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 wholly to give all the glory to God as the Author of this wonderful deliverance and when that was ended Her Majesty Herself 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 thnakfulness 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 Countrey with this inscription Glory to God alone and on the reverse the pourtracture 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 was this STraverat innumeris Hispanus classibus aequor Regnis juncturus Sceptra Britana suis Tanti hujus rogitas quae motus causa superbos Impulit Ambitio vexat avaritia Quam bene te Ambitio mersit vanissima ventus Et tumidae tumidos Vos superastis aquae Quam bene Raptores Orbis totius Iberos Mersit inexhausti justa vorago Maris At tu cui venti cui totum militat Aequor Regina O mundi totius una decus Sic regnare Deo perge Ambitione remota Prodiga sic opibus perge juvare pios Vt te Angli longum longùm Anglis ipsa fruaris Quam dilecta bonis tam metuenda malis SPaines King with Navies great the Seas bestrew'd T' augment with English Crown his Spanish sway Ask ye what caus'd this proud attempt 't was lewd Ambition drove and Avarice led the way It 's well Ambitions windy pufflies drown'd By winds and swelling hearts by swelling waves It 's well those Spaniards who the Worlds vast round Devour'd devouring Sea most justly craves But thou O Queen for whom Winds Seas do war O thou the Glory of this Worlds wide Mass So reign to God still from Ambition far So still with bounteous aids the Good imbrace That Thou maist England long long England Thee enjoy Thou terror of all Bad Thou Good mens joy The other is that made by Mr Samuel Ward of Ipswich OCtogesimus Octavus Mirabilis annus Clade Papistarum Faustus ubique piis IN Eighty eight Spain arm'd with potent might Against our peaceful Land came on to fight The Winds and Waves and Fire in one conspire To help the English frustrate Spains desire FINIS THE Gun-Powder Treason Being A Remembrance to England OF THAT Ancient Deliverance From that Horrid PLOT Hatched by the Bloody PAPISTS 1605. Tending to revive the Memory of the FIFTH OF NOVEMBER to every Family in this NATION That all sorts may be stirred up to real Thankfulness and transmit the same to their Posterities that their Children may know the reason why the Fifth of November is Celebrated that GOD may have Glory and the PAPISTS perpetual Infamy The LORD is known by the judgement that he executeh but the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands HIGGAION SELAH Psal. 9.16 By Sam. Clark Pastor of Bennet Fink London London Printed for J. Hancock and are to be sold at the three Bibles being the first Shop in Popes-Head Alley next to Cornhill 1671. TO THE READER Christian Reader LEast the Remembrance of so signal a Mercy and Deliverance vouchsafed by God both to our Church and State should be buried in Oblivion I have at the request of the Book-seller presented thee here with a true and faithful Narrative of that Grand Work of Darkness forged in Hell and by Satan suggested to some Popish Instruments who envying the peace and prosperity of our Church and progress of the Gospel had designed at one blow to overthrow both And that nothing might be wanting to compleat that horrid wickedness their purpose was to have charged it upon the Puritans thereby hoping to free themselves and their Religion from the imputation of so hainous a crime Now that the memorial of a Mercy of such publick and general concernment should not be forgotten we have the Word of the Eternal God to be our Guide therein when the Lord had by his Angel destroyed the first born of Egypt and spared Israel He instituted the Feast of the Passover to continue the memorial thereof through their Generations Exod. 12.11 12 14 26 27. saith Moses to them when
it was there concluded that because thâ—ir 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 Sir 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 aprehended 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 the Cellar with thirty six Barrels of Gunpowder and instead of shot had laid upon them barrs 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 aufert 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 whâ—ch 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 a 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 Soveraign he immediately repaired to White-Hall and imparted the Letter to the Earl of Salisbury then principal Secretary and they both presently acquainted the Lord â—hamberlain therewith who deemed the matter not a little to concern himself his Office 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 and the Letwas 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 and therefore wished that the Rooms under the Parliament House should be throughly 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 rumours 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 Romes 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 Master Thomas Percy and the Cellar also to lay in his Winter Provision himself being the Keeper of it and Master Percy 's 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 suspition that the Lord Monteagle had of Percy and himself of Johnson his man all which increased his Majesties jealousie so that he insisted contrary to the opinion of some that a narrower search should be made and the Billets and Coals turned up to the bottom and accordingly 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 was employed 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 Billet 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
the credulous 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 then 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 Galliastes 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 Hough 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 approaching 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 aad Fenner played incessantly with their great Ordnance upon the Spanish Fleet and with them presently joyned Fenton Southwel Beâ—â—â—on 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 pitifully 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 desparately slew each other â—n 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 sight 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 desparate 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 Banderdness who carried him into Zeland and 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 left the Prince of Parma should take this advantage to put forth to Sea the Lord Admiral dispatched the Lord Henry Seimore with his squaron of small ships to the Coast of Flanders to joyn 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 Muskiteers 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
