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STRATEGY AND MOTIVATION IN THE GUNPOWDER PLOT*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2007
Abstract
This article seeks to develop our understanding of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot by asking a number of elementary questions. Were the plotters terrorists in any meaningful sense? Were they religious fanatics, as the Jacobean state understandably chose to portray them after the event? Was their plan built on a misguided fantasy of widespread support for a Catholic insurrection, or does the Plot perhaps have a practical coherence that lies obscured by the drama of the projected strike against Westminster? How does evidence for coherent planning square with the strong desire for revenge, running through so much of the surviving testimony? Through answers to these questions, we begin to see the Gunpowder plotters as men engaged in a calculated and demonstrably pragmatic attempt to engineer a change in regime. Their planning was robust, and to the point, while the emotional power of revenge was channelled creatively by the ringleaders. The article concludes that the odds against success were long, but not impossible.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007
References
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18 For Geoffrey Elton, the Plot was simply ‘absurd’ (The English (Oxford, 1992), p. 148). Barry Coward pointedly asks ‘What were the motives of the conspirators?’ before arguing that ‘the extant historical evidence does not support conclusive answers’ (The Stuart age: England, 1603–1714 (3rd edn, London, 2003), p. 129). In the course of one of the most important reassessments of the Plot in recent years, Jenny Wormald suggests that the plotters ‘hardly seem to have known what would have happened’ after the explosion, ‘Gunpowder, treason, and Scots’, Journal of British Studies, 24 (1985), pp. 164–5.
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41 Hatfield MS 113/54. Fawkes says almost the same thing in his confession published in His majesties speach, sig. h2v, cf. SP 14/216/49.
42 Hatfield MS 113/54.
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66 Points central to the compelling argument presented in Wormald, ‘Gunpowder, treason, and Scots’, pp. 154–7.
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69 Ibid., p. 161.
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71 SP 14/216/49.
72 Hatfield MS 112/91.
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75 A point well made in Travers, Gunpowder, pp. 34–6.
76 On the examination process, see John Bellamy, The Tudor law of treason: an introduction (London, 1979), pp. 104–9.
77 SP 14/216/104.
78 Nicholls, Investigating Gunpowder Plot, p. 64.
79 Some parallels with the 1601 investigations are detailed in ibid., pp. 33–4.
80 For example from Susan, dowager countess of Kent, on 15 Nov. 1605, Hatfield MS 113/11.
81 Richard Walshe to the privy council, 13 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/87, 88.
82 JPs of Suffolk to the privy council, 12 Nov. 1605, SP 14/216/78.
83 Letter to Robert Cecil as chancellor of the University of Cambridge, 13 Nov. 1605, with the examination of Nicholas Bestwick, SP 14/216/84, 85.
84 His majesties speach, sig. g4v.
85 Ambrose Rookwood specifically gave this as his reason for entering a ‘Not Guilty’ plea (True and perfect relation, sig. k4v).