Note 10 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
— Fawkes was apprehended at “midnight without the House,” according to “A Discourse of this late intended Treason.” Knevet having given notice that he had secured Fawkes, thereupon Suffolk, Salisbury, and the Council went to the King’s chamber at the Palace in Whitehall, and Fawkes was brought into the Royal Presence. This was at about four o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, the 5th of November.
Fawkes showed the calmest behaviour conceivable in the Royal Presence. To those whom he regarded as being of authority he was respectful, yet very firm; but towards those whom he deemed as of no account, he was humorously scornful. The man’s self control was astounding. He told his auditory that “a dangerous disease requires a desperate remedy!” (See “King’s Book.”)
Whitehall Palace had been a Royal Palace since the reign of Henry VIII.; it was burned down in the time of William and Mary. It was formerly what St. James’s Palace is now in relation to royal functions.
It was at St. James’s Palace that His Most Gracious Majesty King Edward VII. deigned to receive the respectful address of condolence on the death of His late beloved Imperial Mother, and of loyal assurance of devoted attachment to His Throne and Person from Cardinal Vaughan, together with several Bishops, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Ripon, the Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and the Lord Herries, including other peers and representatives of the English Roman Catholic laity.
By a singular coincidence the day happened to be the 295th anniversary of the execution of Father Henry Garnet, S.J., in St. Paul’s Churchyard, London (3rd May, 1606): a coincidence of happy augury, let us devoutly hope, that old things are about to pass away, and that all things are about to become new!