The Gunpowder Plot

The Gunpowder Plot reconstructs the Catholic conspiracy of 1605 and the political and religious conditions that produced it. Fraser follows Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators as they moved from grievance and secrecy to a plan to destroy Parliament and kill James VI and I. The book treats the plot as a Jacobean crisis of faith, persecution, surveillance and state response rather than only as a failed act of spectacular violence.