The writer of the following work desires respectfully to put forward a modest contribution to the solution of one of the greatest problems known to History.

The problem referred to arises out of that stupendous and far-reaching movement against the Government of King James I. known as the Gunpowder Treason Plot.

This enterprise of cold-blooded, though grievously provoked, massacre was, of a truth, “barbarous and savage beyond the examples of all former ages.” But because the movement had a profoundly— in the Aristotelian sense— political causa causans, therefore it is of perennial interest to governors and governed.

The causa causans, or originating cause, of the Gunpowder Treason Plot, in its ultimate analysis, will be found to involve that problem of problems for Princes, Statesmen, and Peoples all the world over:— How to allow freedom of human action, and yet faithfully to maintain Absolute Truth concerning the Infinite and the Eternal— or that which is believed to be Absolute Truth.

To the intent that the mind of the reader may ever and anon find relief from the stress and strain occasioned by the dry discussion of Evidence and the severe reasoning from necessary or probable philosophical assumptions, the writer has designedly interspersed, both in the Text and in the Notes, matter of a Biographical and Topographical nature, especially such as hath relation to the author’s honoured native County— Yorkshire— and his beloved native City— York.

The writer has thought out his thesis, and has treated the same without fear or favour— limited and conditioned only by a regard for what he knew or supposed, and therefore believed, to be the truth governing the subject-matter under consideration. Nobody can say more, not even the most advanced or emancipated thinker living.[A]

If it be demanded of the author why a member of the lower branch of the legal profession hath essayed the unveiling of a mystery that has baffled the learning and ingenuity of men from the days of King James I.— the British Solomon— down to the days of Dr. Samuel Rawson Gardiner, the renowned historian of the early English Stuarts, the author’s answer and plea must be— for it can only be— that by the decrees of Fate, his eyes first saw the light of the sun in a County whose history is an epitome of the history of the English people; and in a City which is an England in miniature.

In conclusion, the writer would be fain to be pardoned in saying that he has not had the advantage of frequenting any British or Foreign University, or other seat of learning— all the education that he can make his humble boast of having been received in Yorkshire Protestant Schools.

The writer’s guide, during the past eighteen months, wherein he hath “voyaged through strange seas of thought alone,”[A] has been “the high white star of Truth. There he has gazed, and THERE aspired.”[B]

Saturday, 26th October, 1901.