had recently been in prison for swaggering drunk about the streets and huzzaing in honour of the Prince of Wales, was hardly to be trusted with a secret of such fearful import.  Porter entered into the plot with enthusiasm, and promised to bring in others who would be useful.  Among those whose help he engaged was his servant Thomas Keyes.  Keyes was a far more formidable conspirator than might have been expected from his station in life.  The household troops generally were devoted to William; but there was a taint of disaffection among the Blues.  The chief conspirators had already been tampering with some Roman Catholics who were in that regiment; and Keyes was excellently qualified to bear a part in this work; for he had formerly been trumpeter of the corps, and, though he had quitted the service, he still kept up an acquaintaince with some of the old soldiers in whose company he had lived at free quarter on the Somersetshire farmers after the battle of Sedgemoor.

Parkyns, who was old and gouty, could not himself take a share in the work of death.  But he employed himself in providing horses, saddles and weapons for his younger and more active accomplices.  In this department of business he was assisted by Charles Cranburne, a person who had long acted as a broker between Jacobite plotters and people who dealt in cutlery and firearms.  Special orders were given by Barclay that the swords should be made rather for stabbing than for slashing.  Barclay himself enlisted Edward Lowick, who had been a major in the Irish army, and who had, since the capitulation of Limerick, been living obscurely in London.  The monk who had been Barclay’s first confidant recommended two busy Papists, Richard Fisher and Christopher Knightley; and this recommendation was thought sufficient.  Knightley drew in Edward King, a Roman Catholic gentleman of hot and restless temper; and King procured the assistance of a French gambler and bully named De la Rue.661

Meanwhile the heads of the conspiracy held frequent meetings at treason taverns, for the purpose of settling a plan of operations.  Several schemes were proposed, applauded, and, on full consideration, abandoned.  At one time it was thought that an attack on Kensington House at dead of night might probably be successful.  The outer wall might easily be scaled.  If once forty armed men were in the garden, the palace would soon be stormed or set on fire.  Some were of opinion that it would be best to strike the blow on a Sunday as William went from Kensington to attend divine service at the chapel of Saint James’s Palace.  The murderers might assemble near the spot where Apsley House and Hamilton Place now stand.  Just as the royal coach passed out of Hyde Park, and was about to enter what has since been called the Green Park, thirty of the conspirators, well mounted, might fall on the guards.  The guards were ordinarily only five and twenty.  They would be taken completely by surprise; and probably half of them would be shot