Note 166 — Chapter IV

We may here pause to review the extraordinary story to which we have been listening. A group of men, known for as dangerous characters as any in England, men, in Cecil's own words,[166] "spent in their fortunes," "hunger-starved for innovations," "turbulent spirits," and "fit for all alterations," take a house within the precincts of a royal palace, and close to the Upper House of Parliament, dig a mine, hammer away for over two months at the wall, acquire and bring in four tons of gunpowder, storing it in a large and conspicuous chamber immediately beneath that of the Peers, and covering it with an amount of fuel sufficient for a royal establishment—and meanwhile those responsible for the government of the country have not even the faintest suspicion of any possible danger. "Never," it is said,[167] "was treason more secret, or ruin more apparently inevitable," while the Secretary of State himself declared[168] that such ruin was averted only by the direct interposition of Heaven, in a manner nothing short of miraculous.