Nov. 5.
My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care for your preserva lion, 'Therefore T would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift of your attendance at this: Parliament, for God and man hath concurred to punish the wickedness. of this time. And think not slightly' of this advertisement, but retire yourself into your country, where you may expect the event in safety, for though there bbe no appearance of any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow' the Parliament, and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be condemned, because it may do you good and can do you ho harm, for the danger is bastas soon as you have: Durnt the letter: and T hope God will give you the grace to make good use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.
That famous letter on this day three hundred and thirty-three years ago put an end to the plot conceived and prepared for well over two years for the destruction of King James I and his Parliament. Only the day before Lord Monteagle at Haxton had received it from some anonymous correspond~ ent, probably one of the plotters themselves, for' plotters no matter how callously they may regard the fate of their intended victim, ave soft spots in their hearts for their friends, and it was through such a sentiment that the whole scheme was brought to naught, and a large number of the schemers—including the wretched Guido Fawkes himself, caught ready to light the fuse to explode the gunpowder under Parliament,—to the scat fold. Robert Catesby for two long years had been devising a means of getting lid of the King, and as a result of his scheming, suf cient explosive had been smuggled into the cellar beneath the House. He, the previous night, having been warned -that the plot had been' divulged, refused the advice to flee, and Fawkes satisfied that nothing had up to then been touched in the cellar, returned to hhis station to set off, at the appropriate moment, the ton-and-a-half of powder which lay hidden beneath a stack of coal and fag-Gols. The authorities acted quickly and in the course of a search which has been repeated ever since prior to the assembly of Parliament, the unhappy Fawkes was apprehended ana the whole plot revealed. Nine!
men were executed for complicity, and Eng-Jand rejoiced that a monarch who had never!
up to then captured its fancy had so escaped.
Indeed It continues to do 9, not, perhaps, with all the enthusiasm of former years, but at least with all the Joy of that youth which'
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.