On that fair tree, which bears his name, His flowery youth with wisdom crowned.' An easterly wind, much against his inclination, detained William in London four days longer. On the morning of the 19th November, the wind veering to the westward, immediate advantage was taken of the change. At the last moment, previous to her departure, the Princess of Orange took leave of Queen Catherine. Seeing her niece in tears, the queen, by way of consolation, said: "When I came hither from Portugal, I had not even seen King Charles.' To which the princess replied: 'Remember, however, you came to England, but I am going out of it. The king, Duke of York, and a large party, taking boats at Whitehall, accompanied the newly-married couple to Erith, where they all dined; then travelling by land to Gravesend, the prince and princess went on board the yacht provided to convey them to Holland. Nat Lee, the more than half-crazy dramatist, saw the embarkation, which he thus describes : 'I saw them launch; the prince the princess bore, While the sad court stood crowding on the shore. The prince still bowing on the deck did stand, And held his weeping consort by the hand, Which waving oft, she bade them all farewell, And wept, as if she would the briny ocean swell.' The wind again becoming unfavourable, William landed at Sheerness, and, accompanied by his bride and four attendants, made an excursion to Canterbury. Here he put up at an inn, and his cash falling short, he despatched his favourite Bentinck to the mayor and corporation, requesting a supply of money. The municipal authorities were taken by surprise. Strongly suspecting that the selfstyled royal party were impostors, some of the council advised their immediate arrest and committal to prison; others, with more prudence, recommended less stringent measures; but all agreed not to part with one farthing of money; and so the evasive reply was given to Bentinck, that the corporation had no funds at disposal. In the meantime, Dean Tillotson of the Cathedral, the sharp-witted son of a shrewd Yorkshire clothier, heard of the strange affair, and making his way to the inn, saw and recognised the princess. Rushing back to the deanery, he collected all his ready money and plate, and returning to the inn, presented it to the prince. Twelve years afterwards, when William and Mary were king and queen of England, this service of the far-seeing dean was not forgotten. He was made Clerk of the Closet to their majesties, and soon after consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury. The dean's interposition made a magical change in the state of affairs. The suspicious landlord, who had been inconveniently pressing his foreign guests for the amount of his bill, became in a moment the most obsequious of mortals. The gentlemen of Kent, now knowing who it was they had among them, crowded with their congratulations, and more substantial presents, to the prince and princess. William remained at the inn four days longer, and then left for Margate, where he embarked on the 28th of November; and after a short but stormy passage, the only lady on board unaffected by sea-sickness being the princess, he arrived safely in Holland. THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. NOVEMBER 5. St Bertille, abbess of Chelles, 692. Born.-Hans Sachs, German poet, 1494, Nuremberg; Dr John Brown, miscellaneous writer, 1715, Rothbury, Northumberland. Died.-Maria Angelica Kaufmann, portrait-painter, 1807, Rome. THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. The 5th of November marks the anniversary of two prominent events in English history-the discovery and prevention of the gunpowder treason, and the inauguration of the Revolution of 1688 by the landing of William III. in Torbay. In recent years, an additional interest has been attached to the date, from the victory at Inkerman over the Russians, in the Crimea, being gained on this day in 1854. Like the Bartholomew massacre at Paris in 1572, and the Irish massacre of 1641, the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, standing as it were midway, at a distance of about thirty years from each of these events, has been the means of casting much obloquy on the adherents of the Roman Catholic religion. It would, however, be a signal injustice to connect the Catholics as a body with the perpetration of this atrocious attempt, which seems to have been solely the work of some fanatical members of the extreme section of the Jesuit party. The accession of James I. to the throne had raised considerably the hopes of the English Catholics, who, relying upon some expressions which he had made use of while king of Scotland, were led to flatter themselves with the prospect of an unrestricted toleration of the practice of their faith, when he should succeed to the crown of England. Nor were their expectations altogether disappointed. The first year of James's reign shews a remarkable diminution in the amount of fines paid by popish recusants into the royal exchequer, and for a time they seem to have been comparatively unmolested. But such halcyon-days were not to be of long continuance. The English parliament