GUNKEL, gun'kl, JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERMANN : German Protestant; b. at Springe (14 m. s.w. of Hanover) May 23,1862. He was educated at the universities of Göttingen, Giessen, and Leipsic, and in 1889-94 was privat-docent at Halle. Since the latter year he has been associate professor of Old Testament exegesis at the University of Berlin. In addition to editing the Forschungen zur Religion Itnd Literatur des Alten and Neuzn Testaments in collaboration with W. Bousset since 1903, he has written Wirkung des heiZigen Geistes (Göttingen, 1888); Sch6pfung and Chaos in Urzeit and Endzeit (1895); Der Prophet Esra (Tübingen, 1900); Genesis fitberseW ltnd erkldrt (Göttingen, 1900); Die Sagen der Genesis (1901; Eng. transl. by W. H. Carruth, The Legends of Genesis, Chicago, 1901); Israel and Babylonien (Göttingen,1903; Eng.transl. by E. S.B., Israel and Babylon; The Influence of Babylon on the Religion of Israel); Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Yeratdndnis des Neuen Testaments (1903); Ausgewdhdte Psalmen (1904); and Literaturgeschichte Ismels and des alten Judentums (Leipsic, 1906).

GUNPOWDER PLOT: A conspiracy on the part of certain Roman Catholics in England to destroy the king, lords, and commons by blowing up the parliament house at the opening of parliament on Nov. 5, 1605, and thus overthrow the government in the interest of Roman Catholicism. The conspiracy grew out of the resentment felt toward James I. for his rigid enforcement of the old penal laws of Elizabeth against Roman Catholics. In order to facilitate his accession to the English throne he had promised a number of prominent Roman Catholics that fines against recusants would no longer be exacted. Spanish diplomacy having been tried upon James in vain, the Gunpowder Plot was hatched by Robert Catesby, John Wright, and Thomas Winter early in 1604. Thomas Percy and Guy Fawkes were soon sworn into the plot, and later several others, including Everard Digby,

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Francis Tresham, and Ambrose Rookwood, all men of we$lth and prominence. A building adjoining the parliament house was rented in Percy's name, and in Dec., 1604, the conspirators began to excavate a passage from their cellar. After they had bored about half way through the wall, which was nine feet thick, they were able the following March to rent, also in Percy's name, a cellar immediately under the House of Lords. Here they stored thirty-six barrels of powder, covering them with stones and bars of iron, and concealing all beneath lumber and fagots of various kinds. By May, 1605, all was in readiness; but parliament was not to meet till Nov. 5. While he did not originate the plan, Fawkes was the leading conspirator in all these preparations, and on account of his coolness and courage he was entrusted with the important work of firing the powder on Nov. 5. Ten days before the plot was to have been consummated, Lord Monteagle, a Catholic and a friend of several of the conspirators, received an anonymous letter warning him not to attend the opening session of parliament. He at once showed the letter to Lord Salisbury, who communicated the matter to the king. On Nov. 4 the lord chamberlain, while going over the parliament house, noticed a suspicious abundance of fuel in the cellar occupied by Fawkes. That night the cellar was searched, the powder was discovered, and Fawkes was arrested just as he was returning from a midnight conference with Percy. Under severe torture Fawkes made a full confession on Nov. 9; and on Jan. 27, 1606, all the conspirators were condemned to be drawn, hanged, and quartered. Fawkes, with three others, ascended the scaffold on Jan. 31, 1606. Four fellow conspirators had been executed on the preceding day. What part, if any, the Jesuits took in the plot is still a mooted question, though it is pretty certain that Henry Garnett, the head of the order in England, had a guilty knowledge of it. He was executed on May 3, 1606. On Jan. 21, 1606, parliament set apart Nov. 5 as a day of national thanksgiving. This act was not repealed for two hundred years. It was long customary on this day to. dress up in rags an effigy of Fawkes, parade it through the street, singing rimes, and finally burn the effigy at night. The discovery of the plot was disastrous to the cause of the Roman Catholics in England, as thereafter the laws against them were enforced more rigidly than ever.

Bibliography: D. Jardine, A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, London, 1857; J. Gerard. The Condition of Catholics under James 1. Father Gerard's Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot Ed., with his Life, by J Morris, ib. 3d ed, 1881; DNB, ix. 283-284, xviii. 266-268, lxii. 218-219; S. R. Gardiner, What Gunpowder Plot Was, London, 1897; J. H. Overton, The Church in England, ii. 18, 26, 38, ib. 1897; w. H. Frere, The English Church . . 1668-me6, pp. 324-327, ib. 1904; and in general the histories of the period.