The Gunpowder Plot in Portraits, Documents and Prints

This historical print, reproduced in John Gerard’s 1897 study, places the assembled Parliament above a densely decorated lower scene. It turns the threatened institution and the conspiracy into a single visual narrative. The reproduction belongs to a later argument about the plot, not to eyewitness reporting of a secret meeting.

The letter delivered to Lord Monteagle on October 26 warned him against attending Parliament. Monteagle passed it to the authorities. Its writer remains unidentified; the surviving handwriting has supported arguments and suspicions, but no secure identification.

William Capon drew this plan long after the conspiracy, recording the arrangement of the old Palace of Westminster. It helps explain the close relationship between parliamentary rooms and neighboring properties. Its later date matters: the plan is an antiquarian reconstruction, not a drawing carried by the conspirators.

This document records Fawkes’s examination and bears his signature. It discusses the intended seizure of Princess Elizabeth after the explosion. The record belongs to an investigation in which torture was authorized; that setting is part of the evidence, not a detail to leave outside the caption.

Claes Jansz. Visscher’s 1606 print compresses the conspirators’ punishment into a crowded public spectacle. The executions took place on January 30 and 31; Fawkes died on the second day. This is a contemporary interpretation for a print audience, with the transport of prisoners and several stages of punishment arranged within one scene.