Conspirators sought to place 9-year-old princess on throne

The Gunpowder Plot was designed to blow up the House of Lords during the state opening of England’s Parliament on November 5 1605.

This was intended as the catalyst for a popular revolt in the Midlands during which King James’s nine-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth, would be installed as the Catholic head of state.

The plotters were Robert Catesby, John Wright, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience, was given charge of the explosives. But the scheme was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on October 26.

During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight on November 4, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder – enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble – and arrested.

Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot’s discovery. Several, including Percy and Catesby, made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House.

In the ensuing fight, Percy and Catesby were reportedly killed by the same musket ball, fired by a John Streete of Worcester.

The survivors were taken into custody and the dead buried near Holbeche, but the bodies of Percy and Catesby were exhumed and their heads displayed on spikes at “the side of the Parliament House”.

At the trial on January 27, 1606, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.