Gunpowder Plot under King James had faded, leaving many English Catholics disappointed. His fellow plotters were John and Christopher Wright, Robert and Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham. Fawkes, who had 10 years of military experience fighting in the Spanish Netherlands in the failed suppression of the Dutch Revolt, was given charge of the explosives. The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight
Robert and Thomas Wintour would nott answere". With the addition to the conspiracy of Thomas Percy (John Wright's brother-in-law), the five plotters met at the Duck and Drake inn, in the fashionable Strand district of London, on 20 May 1604. From hereon Thomas Wintour remained at the heart of the conspiracy. The group leased properties in London, one in Lambeth for storing the gunpowder that was rowed across the Thames to its destination. His confession has the plotters digging a tunnel toward their target during one of the several prorogations of Parliament, abandoned when the chamber directly beneath the House of Lords became available.