmercifulness to his brother Having insisted some while on the misery of man by reason of the debt wherein he stands bound to God he passed on to declare the rich mercy of God and the means which God hath afforded to his Church for partaking thereof Amongst which he reckoned up the Sacraments and especially pressed the Sacrament of Penance as they call it When he had discoursed on these points about half an hour on a sudden the floor whereon the preacher and the greatest part of his auditory were fell down with such violence as therewith the floor of the chamber under it where Redyate and his company were was broken down with it so that both the floors with the beams girders joyces boards and feelings with all the people on them fell down together upon the third floor which was the floor of the French Ambassadors withdrawing chamber supported with strong arches as aforesaid There being a partition on the South-side of the middle chamber which reached up to the floor of the Garret which was at the Northwest corner Hereupon some through amazement would have leaped out at a window almost forty foot from the ground but the people without telling them of the certain danger if they leaped down kept them from that desperate attempt At length by breaking a wall on the West side they discerned chambers adjoyning thereto and so by creeping through that hole into the chambers they were saved So were all they that stood on the stair-head at the door leading into the Garret For the stairs were without the room and nothing fell but the floors neither walls nor roof Also amongst those that fell many escaped for some of the timber rested with one end on the Walls and with the other on the third floor that yielded not and so both such as abode on those pieces and such as were directly under them were thereby preserved Amongst the multitude that fell there was a Minister who through Gods providence fell so between two pieces of timber as that the timber kept his upper-parts from crushing and holp him by his clasping about the timber to pull out his feet from among the dead corpses Amongst others the present preservation and future destruction of one Parker was very remarkable This Parker was a factor for the English Seminaries and Nuns beyond Sea especially at Cambre and he had so dealt with two of his brothers here that he had got from one of them a son and from the other a daughter to send them to religious houses as they falsly call them beyond sea This Parker at this time took his Nephew a youth of about sixteen years old to the
aforementioned fatal Conventicle where Drury preached and both Parker and his Nephew fell with the rest The youth there lost his life but Parker himself escaped with a bruised body being a corpulent man yet so far was he from making a good use of his deliverance that with much discontent he wished he had died for his Nephew saying that God saw him not fit to die amongst such Martyrs Many such Martyrs have been made at Tyburn for treason Such are Romes Martyrs But the preservation of the wicked is but a reservation to future judgments for about ten dayes after as this Parker was shooting London-Bridge with his aforesaid Neece whom he was conveying beyond Sea they were both cast away and drowned in the Thames Judge by this O Parents whether God is well pleased with disposing your Children to Popish education Others there were that were pulled out alive but so bruised or so spent for want of breath that some lived not many hours others died not many days after The floor of the chamber immediately over this where the Corps lay being fallen there was no entrance into it but through the Ambassadours Bed-Chamber the door whereof was closed up with the Timber of the floors that fell down and the walls of this room were of stone only there was one window in it with extraordinary strong cross barrs of Iron so that though Smiths and other workmen were immediately sent for yet it was more than an hour before succour could be afforded to them that were fallen down Passage at length being made I had access into the room saith Doctor Gouge the relater of this story and viewing the bodies observed some yet but few to be mortally wounded or crushed by the Timber Others to be apparently stifled partly with their thick lying one upon another and partly with the dust that came from the feeling which fell down On the Lords day at night when they fell they were numbred ninety one dead bodies but many of them were secretly conveyed away in the night there being a pair of water-stairs leading from the Garden appertaining to the House into the Thames On the morrow the Coroner and his Inquest coming to view the bodies found remaining but sixty three Of those that were carried away some were buried in a burying place within the Spanish Ambassadors house in Holborn amongst whom the Lady Web was one the Lady Blackstones Daughter another and one Mistris Vdal a third Master Stoker and Master Bartholmew Bavin were buried in Brides Parish Robert Sutton John Loccham and Abigail Holford in Andrews Holborn Captain Summers wife in the vault under Black-Friers Church and her woman in the Church-yard For the Corps remaining two great Pits were digged one in the fore Court of the said French Ambassadors House eighteen foot long and twelve foot broad the other in the Garden behind his House Twelve foot long and eight foot broad In the former Pit were laid forty four Corps whereof the Bodies of the aforesaid Drury and Redyate were two These two wound up in sheets were first laid into the Pit with a Partition of loose Earth to sever them from the rest Then were others brought some in somewhat a decent manner wound up in sheets but the most in a most lamentable plight the shirts only of the men tyed under the twists and some linnen tyed about the middle of the Women the rest of their Bodies naked and one poor Man or Woman taking a Corps by the Head another by the Feet tumbled them in and so piled them up almost to the top of the Pit The rest were put into the other Pit in the Garden Their manner of burial seemed almost as dismal as the heap of them when they lay upon the floor where they last fell No obsequies of funeral rites were used at their Burial Only the day after a black Cross of wood was set upon each Grave but was soon by authority commanded to be taken down When they were thus interred thorough search was made about the cause of the falling of the Timber The Timber of each floor was laid together and the measure of the Summers that brake was taken The main Summer which crossed the Garret was ten Inches square Two Girders were by Tenents and Mortaises let into the middest of it one just against another the Summer was knotty where the Mortaises were made whereupon being over-burdened it knapped suddenly asunder in the middest The main Summer of the other floor that fell was much stronger being thirteen Inches square strong and sound every where neither did the Girders meet so just one against another yet that also failed not in the middest as the uppermost but within five foot of one end and that more shiveringly and with a longer rent in the Timber than the other For this Chamber was almost full with such persons as comeing too late went into Redyates Chamber Besides it did not only bear the weight which lay on the upper floor but received it with a sudden knock and so the massie Timber shivered in two and the people were irrecoverably before they could fear any such thing beaten down into the third floor which was above twenty foot from the first It 's true we must not be rash in censuring yet when we see judgments executed on Sinners in the act of their sin when they are impudent and presumptuous therein not to acknowledge such to be judged by the Lord is to wink against clear light Psal. 9. 16. God is known by the judgments which he executeth Shall Nebuchadnezzar while he is vaunting of his great Babylon be bereft of his wits Shall Herod whilst he is priding himself in the flattering applause of the people be eaten with Worms Shall Haman whilst he is practising to destroy all the people of God be hanged on a Gallows fifty foot high which he had prepared for Mordecai Shall the House where the Philistins met together to sport with Sampson fall upon their heads Shall these and such like judgments overtake men in the very act of their sin and yet be accounted no judgments no evidences of Gods revenging Justice or signs of his indignation Truly then we may deny all providence and attribute all to chance But add hereto that this fell out upon their fifth of November and it will be as clear as if written with a Sunbeam that the Pit which they digged for others they themselves fell into it Doctor Gouge who relates this story in his Extent of Gods Providence thus writeth I do the more confidently publish this History because I was an eye-witness of many of the things therein related and heard from the mouths of such as were present at the Sermon the rest For upon the first hearing of the destruction of so many persons as by that downfal lost their lives our Constable presently caused the gates of our Precinct it being surrounded with walls and gates to be shut and raised a strong guard from amongst the