was determined to discountenance in every way the Roman Catholic religion, and James, whose pecuniary necessities obliged him to court the good-will of the Commons, was forced to comply with their importunities in putting afresh into execution the penal laws against papists. Many cruel and oppressive severities were exercised, and it was not long till that persecution which is said to make 'a wise man mad, prompted a few fanatics to a scheme for taking summary vengeance on the legislature by whom these repressive measures were authorised. The originator of the Gunpowder Plot was Robert Catesby, a gentleman of ancient family, who at one period of his life had become a Protestant, but having been reconverted to the Catholic religion, had endeavoured to atone for his apostasy by the fervour of a new zeal. Having revolved in his own mind a project for destroying, at one blow, the King, Lords, and Commons, he communicated it to Thomas Winter, a Catholic gentleman of Worcestershire, who at first expressed great horror, but was afterwards induced to co-operate in the design. He it was who procured the co-adjutorship of the celebrated Guido or Guy Fawkes, who was not, as has sometimes been represented, a low mercenary ruffian, but a gentleman of good family, actuated by a spirit of ferocious fanaticism. Other confederates were gradually assumed, and in a secluded house in Lambeth, oaths of secrecy were taken, and the communion administered to the conspirators by Father Gerard, a Jesuit, who, however, it is said, was kept in ignorance of the plot. One of THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. the party, named Thomas Percy, a distant relation of the Earl of Northumberland, and one of the gentleman-pensioners at the court of King James, agreed to hire a house adjoining the building where the parliament met, and it was resolved to effect by carrying a mine through the wall. This was in the purpose of blowing the legislature into the air vented the commencement of operations till the the spring of 1604, but various circumstances premonth of December of that year. R. Winter. C. Wright. J. Wright. Percy. Fawkes. had been occasioned by a dealer in coal, who Large In attempting to pierce the wall of the Parliament House, the conspirators found that they had engaged in a task beyond their strength, owing to the immense thickness of the barrier. With an energy, however, befitting a better cause, they continued their toilsome labours; labours the more toilsome to them, that the whole of the confederates were, without exception, gentlemen by birth and education, and totally unused to severe manual exertion. To avert suspicion while they occupied the house hired by Percy, they had laid in a store of provisions, so that all necessity for going out to buy these was obviated. Whilst in silence and anxiety they plied their task, they were startled one day by hearing, or fancying they heard, the These preparations were completed about the tolling of a bell deep in the ground below the month of May 1605, and the confederates then Parliament House. This cause of perturbation, separated till the final blow could be struck. The originating perhaps in a guilty conscience, was time fixed for this was at first the 3d of October, removed by an appliance of superstition. Holy- the day on which the legislature should meet; but water was sprinkled on the spot, and the tolling the opening of parliament having been prorogued ceased. Then a rumbling noise was heard directly by the king to the 5th of November, the latter over their heads, and the fear seized them that date was finally resolved on. Extensive preparathey had been discovered. They were speedily, tions had been made during the summer months, however, reassured by Fawkes, who, on going out both towards carrying the design into execution, to learn the cause of the uproar, ascertained that it and arranging the course to be followed after the destruction of the king and legislative bodies had been accomplished. New confederates were assumed as participators in the plot, and one of these, Sir Everard Digby, agreed to assemble his Catholic friends on Dunsmore Heath, in Warwickshire, as if for a hunting-party, on the 5th of November. On receiving intelligence of the execution of the scheme, they would be in full readiness to complete the revolution thus inaugurated, and settle a new sovereign on the throne. The proposed successor to James was Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I., seeing that his elder brother Henry, Prince of Wales, would, it was expected, accompany his father to the House of Lords, and perish along with him. In the event of its being found impossible to gain possession of the person of Prince Charles, then it was arranged that his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, should be seized, and carried off to a place of security. Guy Fawkes was to ignite the gunpowder by means of a slow-burning match, which would allow him time to escape before the explosion, and he was then to embark on board a ship waiting in the river for him, and proceed to Flanders. The fatal day was now close at hand, but by this time