The Gunpowder Plot: Terror & Faith in 1605 (73 page)

Letter of King James authorising the torture of Guy Fawkes which ends: ‘the gentler Tortures are to be first used unto him e
t sic per gradus ad ima tenditur –
and so by degrees proceeding to the worst – and so God speed your good work. James R.’

Instruments of torture at the time of the Gunpowder Plot: manacles and the rack.

A late eighteenth-century print of the execution of the conspirators.

Guido Fawkes’ signatures before and after torture.

Embroidered cushion depicting the defeat of the Armada and the Gunpowder Plot,
c.
1621.

Engraving of Father Garnet on the scaffold by C. Screta.

The Powder Plot, taken from an anti-Catholic booklet, ‘A Thankful Remembrance of God’s Mercie’ by George Carleton, 1630.

Victorian impression of Guy Fawkes being taken to the scaffold.

Etching of Guy Fawkes laying his sinister trail, 1841; although Catesby was the leader of the band, Guy Fawkes has received the popular odium down the centuries.

The Papists’ Powder Treason: an allegorical engraving done for 5 November 1612 ‘in aeternal memory of the divine bounty in England’s preservation from the Hellish Powder Plot’.

A monument to the Plot’s discovery erected in the council chamber in the house of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower of London, 1608 by Sir William Waad (still there today).

The search of the cellars of the House of Lords which still takes place on the eve of the Opening of Parliament by members of the Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard; the traditional uniforms and lamps of the searchers contrast with the modern heating pipes above their heads.