Page:Guy Fawkes, or The history of the gunpowder plot.pdf/21

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THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.
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person; and a dark lantern, with a light in it, was discovered in a corner behind the door of the cellar. Fawkes at once avowed his purpose to the magistrate, and declared that 'if he had happened to be within the house when he took him, he would not have failed to have blown him up, house and all.'

Having left a sufficient guard with the prisoner, Sir Thomas Knevet repaired to Whitehall to give notice of his success to the Earl of Salisbury Such of the Council as slept at Whitehall were called, and the others who were in the town summoned; and the doors and gates being secured, all assembled in the King's bedchamber. Fawkes was brought in and questioned. Undismayed by the suddenness of his apprehension, or by the circumstances of this nocturnal examination before the King and Council, this resolute fanatic behaved with a Roman firmness of nerve, which filled the minds of all present with astonishment. To the impatient and hurried questions which were put to him with some violence and passion, he answered calmly and firmly. He gave his name as John Johnson, the servant of Thomas Percy, declared his intention to blow up the King, Lords, and Bishops, and others who should have assembled at the opening of the Parliament, refused to accuse any one as his accomplice; and upon being asked by the King how he could enter upon so bloody a conspiracy against so many innocent persons, declared that 'dangerous diseases require a desperate remedy.' Being questioned as to his intentions by some of the Scotch courtiers, he told them that 'one of his objects was to blow them back into Scotland.' After a great part