[9] They had also
discovered a pair of brewer's slings, by which barrels were usually
carried between two men, and they pressed Fawkes hard to say who was his
partner in removing the barrels of gunpowder. He began by denying that he
had had a partner at all, but finally answered that "he cannot discover
the party, but"--_i.e._, lest--"he shall bring him in question." He also
said that he had forgotten where he slept on Wednesday, Thursday, or
Friday in the week before his arrest.
[9] The "cellar" was not really hired till a little before Easter,
March 31st.
Upon this James himself intervened, submitting to the Commissioners a
series of questions with the object of drawing out of the prisoner a true
account of himself, and of his relations to Percy. A letter had been
found on Fawkes when he was taken, directed not to Johnson, but to
Fawkes, and this among other things had raised the King's suspicions. In
his third examination, on the afternoon of the 6th, in the presence of
Northampton, Devonshire, Nottingham, and Salisbury, Fawkes gave a good
deal of information, more or less true, about himself; and, while still
maintaining that his real name was Johnson, said that the letter, which
was written by a Mrs. Bostock in Flanders, was addressed to him by
another name "because he called himself Fawkes," that is to say, because
he had acquired the name of Fawkes as an alias.
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