Within The Shadow Of The Shaft.

I find in tho London Gazette , " No . 48 , from Thursday , April 26 , to Monday , April 30 , 1666 , "—observe , at least four months before the fire—the following singular item of news : — " At the Sessions in the Old Bailey , John Bathbone an old Army Colonel " ( i . e ., in the then disbanded Parliamentarian Army , of course ) , " William SaundersHenry TuclcerThomas FlintThomas HvansJohn MylesWilliam

, , , , , Wescot , and John Cole , formerly Officers or Soldiers in the late Rebellion , were Indicted for conspiring the Death of His Majesty and the overthrow of the Government ; having- laid their Plot and Contrivance for the Surprisal of the Tower , the killing his Grace the Lord General" ( Monk , Duke of Albermarle ) " Sir John Robinson , Lieutenant of His Majesties Tower of London and Sir Richard Brown and then to have declared for an equal division of Lands & c .

The better to effect this Hellish design THE CITY WAS TO HAVE BEEN FIRED . " [ These latter Capitals are mine , the italics and the capital initials are reproduced as in the text ] " and the Portcullis to have been let down , to keep out all assistance ; the Horse-guard to have been surprised in the Inns where they were quartered ; several Ostlers having' been gained for that purpose . The Tower was accordingly viewed and its surprise ordered bBoats over the Moat

y and from thence to Scale the Wall . One Alexander , who is not yet taken , had likewise distributed sums of Money to these Conspirators ; and for the carryingon of the design more effectually , they were told of a Council of the great ones that sat frequently in London , from whom issued all Orders ; which Council received their directions from another in Holland , who sate with the States ; and that the third of September was pitched on for the attempt , as

being found by Lillies * " ( sic ) "Almanack , and a Schemef erected for that purpose to be a lucky day , a Planet then ruling which Prognosticated the downfall of Monarchy . The evidence against these persons was very full and clear , and they accordingly " ( sic ) "found guilty of High Treason . " No doubt they were all executed , but it is somewhat singular that the ease has escaped the observation not only of the various compilers of the numerous Newgate Calendars extant , but also of the learned and industrious editors of that work I am constantly eulogising , the "State Trials . "

It will thus be seen that while , when the disastrous event did at last take place , people generally ascribed it to Roman Catholic intervention , a few months before it had been thought quite possible that disappointed Puritanism could be guilty of such a deed of dire revenge . Thus , both the great religious parties in dissent have been debited with meditating the crime . But the account is interesting , if even the almost exact identit y in date existing between the contemplated device and the event itselfis laced no

, p higher than as a mere coincidence . It will be remembered that the fire actually broke out between one and two in the morning of Sunday , September the 2 nd , or , to put it colloquially , on Saturday night , after the business of the day had been transacted and the shop closed . Now , it will have been observed above , that Monday , the 3 rd , had been fixed upon by the conspirators for the deed—the 3 rd Septembera dateof coursesacred to Presbyterian and

Inde-, , , pendent brooders over reform and the wickedness of the Restoration times . It was the clay of the victory of Dunbar , of the " crowning mercy "—as Cromwell called it—of the Worcester fight , and the annivei-sary on which the great Protector himself had died . I cannot help fancying that Master Lilly ' s "scheme" was " squared" in more senses than one , and that the date suggested the result rather than that the process produced the date . f