little before the blow was to be given, Mr. Keies, one of the
conspirators, and brother-in-law to Mr. Pickering, borrowed this horse
of him, and conveyed him to London upon a bloody design, which was thus
contrived:--Fawkes, upon the day of the fatal blow, was appointed to
retire himself into St. George's Fields, where this horse was to attend
him, to further his escape (as they made him believe) as soon as the
Parliament should be blown up. It was likewise contrived, that Mr.
Pickering, who was noted for a puritan, should that morning be murdered
in his bed, and secretly conveyed away; and also that Fawkes, as soon as
he came into St. George's Fields, should be there murdered, and so
mangled, that he could not be known; upon which, it was to be spread
abroad, that the puritans had blown up the parliament-house; and the
better to make the world believe it, there was Mr. Pickering, with his
choice horse ready to escape. But that stirred up some, who seeing the
heinousness of the fact, and him ready to escape, in detestation of so
horrible a deed, fell upon him, and hewed him to pieces; and to make it
more clear, there was his horse, known to be of special speed and
swiftness, ready to carry him away; and upon this rumour, a massacre
should have gone through the whole land upon the puritans.

"When the contrivance of this plot was discovered by some of the
conspirators, and Fawkes, who was now a prisoner in the Tower, made
acquainted with it, whereas before he was made to believe by his
companions, that he should be bountifully rewarded for that his good
service to the Catholic cause, now perceiving, that, on the contrary,
his death had been contrived by them, he thereupon freely confessed all
that he knew concerning that horrid conspiracy, which before all the
torments of the rack could not force him to do.

"The truth of this was attested by Mr. William Perkins, who had it from