There was a real plot we shall have to judge for ourselves as the tense story unfolds; but it is not to be wondered at that Englishmen felt a shock of horror and of relief from catastrophe on November 5, 1605, or that we still celebrate the deliverance. Men, who were themselves good, in the sense that they were filled with religious zeal, had certainly planned one of the most evil deeds in history. They had planned murder on a mass scale; murder of King and Lords. The aim of this book is to take a familiar event in history and examine the cause and effect so that it no longer stands isolated from its background.