BOOM!
October 26th, 1605
Lord William Parker rode through the night shrouded and narrow dirt streets of London, flattened and churned by constant travel, barely parting the hedge of wooden structures that arose around the baron. He was quite troubled by the letter read to him at supper, an anonymous warning to not attend the opening of Parliament next month. Parker decided it would be best to hurry to Whitehall, and show Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury. Being he was on top of state security concerns, Cecil would know what to make of the darkly letter.
Suddenly his mind was forced back to his mount, his horse lurched forward, tripping. Parker tried to brace himself, but he barely had time to tighen his hands about the reigns, and went flying from the beast's back. A harsh pain shot through his skull, and for a second he felt his blood flowing hot into his eyes, before they filled with darkness forever more...
The message he carried slipped from his belt, fluttered by wind from the lord's body, disappearing and forgotten in the shadows. It's contents added to London's notorious muddy streets, as the day's traffic would continue. The tragedy of Parker's death overshadowed whatever concerns he sought to carry to the Earl of Salisbury. Even after Parker's servant, who originally read the letter to the lord, attempted to bring it to Cecil's attention, only a casual investigation was launched with it's words absent...
...It might have made all the difference ten days later, when Guy Fawkes lit the fuse to the 36 barrels of gunpowder beneath the House of Lords. The resulting explosion could be seen for miles, and heard even further. King James, his nearest relatives, the Privy Council, Bishops of the Church of England, much of the Protestant aristocracy, and others were all killed by the fire and powder...
...I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot...And indeed it never was.
