Doubts
"The genesis of the plot is unclear. Generations of historians accepted it as a genuine
last desperate attempt to re-establish the Catholic religion. Others have suspected it to be the work of a group of ‘agents-provocateurs’, anxious to set up as traitors a band of gullible men, to discredit the Jesuits.
This would have reinforced the ascendancy of Protestantism, from the wave of popular revulsion, and hatred in
James himself. Several commentators have postulated that the whole plot was
conceived by Secretary of State Cecil, and suggested to Catesby [one of the ringleaders]
, but there is little
evidence to support this."
Or is there?