several dissensions had arisen among the conspirators on the question of giving warning to some special friends to absent themselves from the next meeting of parliament. Catesby, the prime mover in the plot, protested against any such communications being made, asserting that few Catholic members would be present, and that, at all events, THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 'rather than the project should not take effect, if they were as dear unto me as mine own son, they also must be blown up.' A similar stoicism was not, however, shared by the majority of the confederates, and one of them at least made a communication, by which the plot was discovered to the government, and its execution prevented. Great mystery attaches to the celebrated anonymous letter received on the evening of 26th October by Lord Mounteagle, a Roman Catholic nobleman, and brother-in-law of Francis Tresham, one of the conspirators. Its authorship is ascribed, with great probability, to the latter, but strong presumptions exist that it was not the only channel by which the king's ministers received intelligence of the schemes under preparation. It has even been surmised that the letter was merely a blind, concerted by a previous understanding with Lord Mounteagle, to conceal the real mode in which the conspiracy was unveiled. Be this as it may, the communication in question was the only avowed or ascertained method by which the king's ministers were guided in detecting the plot. It seems also now to be agreed, that the common story related of King James's sagacity in deciphering the meaning of the writer of the letter, was merely a courtly fable, invented to flatter the monarch and procure for him with the public the credit of a subtle and far-seeing perspicacity. The enigma, if enigma it really was, had been read by the ministers Cecil and Suffolk, and communicated by them to various lords of the council, several days before the subject VAULT BENEATH THE OLD HOUSE OF LORDS-FROM AN ORIGINAL DRAWING. was mentioned to the king, who at the time of the letter to Lord Mounteagle being received was absent on a hunting-expedition at Royston. Though the conspirators were made aware, through a servant of Lord Mounteagle, of the discovery which had been made, they nevertheless, by a singular infatuation, continued their preparations, in the hope that the true nature of their scheme had not been unfolded. In this delusion it seems to have been the policy of the government to maintain them to the last. Even after Suffolk, the lord chamberlain, and Lord Mounteagle had actually, on the afternoon of Monday the 4th November, visited the cellar beneath the House of Lords, and there discovered in a corner Guy Fawkes, who pretended to be a servant of Mr Percy, the tenant of the vault, it was still determined to persist in the undertaking. At two o'clock the following morning, a party of soldiers under the command of Sir Thomas Knevett, a Westminster magistrate, visited the cellar, seized Fawkes at the door, and carried him off to Whitehall, where, in the royal bedchamber, he was interrogated by the king and council, and from thence was conveyed to the Tower. It is needless to pursue further in detail the history of the Gunpowder Plot. On hearing of Fawkes's arrest, the remaining conspirators, with the exception of Tresham, fled from London to the place of rendezvous in Warwickshire, in the desperate hope of organising an insurrection. But such an expectation was vain. Pursued by the civil and military authorities, they were overtaken at the mansion of Holbeach, on the borders of Staffordshire, where Catesby and three others, refusing to surrender, were slain. The remainder, taken prisoners in different places, were carried up to London, tried, and condemned with their associate Guy Fawkes, who from having undertaken the office of firing the train of gunpowder, came to be popularly regarded as the leading actor in the GUY FAWKES'S DAY. conspiracy. Leniency could not be expected in the circumstances, and all the horrid ceremonies attending the deaths of traitors were observed to the fullest extent. The executions took place on the 30th and 31st of January, at the west end of St Paul's Churchyard. Some Catholic writers have maintained the whole Gunpowder Plot to be fictitious, and to have been concocted for state purposes by Cecil. But such a supposition is entirely contrary to all historical evidence. There cannot be a shadow of a doubt, that a real and dangerous conspiracy was formed; that it was very nearly successful; and that the parties who suffered death as participators in it, received the due punishment of their crimes. At the same time, it cannot be denied that a certain amount of mystery envelops the revelation of the plot, which in all probability will never be dispelled. Guy Fawkes's Day. Till 1859, a special service for the 5th of November formed part of the ritual of the English Book of Common Prayer; but by a special ordinance of the Queen in Council, this service, along with those for the Martyrdom of Charles I., and the Restoration of Charles II., has been abolished. The appointment of this