The Mammoth Book of Cover-Ups

It was a further resolve amongst us that the same day that this act should have been performed, some other of our Confederates should have surprised the person of Lady Elizabeth the King’s eldest daughter, who was kept in Warwickshire at Lo.[rd] Harrington’s house, and presently have her proclaimed as Queen, having a project of a Proclamation ready for that purpose, wherein we made no mention of altering of Religion, nor would have avowed the deede to be ours, until we should have had powder enough to make our partie good and then we would have avowed both.

Concerning Duke Charles, the King’s second sonne, wee had sundry consultations how to seise on his Person. But because we found no means how to compasse it (the Duke being kept neere London, where we had not Forces y-nough) we resolved to serve our turn with Lady Elizabeth. THE NAMES OF OTHER PRINCIPALL

Persons, that were made privy

Afterwards to this horrible

Conspiracie

Catesby and his followers were tracked to Holbeche House, Staffordshire, where he and several others died in the ensuing gun battle. The rest were captured and committed for trial.

Except, that is, for one Francis Tresham. He alone out of all the plotters was spared the horror of being hung, drawn and quartered, which seems odd considering that anyone else who had anything remotely to do with the plot was summarily executed. Perhaps his immunity from that horrible fate can be explained by his association with Cecil. It was assumed that Tresham was the author of that anonymous letter to his friend Monteagle, though some claim it was Cecil himself. In any event, Monteagle’s loyalty to the crown had already been bought by the king’s previous leniency.

In 1601 the Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, had marched on the city of London to highlight abuses he felt had been perpetrated by the Privy Council in general and Robert Cecil in particular. Devereux was arrested along with his supporters Robert Catesby, Lord Monteagle and Francis Tresham.

Those who believe Cecil was behind the whole Gunpowder Plot claim that, at this point, Tresham and even Catesby himself became double-agents for Cecil in return for being spared execution. Certainly, having one or more men on the inside of the conspiracy would have explained why Cecil had been in no rush to uncover the plot. It would also explain how he could have masterminded events to further his own ends, giving the green light to further persecution of Catholics — whom he despised for their allegiance to another ruler (i.e. the Pope) — and to the lucrative confiscation of monastic lands.

In the end, it is Cecil’s own character as a ruthlessly ambitious and efficient man which scuppers this theory of a conspiracy within a conspiracy. The benefits do not seem radical enough by half to have been worth his effort. In the end, a handful of political bit players were executed, the Jesuits were expelled from England and had their lands taken, and the general Catholic populace was forced to keep its head down for the next two hundred years. However, prominent Catholic aristocrats remained influential members of the king’s inner circle and England soon signed a lasting peace treaty with Catholic Spain. Perhaps, in the end, Cecil appreciated how far the boat could be rocked but knew not to push it any further.

Guy Fawkes was a patsy in plot by Elizabethan secret service to justify religious cleansing of Catholics in England: ALERT LEVEL 2

Further Reading

Francis Edwards, Guy Fawkes and the Real Story of the Gunpowder Plot, 1969

Antonia Fraser, The Gunpowder Plot, 2000

Martin Stephens, The Desperate Remedy: Henry Gresham and the Gunpowder Plot, 2001 [a novel]

HAARP

Near Gakona, Alaska, is the 33-acre (12ha) site which houses America’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP. Here scientists transmit a 3.6MW signal into the ionosphere so that other colleagues in white overalls can «understand … and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication and surveillance systems». Put another way: if the nature of the ionosphere, that layer of sky which commences 30 miles (50km) above the planet’s surface, is properly understood we can all have better satellite TV and telephone signals.

A worthy aim. But maybe improved communications is not HAARP’s true purpose. HAARP is funded by the Office of Naval Research and administered by the US Navy together with the United States Air Force and the University of Alaska. Of course the military, more than most, have a vested interest in communications and navigation, but the prevalent suspicion about HAARP is that it is a weapon capable of delivering several types of mass destruction.