[1] It was alleged that in company with a Royalist major, one Henshaw (whom Gerard had met in France), Gerard with 30 other mounted men were to attack the Lord Protector, as he rode to Hampton Court, and, after overwhelming his bodyguard and killing him, to besiege Whitehall,[4] seize the Tower of London, and proclaim Charles II king.
[3] Only three men, John Gerard, Peter Vowell (a schoolmaster) and Somerset Fox were brought to trial before the High Court of Justice.
The reluctant evidence of his younger brother Charles, to whom he sent his forgiveness from the scaffold, pointed to treasonable conversations with Henshaw and the rest in taverns.
[3] Gerard died with undaunted courage on 10 July 1654 at Tower Hill,[6] avowing his Royalism, but denying all participation in the conspiracy.
[7] This view has been elaborately restated by Reginald Palgrave in the English Historical Review for October 1888, in the course of a controversy between that writer and C. H. Firth.