It is perhaps not all that surprising that a study of the relationship of gunpowder to the plot reveals much about  the inner workings of society and the motives of those involved.  This study reveals that despite the picture often painted of the conspirators as persecuted, citizens deprived of both wealth and rights these Gentlemen were actually free enough to be entrusted with supplies of gunpowder and had sufficient wealth to obtain it as well as freedom to acquire it.   Additionally the central role of gunpowder points to a flaw within the administration of government. A substance supposedly controlled tightly could be obtained with ease. The method by which the conspirators obtained the gunpowder would be a closely guarded state secret if only because others might also be encouraged also to try to do the same. It is significant that following the discovery of the plot steps were taken to limit gunpowder production. As for Cecil and his intent it is quite clear that although it sounds just a bit better to ear that the plot was uncovered by the eye of god it would also be commendable to learn of a plot hatched by Cecil which flushed out disloyal Catholics by making their route to gunpowder an easy one.  Just as acceptable to test the Catholics as to wait for actual danger to occur. But, if credit could be given to the hand of god,  as it was, so much the better, and much more inspiring.
As for Guy Fawkes standing around a great quantity of decayed gunpowder.....I think this is going a bit far. An expert in the field Fawkes would most probably not have risked his life guarding something that was unlikely to explode.
Don't take my word for it. Consult the experts summarized below:

What the experts have had to say:  Paul Durst, Antonia Frazier  Just clickit here!

Paul Durst 
Intended Treason, 1970

A fortnight before October 9 (1604) plotters decided to use Percy's house in Lambeth as temporary powder storage place. They had not yet obtained powder. The powder could be conveniently ferried across the river to Parliament Steps. p. 55.

By Candlemas, 2 February with the tunnel penetrating four and a half feet into the stone wall of Parliament the conspirators began transporting
the gunpowder across the river. It was ferried across the Thames by boat. The barrels were unloaded at Parliament Stairs. Each barrel was hand carried by two men using a brewer's sling- a "stout framework with four handles whereby a heavy barrel could be carried between two men". Eventually the tunnel being given up in favor of using the cellar beneath Parliament the gunpowder was transported there where it was covered with faggots to disguise it.

1605- Gunpowder was a Government monopoly. The king issued the patent and manufacture was strictly controlled. The Master of Ordinance dispensed the power which was stored at the Tower of London.  Almost two tons was none the less obtained and reached the Houses of Parliament.p-56
Some thirty to forty barrels of gunpowder were involved.

The gunpowder was never mentioned in the public record of the inquiry into the plot the King's Book. 
It is mentioned in a letter from Sir Thomas Lake the King's personal secretary to Cecil:

His Majesty this evening after his return from his sports commanded me to put you in mind of (one) thing in the examinations whereof he does not remember that you are yet cleared.  That is, that where at Lambeth at the house whither the powder was brought by the porters, there was a young man that received it, which his Majesty and you conceived at first to be Winter, but since, as his Highness judges, could not be so, because the examinations make mention that that young man had no hair on his face, which is otherwise in Winter.  He would  therefore know whether you have yet found who was the receiver of the powder, or if it have not been inquired of, by reason of the multitude of other things, that you would bestow labour to discover it."
(Hat. MSS., v.17. p. 515)
Date: Nov. 27, 1605, 22 days after the discovery of the plot. Even at this time there was not much interest in the issue of the powder itself.
Additionally this letter indicates that the porters were examined however no written records of any such examinations exist in any archive.
Durst suggests that Cecil destroyed these accounts lest they fall into the wrong hands.

Father Gerard wrote in 1897 (What Was the Gunpowder Plot?, p. 78.) that the lowest figure for the quantity of power must be more than four tons. A barrel of gunpowder was made up of four firkins. Each firkin was 400 lb. in weight. If all the casks were of the barrel measure then the minimum amount would have been more than 6 tons.- p. 282.

