Gunpowder Plot

The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was a desperate but failed attempt by a group of provincial English Catholic extremists to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in one fell swoop by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening. The conspirators had then planned to abduct the royal children, not present in parliament, and then incite a revolt in the Midlands.

Modern theories

Many modern historians think that Cecil's agents had infiltrated the plot early on in its gestation but allowed it to continue for dramatic effect; certainly the propaganda value of a "Popish plot" was not underplayed during the next few hundred years.

Related Topics:
Propaganda - Popish plot

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Another theory is that King James, searching for greater acceptance of Catholics, desired a test case with which to demonstrate Catholic loyalty to Parliament and the nation. Father Henry Garnet, the chief Jesuit of England, had turned in Catholic plotters in an earlier event. On this occasion, however, he did not, however he passed the information on to the Pope who in turn took no action. Because the plot was allowed to proceed, the Catholic cause for freedom in Britain was set back considerably. True freedom was denied until the mid 19th century.

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A darker supposition is that Cecil helped to arrange the Gunpowder Plot himself, though assuring a means to insulate himself from blame, as a mechanism to remove a Catholic absolute royalist sovereign. The sovereign had wanted to unwind everything that the Cecils and allied aristocratic Protestant families had worked on for generations, but collapsed within two years of James I's accession to the throne. These actions included James I's revocation of Dutch Protestant support, his rejection of religious toleration, and his refusal to work with Parliament. The idea of the state spy agency faciliating the assassination of an abrasive sovereign such as James I is not unheard of. For example, only two years before, in 1603, Robert Cecil's own brother-in-law Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, was himself implicated in the two other plots against James I— the Bye Plot and the Main Plot. These plots were attempts to remove James I from the throne and replace him with Lady Arabella Stuart, who would then be paired with the continental House of Savoy.

Related Topics:
Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham - Bye Plot - Main Plot - Arabella Stuart - House of Savoy

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