An anonymous letter—quite probably authored by Francis Tresham, a Roman Catholic landowner who came to the plot in its later stages—was sent to Lord Monteagle (Tresham’s brother-in-law). Monteagle alerted James I’s ministers, who waited more than a week to allow the plot to fully mature. On the night of November 4–5, a detachment of Westminster guards discovered an enormous cache of gunpowder in a cellar under the House of Lords, and they arrested Guy Fawkes, the plotter who was guarding it. Fawkes was broken on the rack and revealed the nature of the plot as well as the names of his coconspirators.
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