Gerard also notes however that gunpowder was measured by the last which was a unit equal to 2,400 lb..  A last is however divided into 24 barrels each of which would equal 100 lb..
The number of Barrels mentioned by Coke in the indictment at the trial of the conspirators was  "thirty six barrels" the kings book mentions "thirty six barrels, great and small".  There is a question - was the measure of barrel strictly adhered to or were barrels of different sizes. Fawkes mentions in his confession of Nov., 8 that additional power was brought in  "fower little barrels."

Durst concludes that there was at least a last and a half- or 3,600 lb. of gunpowder transferred to the cellar.  That is if all thirty-six barrels were regulation 100 lb size.  Durst allows for about a third of the barrels to be "great" - hogsheads, containing 180 lb.. of powder.

These would be difficult to move- they would weigh as much as a grown man. But Durst claims they would not be unmanageable.  If these "great barrels" were present in this quantity then the total weight of powder in the cellar would have been about 2 tons.
Durst compares this amount to the amounts of powder kept in Government Strongholds in 1608-
Dover Castle 4 Lasts
Arcliffe Bullwark 1 last
Walmer Castle, 1 last, 8 cwt.;
Deal Castle 1 last
Sandown Castle, 2 lasts
Sandgate 1 last
Camber 1 last

The amount in the cellar was therefore, considerable.

Spink (p. 101) wrote in 1902 that the powder could have been purchased in Flanders via Captain (Hugh) Owen. (p.233)
Would this arrangement have caused a security risk?  Could this quantity have entered the country safely while the conspirators
were being closely watched?
Had Cecil been able to link Owen to the powder Durst believes that he would have.
Instead Cecil was very quiet concerning the powder an indication that Durst takes to indicate that Cecil did in fact know how they got the powder but
that he did not wish to reveal this knowledge.
In Fawkes confession of November 8 the last paragraph contains the following-
"He confesseth that the powder was bought of the common Purse of the Confederates."
This  sentence was marked for and was indeed omitted from the published version. 
Durst believes that it was omitted so that further questions concerning the origin of the gunpowder would not arise.
Durst concludes that while the government did not give the plotters the powder someone in the government may have made it very easy for them to obtain it.

Catesby could have obtained the powder on behalf of the English troop which Percy's uncle, Sir Charles Percy was trying to raise to assist the ARchduke Albert on the Continent.  Cecil created this scheme to rid the country of warlike Catholics while also assisting Austria.
-p.284.
Durst is concerned that if the raising of a Catholic army meant also providing equipment and gunpowder then that army would have threatened the
central government and would be used against it.
Durst cites a letter from Salisbury to Edmondes on May 11, 1605 (Hat. MSS., v. 17, p. 197) to demonstrate that the process of raising the army was to be quiet, private and without drums and display of ensigns. The men would be shipped across the channel unarmed.
Catesby also lost his opportunity to have influence in the same letter wherein the king refused to appoint Sir Charles Percy as head of the regiment.

Durst also addresses another of Simons' theories (D. of V., P. 74) which stated that since gunpowder was so tightly controlled it could not have been obtained without government knowledge. Durst notes that provincial Catholic nobles and gentry had personal stocks of powder and arms which had been accumulated for 
personal use. At Hewell Grange the plotters took Lord Windsor's arms armor gunpowder and equipment. 
By the time the conspirators reached Holbeach House they had at least two bags of gunpowder of about ten to twenty pounds each.
One of the bags was opened and the gunpowder was spread out to dry in front of the fire. Another bag was found in the yard. This is all the powder
which was mentioned.  There could have ben more powder but Durst doubts this.  It seems that all of the powder possessed by the conspirators
was damp so much so that none of them was able to fire a shot in their own defense and Catesby was found in the yard defending himself with his sword.

Durst notes that the gunpowder of 1605 was very unstable.  Cellars of 17th century manor houses were very damp.  Durst estimates that the average gentleman would keep only about ten or twenty pounds on hand for private purposes.
it is noted that Mattheww Batty, Lord Mounteagle's servant brought him twenty pounds of gunpowder on November 5 1605( GPB, 93i).
If this was the general quantity kept on hand it was small in comparison to that which arrived under parliament.
While Durst acknowledges that sympathizers could have written off gunpowder in their control citing damp or theft he concludes that this would be faulty reasoning. 
Durst returns to the problem of the Government failing to take public interest in the origins of the powder. (p.287)

Durst notes that Lord Carew of Clopton who was Lieutenant Generaal of Ordinance at the time was a friend of Cecil and a conscientious worker who would not have let the loss of such a quantity of gunpowder have gone without mention.

