In 1604 Robert Catesby, a devout Catholic with a magnetic personality, recruited friends and rebels to meet and discuss his plot to blow up the House of Lords in an attempt to reestablish Catholicism in England.Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, and John Gerard. What Gunpowder Plot Was. London, NY: Longmans, Green, 1897. Print. Those present at that first meeting with Catesby were Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Thomas Percy and Guy Fawkes. With the imminent threat of plague, Parliament postponed re-opening until 5 November 1605, which gave the plotters ample time to lease out a small house in the centre of London where Fawkes would live under the alias "John Johnson" as Thomas Percy's servant while gathering the gunpowder necessary (Fraser 174). By March 1605, the 36 barrels of gunpowder were moved to the newly leased out cellar directly under the House of Lords.