Naples but one of the four Oallions of Portugal but one of the ninety one Callions and great Hulks from divers Provinces only thirty three returned fifty eight being lost In brief they lost in this voyage eighty one vessels thirteen thousand five hundred and odd Souldiers Prisoners taken in England Ireland and the Low-Countries were above two thousand Amongst those in England Don Pedro de Valdez Don Vasques de Silva and Don Alonzo de Saies and others were kept for their ransome In Ireland Don Alonzo de Luzon Roderigo de Lasse and others of great account In Zeland was Don Diego Piementelli To be brief there was no famous or noble family in all Spain which in this expedition lost not a son brother or kinsman And thus this Armado which had been so many years in preparing and rigging with such vast expence was in one month many times assaulted and at length wholly defeated with the slaughter of so many of her men not one hundred of the English being lacking nor one small ship of theirs taken or lost save only that of Cocks and having traversed round about all Britain by Scotland the Orcades and Ireland most grievously tossed and very much distressed and wasted by stormes wracks and all kinds of misery at length came lamely home with perpetual dishonour whereupon Medals were stamped in memory thereof A Fleet flying with full sailes with this inscription Venit vidit fugit It came it saw it fled Others in honour of our Queen with flaming ships and a Fleet in a great confusion and this Motto Dux faemina facti A woman was conductor of the fact In the aforementioned wracks above seven hundred Souldiers and Sailors were cast on land in Scotland who upon the intercession of the Prince of Parma to the King of Scots and by the permission of Queen Elizabeth were after a years time sent over into the Low-Countries But more unmercifully were those miserable wretches dealt withal whose hap was to be driven by tempest into Ireland Some of them being slain by the wild Irish their old friends and others of them being put to death by the command of the Lord Deputy For he fearing lest they might joyn with the Irish to disturb the peace of the Nation commanded Bingham Governour of Connaught to destroy them but he refusing to deal so rigorously with those that had yielded themselves He sent Fowle Deputy-Marshall who drew them out of their lurking holes and cut off the heads of above two hundred of them which fact the Queen from her heart condemned and abhorred as a fact of too great cruelty The remainder of them being terrified herewith sick and starven as they were committed themselves to Sea in their shattered vessels and were many of them swallowed up by the waves The Spaniards charged the whole fault of their overthrow upon the Prince of Parma as if in favour to our Queen he had wilfully and artificially delayed his coming to them But this was but an invention and pretention given out by them partly upon a Spanish envy against that Prince he being an Italian and his Son a Competitor to the Kingdom of Portugal But chiefly to save the scorn and monstous disreputation which they and their Nation received by the success of that enterprise Therefore their colours and excuses forsooth were That their General by Sea had a limited Commission not to fight till the Land Forces were come in to them and that the Prince of Parma had particular reaches and ends of his own to cross the designe But it was both a strange Commission and a strange Obedience to a Commission for men in the midst of their own blood and being so furiously assailed to hold their hands contrary to the Laws of Nature and necessity And as for the Prince of Parma he was reasonably well tempted to be true to that enterprise by no less promise than to be made a Feudatory or Beneficiary King of England under the Seignory in chief of the Pope and the protection of the King of Spain Besides it appeared that the Prince of Parma held his place long after of the Govenment of the Netherlands in the favour and trust of the King of Spain and by the great imployments and services that he performed in France It is also manifest that this Prince did his best to come down and put to Sea The truth was that the Spanish Navy upon those proofs of Fight which they had with the English finding how much hurt they received and how little hurt they did by reason of the activity and low building of our ships and skill of Sea-men and being also commanded by a General of small courage and experience and having lost at first two of their bravest Commanders at Sea Pedro de Valdez and Michael de Oquenda durst not put it to a Battel at Sea but set up their rest wholly upon the Land enterprise On the other side the transportation of the Land Forces failed in the very foundation For whereas the Council of Spain made full account that their Navy should be Master of the Sea and therefore able to guard and protect the Vessels of Transportation When it fell out to the contrary that the great Navy was distressed and had enough to do to save it self and that their Land Forces were impounded by the Hollanders Things I say being in this state it came to pass that the Prince of Parma must have flown if he would have come into England for he could get neither Bark nor Mariner to put to Sea Yet certain it is that the Prince looked for the comming back of the Armado even at that time when they were wandring and making their perambulation upon the Northern Seas 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 Thanksgiving 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
instruments for blowing up the Powder And being no whit daunted he 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 As desperate were Catesby Percy and the rest who seeing the Treason discover'd posted all into Warwickshire where Grant and his associates had broken open the Stables belonging to Warwick Castle and taken some gaeat horses out of the same to forward their hoped for great day At Dun-Church Sir Everard Digby had made a match for a great hunting that under pretence thereof they might seize upon the Lady Elizabeth then at Comb Abby but when by those which posted from London they were informed that they were discovered and pursued being struck with a great fear not knowing whither to sly they desperately began an open Rebellion pretending that they did it for the cause of Religion all the Catholicks throats being intended to be cut and so trooping together they wandred through Warwickshire being pursued by Sir Richard Verney the then High Sheriff and from thence they went through Worcestershire into Staffordshire their servants and followers being about eighty men who also stole away many of them from them Thus ranging about and finding no resistance they rifled the Lord Windsors house of all the Armour Shot Powder and all other Warlike Provisions but the weather being rainy and the Waters somewhat high the Powder in carriage took wet and so became unserviceable For their last refuge they betook themselves to Holbach House in