The Official Story

Quoted text is from
The Gunpowder Plot House of Commons Information Office Factsheet G8

"The Gunpowder Plot refers to the conspiracy, and failed attempt, to blow up the King and Houses of Parliament in 1605.

It was in the afternoon of 4th November 1605 - the day before King James was due to open Parliament - that the Earl of Suffolk discovered a man in a cellar beneath the House of Lords. He said his name was John Johnson and claimed that the timbers and coal he was guarding were his master's winter fuel supply. A more extensive search later that night - now the wee small hours of the Fifth of November - revealed that beneath the wood and coal was hidden the small matter of 36 barrels of gunpowder.

"...King James I had recently arrived from Scotland. In the reign of his predecessor, Elizabeth I (1533-1603) the Church of England had consolidated its break with Rome, but Catholicism retained many adherents in England. James must have been something of an unknown quantity, and among the Catholics there was great disappointment when it became apparent that, despite initial indications to the contrary, James was going to do nothing to reverse the religious status quo of the end of Elizabeth's reign, or to permit greater toleration.

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