What London inn hosted the first meeting of five Gunpowder Plot conspirators?

The first meeting of the five central Gunpowder Plot conspirators took place at the Duck and Drake Inn in London. On 20 May 1604, Robert Catesby, Thomas Wintour, John Wright, Guy Fawkes and Thomas Percy gathered there to develop their plan against King James I and Parliament.

The conspirators swore an oath of secrecy over a prayer book. Their aim was to destroy the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, kill the king and leading officials, and begin a Catholic uprising. Fawkes was recruited partly because of his military experience and knowledge of explosives.

The meeting is sometimes described cautiously because the surviving evidence says it took place “probably” at the Duck and Drake. That qualification does not make the inn’s name a competing answer: it is the standard historical identification. The gathering was not at the later Parliament cellar where Fawkes was arrested; that was the plot’s planned attack site, not its first planning venue.

The conspiracy was exposed in November 1605 after an anonymous warning letter reached Lord Monteagle. Fawkes was then discovered beneath Parliament with gunpowder.