The surviving conspirators are by coincidence, arraigned…

January 1606 CE

The surviving conspirators are by coincidence, arraigned in Westminster Hall on the same day that Garnet is found.

Seven of the prisoners are taken from the Tower to the Star Chamber by barge.

Bates, who is considered lower class, is brought from the gatehouse of Westminster.

Some of the prisoners are reportedly despondent, but others are nonchalant, even smoking tobacco.

The King and his family, hidden from view, are among the many who watch the trial.

The Lords Commissioners present are the Earls of Suffolk, Worcester, Northampton, Devonshire, and Salisbury.

Sir John Popham is Lord Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Fleming is Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and two Justices, Sir Thomas Walmsley and Sir Peter Warburton, sit as Justices of the Common Pleas.

The list of traitors' names is read aloud, beginning with those of the priests: Garnet, Tesimond, and Gerard.

The first to speak is the Speaker of the House of Commons (later Master of the Rolls), Sir Edward Philips, who describes the intent behind the plot in lurid detail.

He is followed by the Attorney-General Sir Edward Coke, who begins with a long speech—the content of which is heavily influenced by Salisbury—that includes a denial that the King had ever made any promises to the Catholics.

Monteagle's part in the discovery of the plot is welcomed, and denouncements of the 1603 mission to Spain feature strongly.

Fawkes's protestations that Gerard knew nothing of the plot are omitted from Coke's speech.

The foreign powers, when mentioned, are accorded due respect, but the priests are accursed, their behavior analyzed and criticized wherever possible.

There is little doubt, according to Coke, that the plot had been invented by the Jesuits.

Garnet's meeting with Catesby, at which the former was said to have absolved the latter of any blame in the plot, is proof enough that the Jesuits were central to the conspiracy.

Coke speaks with feeling of the probable fate of the Queen and the rest of the King's family, and of the innocents who would have been caught up in the explosion.

Each of the condemned, said Coke, will be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground.

He is to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both".

His genitals will be cut off and burnt before his eyes, and his bowels and heart then removed.

Then he will be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of his body displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air".

Confessions and declarations from the prisoners are then read aloud, and finally the prisoners are allowed to speak.

Rookwood claims that he had been drawn into the plot by Catesby, "whom he loved above any worldy man".

Thomas Wintour begs to be hanged for himself and his brother, so that his brother might be spared.

Fawkes explains his not guilty plea as ignorance of certain aspects of the indictment.

Keyes appears to accept his fate, Bates and Robert Wintour beg for mercy, and Grant explains his involvement as "a conspiracy intended but never effected".

Only Digby, tried on a separate indictment, pleads guilty, insisting that the King had reneged upon promises of toleration for Catholics, and that affection for Catesby and love of the Catholic cause had mitigated his actions.

He seeks death by the axe and begs mercy from the King for his young family.

His defense was in vain; his arguments are rebuked by Coke and Northumberland, and along with his seven co-conspirators, he is found guilty by the jury of high treason.

Digby shouts "If I may but hear any of your lordships say, you forgive me, I shall go more cheerfully to the gallows."

The response is short: "God forgive you, and we do.”