We remember the Fifth of November, but we tend to forget the ignominious conclusion of the gunpowder plot afterwards, which was partly due to heavy rain. After the arrest of Guy Fawkes, chief plotter Robert Catesby still believed that his plan for a mass uprising might succeed.
His band took horses from Warwick Castle and rode through a downpour, trying to raise support in the countryside.
They stole gunpowder from Hewell Grange, the Worcestershire home of Lord Windsor, and holed up at Holbeche House in Staffordshire.
The next morning, they found that the stolen gunpowder, transported in an open cart, was “dankish” from the rain. The usual remedy was drying in the sun, a technique long used in gunpowder manufacture, but the weather was bad and time was short. The damp powder was spread in front of an open fire instead.
“Behold, a spark falling out of the fire took hold of the powder, and that blowing up, hurt divers of them,” wrote Father John Gerard in his account of the plot. Catesby and several others were injured. One, John Grant, had “his eyes almost burnt out”.
The plotters took this disaster as a sign they were not meant to continue, and resigned themselves to death. The next day the house was surrounded; all were killed or captured in their last stand.
Their fate is a reminder of the importance of keeping one’s powder dry in the rain. And also of the continuing danger of being careless with gunpowder.
