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Still Investigating Gunpowder Plot

Dr. Mark Nicholls’s Investigating Gunpowder Plot published in May, 1991, is a useful reminder that Guy Fawkes: the Real Story of the Gunpowder Plot?, to name nothing else published in or near 1969, has by no means found universal acceptance as the more probable solution of the confused evidence surrounding this bizarre episode. This is not surprising. The last mentioned book was written for a wide audience. Thanks no doubt in large measure to the kindly influence of Lady Antonia Fraser it was chosen as the Book of the Month by PUNCH all those years ago. Evidently, such a choice, however desirable in itself, could not be regarded as the highest of recommendations by the world of Academe. Nevertheless, it must be insisted that the book was based on extensive research not only in this country but also abroad, notably in Rome, Florence, Spain, Holland and Belgium. Errors occurred which will need to be corrected in any future edition or new work. Dr. Nicholls, while attempting to refute the basic thesis, was fair enough to admit, ‘such views have found perhaps their most determined and skilful advocate in Fr. Francis Edwards’. But one hopes that an opposing view is based on more than skill, which could be mere forensic adroitness, and on determination which could be another word for obstinacy.