Percy had all of his scientific equipment set up in the tower...

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"Henry Percy, the ninth Earl of Northumberland, known as the 'Wizard Earl', was the greatest of the earlier English scientific 'virtuosi'.

Born of an important and wealthy, though ill-starred family ( The Percy family was one of the richest and most powerful feudal families in England, and it was often said that

'the North knows no king but a Percy'

) Percy had a significant share in the advance of science through his patronage of an entire school of natural philosophers.

He and Raleigh gathered around them some of the most advanced intellects of England.

These included Thomas Hariot, mathematician, physicist, and astronomer; Robert Hues, the author of De globorum usu; Walter Warner, mathematician and physicist, the mathematician Thomas Allen,

and dramatist and poets like George Chapman and George Peele.

Christopher Marlowe is also often included in the list, and John Dee was closely associated with Raleigh."

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"After the Gunpowder Treason of the papists, Guy Fawkes and his fellows was uncovered on November 5, 1605, the little monster, Robert Cecil, seized upon the occasion to realize his ambition of destroying Henry Percy.

Even though evidence was lacking Cecil managed to get the Earl convicted on several counts, and have him confined to the Tower for life.

Percy drew his scientific retainers - Hariot, Warner, Hues, Torporley, and Allen into the Tower, and Raleigh (who had already been cast into the Tower) was there along with the rest of them.

Percy had all of his scientific equipment set up in the tower, and there is a record from personal notes Bacon made in 1608 that refers to:

'The setting on work, my Lord of Northumberland, and Raleigh, and therefore Hariot, themselves being already inclined to experiments.' "

http://www.sirbacon.org/mcompeer2.htm

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