day, as a holiday, dates from One invariable custom is always maintained on these occasions that of soliciting money from the passers-by, in the formula, 'Pray remember Guy!' Please to remember Guy!' or 'Please to remember the bonfire!' In former times, in London, the burning of the effigy of Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November was a most important and portentous ceremony. The bonfire in Lincoln's Inn Fields was conducted on an especially magnificent scale. Two hundred cart-loads of fuel would sometimes be consumed in feeding this single fire, while upwards of thirty Guys' would be suspended on gibbets and committed to the flames. Another tremendous pile was heaped up by the butchers in Clare Market, who on the same evening paraded through the streets in great force, serenading the citizens with the famed marrow-bone-and-cleaver' music. The uproar throughout the town from the shouts of the mob, the ringing of the bells in the churches, and the general confusion which prevailed, can but faintly be imagined by an individual of the present day. The ferment occasioned throughout the country by the Papal Aggression' in 1850, gave a new direction to the genius of 5th of November revellers. Instead of Guy Fawkes, a figure of Cardinal Wiseman, then recently created Archbishop of Westminister' by the pope, was solemnly burned in effigy in London, amid demonstrations which certainly gave little evidence of any revolution in the feelings of the English people towards the Romish see. In 1857, a similar honour was accorded to Nana Sahib, whose atrocities at Cawnpore in the previous month of July, had excited such a cry of horror throughout the civilised world. The opportunity also is frequently seized by many of that numerous class in London, who get their living no one exactly knows how, to earn a few THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. pence by parading through the streets, on the 5th of November, gigantic figures of the leading celebrities of the day. These are sometimes rather ingeniously got up, and the curiosity of the passerby, who stops to look at them, is generally taxed with the contribution of a copper. THE REVOLUTION OF 1688: POLITICAL SERVILITY. On 5th November 1688, William, Prince of Orange, landed in Torbay, an event which, if we consider the important results by which it was followed, may perhaps be regarded as the most critical of any recorded in English history. It forms the boundary, as it were, between two great epochs-those of arbitrary and constitutional government-for the great Civil War, in the middle of the seventeenth century, can scarcely be regarded as more than a spasmodic effort which, carried to excess, overshot the mark, and ended by the re-establishment, for a time, of a sway more odious and intolerable, in many respects, than that whose overthrow had cost so much destruction and bloodshed. We hear much of the folly of King James, and of all the other causes of his dethronement, but nothing of the culpable conduct of large official bodies, and of many individual subjects, who made it their business to encourage him in his sadly erroneous course, and to flatter him into the conviction that he might go any lengths with impunity. About a month before the landing of the Prince of Orange, the lord mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, &c., of the city of London sent the infatuated monarch an address, containing these words: 'We beg leave to assure your majesty that we shall, with all duty and faithfulness, cheerfully and readily, to the utmost hazard of our lives and fortunes, discharge the trust reposed in us by your majesty, according to the avowed principles of the Church of Eng land, in defence of your majesty and the established government.' The lieutenancy of London followed in the same strain: We must confess our lives and fortunes are but a mean sacrifice to such transcendent goodness; but we do assure your majesty of our cheerful offering of both against all your majesty's enemies, who shall disturb your peace upon any pretence whatever.' The justices of peace for the county of Cumber land said: "The unexpected news of the intended invasion of the Dutch fills us with horror and amazement, that any nation should be so transcendently wicked as groundlessly to interrupt the peace and happiness we have enjoyed; therefore, we highly think it our duty, chiefly at this juncture, to offer our lives and fortunes to your majesty's service, not doubting but a happy success will attend your majesty's arms. And if your majesty shall think fit to display your royal standard, which we heartily wish and hope you'll never have occasion to do, we faithfully do promise to repair to it with our persons and interest. The privy-council of Scotland express themselves thus: We shall on this, as on all other occasions, shew all possible alacrity and diligence in obeying your majesty's commands, and be ready to expose our lives and fortunes in the defence of your sacred majesty, your royal consort, his Royal Highness the Prince of Scotland, &c. Nor were the Scottish peers, spiritual and temporal, behindhand on this occasion, |