Staffordshire belonging to Steven Littleton whither they were pursued by the High Sheriff of Worcestershire who not knowing of the Treason and thinking it to be only some fray or riot sent his Trumpeter unto them commanding them to render themselves to him His Majesties Minister But their consciences witnessing what the Sheriff knew not answered that he had need of greater assistance than of those few that were with him before he could be able to command or controul them and so they prepared for resistance and having laid two pounds of the said Powder into a Platter to dry in the chimney one coming to mend the fire threw in a Billet whereby a spark flew into the Powder whose sudden blast was so violent that though so small a quantity it blew up the roof of the house scorching the bodies and faces of Catesby Rookwood and Grant and some others whose consciences now told tdem that God had puished them justly with Powder who with Powder would have destroyed so many Being dispirited with this accident yet like desperate men they resolved to die together set open the Gates and suffered the Sheriffs men to rush in upon them and presently both the Wrights were shot down dead Rookwood and Thomas Winter were very sorely wounded Catesby and Percy desperately fighting back to back were both shot thorow and slain with one Musket bullet the rest being taken were carried prisoners to London being all the way gazed at reviled and detested by the common people for their horrid and horrible Treason and so at last they received the just guerdon of their wickedness Thus you have seen this work of darkness by the watchfulnes of Gods providence detected and defeated and the contrivers of mischief fallen into the pit that they digged for others Now let us see also how cunningly they contrived the transferring the Odium of it upon the Puritans There was one Mr. Pickering of Tichmarsh-Grove in Northamptonshire that was in great esteem with King James This Mr. Pickering had a horse of special note for swiftness on which he used to hunt with the King A little before the blow was given Mr. Keies on of the conspirators and brother in Law to Mr. Pickering borrowed this horse of him and conveyed him to London upon a bloody design which was thus contrived Fawkes upon the day of the fatal blow was appointed to retire himself into St. Georges fields where this horse was to attend him to further his escape as they made him believe so soon as the Parliament House should be blown up It was likewise contrived that Mr. Pickering who was noted for a Puritan should that morning be murthered in his bed and secretly conveyed away As also that Fawkes so soon as he came into St. Georges fields to escape should be there murthered and so mangled that he could not be known whereupon it was to be bruited abroad that the Puritans had blown up the Parliament House and the better to make the World believe it there was Mr. Pickering with his choice Horse ready to make an escape but that stirred up some who seeing the heinousness of the fact and him ready to escape in detestation of so horrible a deed fell upon him and hewed him in pieces and to make it more clear there was his horse known to be of special speed and swiftness ready to carry him away and upon this rumour a Massacre should havy gone through the whole Land upon the Puritans When the contrivance of this Plot was thus discovered by some of the Conspirators and Fawkes who was now a Prisoner in the Tower made acquainted with it whereas before 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 FINIS A Narrative of the visible hand of God upon the Papists by the Downfall 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 a common report went far and near that one Drurie a Romish 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 to 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 Ambassadorus with-drawing Room which was private the other more common without the great Gate
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 cieling which fell down On the Lords day at night when they fell they were numbered 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 Ambassadours House in Holborn amongst whom the Lady Web was one the Lady Blackstones daughter another and one Mistress Udal a third Master Stoker and Master Bartholomew Bavin were buried in St. Brides Parish Robert Sutton John Loccham and Abigail Holford in St. 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 fever 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 onely 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 found 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 then the other For this Chamber was almost full with such persons as coming 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 tear 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 judgements 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 judgements which he executeth Shall Nebuchadnezzar while he is vaunting of his great Babylon be berest of his wits Shall Herod whilest he is priding himself in the flattering applanse of the people be eaten of worms Shall Haman whilest he 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 judgements no evidences of Gods revenging Justice or signes 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 Sun-beam 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 Dowosal lost their lives our Constables 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 inhabitants to keep the house where this accident fell out and to prevent tumult about it Thus through the favour of the Constables and Watch who were all my neighbours I had the more free and quiet access to view the dead bodies and to inform my self of all the material circumstances about that accident which I did the rather because the Bishop of London that then was sent to me to inform my self throughly of all the business and to send him a narration thereof under my hand whereupon I did not only view matters my self but caused Carpenters to search the timber to take the measures both of the timber and the rooms I was also present with the Coroner and his Inquest at their examining of all circumstances about the business And the Arch-Bishop of Camerbury sending to me to come to him and to bring with me the best evidence I could I got the foreman and others of the Jury and four persons that were present at the Sermon and fell down with the rest but by Gods providence escaped death and one that stood without the door within hearing but fell not all these I got to go along with me to Lambeth where I heard the witness which they gave to the Arch-Bishop about this matter One that fell with the rest and escaped death was Master Gee a Preacher in Lancashire two others were a son and servant to a Citizen in Pater noster Row The rest were men of good understanding able to apprehend what they saw and heard and to relate what they conceived FINIS