By linking Lord Carew of Clopton to Ambrose Rookwood of the plot (Lord Carew conveniently rented Clopton Hall to Rookwood when Rookwood needed a house  near to the site of the rising in the Midlands) and also to Carew's good friend Cecil Durst suggests that Lord Carew might have been working with Cecil to act as a supplier of the powder to the plotters.

Carew's supervisor was Master-General of Ordinance Charles Blount a.k.a. the Earl of Devonshire. Blount was to sit on the special Commission at the conspirator's trial.  These men are linked to one of Cecil's important agents Sir Henry Brounker. Brounker eventually married Anne Parker the sister of William Parker, Lord Mounteagle.  William the son of Sir Henry and Anne at one point launched an investigation in to the disappearance of gunpowder from the tower.
Durst suggests that William might have had information from is relatives concerning the disappearance of the powder.  When this investigation got  to court
it was limited in searching to prior to 1604.

Durst also notes (p. 289) that gunpowder records for the years from 1604-1607 are conveniently missing - lost.

A year after the plot- 31 October, 1606 Sir Robert Johnson, M.P. wrote Cecil concerning an attempt by the King go more tightly control the digging of saltpetre and gunpowder manufacture. Johnson was concerned that decline in production had caused a depletion of stocks. (Hat. MSS., v. 18, p. 335)

In the end Durst believes that the government worked via Lord Mounteagle to make the powder available to the in a convincing way via a third party.
Why would the King only be concerned with the person receiving the powder? Durst suggests it is because he already knew of the identity of the third
party.
Durst notes that one porter Gideon Gibbons was examined in the investigation. Gibbons and two others had carried the 3000 billets of wood to Parliament house
(SP 14/16).
Durst suggests that these were the three porters who also moved the gunpowder. Their testimony in this case was allowed to remain because
in this case they had only delivered firewood and not gunpowder. 
Durst places significant weight upon the supposition that Fawkes probably trusted these porters who he believed having already transported
the gunpowder were part of the plot. There is no evidence, however that Fawkes allowed the porters to see the gunpowder in the cellar.
They may have been asked to leave it outside.

Durst's account is convincing but it goes a bit far supposing government involvement where there might have been but, can not be proved to have been.
It is easy to place the government in control because they had control. It is just as likely that those whom the government trusted also had sufficient power to
aid those with whom they sympathized.  After all government control of powder seems to be over stated and many loop holes and accounting tricks
could be used to account for any amount of powder.

Durst has in fact opened up may routes to the powder.

1. Why would any government that watched, persecuted and distrusted Catholics let any one of them have any powder?
     Clearly the system of control was not adequate or in keeping with general policy. One can accept a government monopoly of
     production but that does not mean that distribution was as carefully controlled as it could have been.

2.  There are two possible causes for government cover-up. Both are likely. The government would be just as concerned that it not be seen to be out of control of the gunpowder distribution system as it would be about covering up any role it might have had in assisting the plotters.  It was better that the public understood that things were under control than know that the system was in disarray. The effort of James to bring tighter controls into place indicates the perception of a problem.

3. It strikes me as unusual that the government would want to cover up any involvement in flushing out the plotters. It mattered not where the gunpowder was obtained and through which method. What mattered surely would be that the plotters plotted and that Catholics had painted themselves once again into a corner of distrust. Cecil would still be credited positively one way or the other. Why would he worry about cover up?

Gunpowder had only been a government monopoly from 1591.  Was this long enough for the government to have totally revolutionized the system of manufacture and distribution so that gunpowder could not be easily obtained in quantities by private citizens especially if those citizens were gentlemen catholic or otherwise?

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Antonia Frazier
The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605.,1996

In the autumn of 1604 Ambrose Rookwood  was asked to obtain   gunpowder by Catesby.  It was to be brought  to the Lambeth house.  The purpose to be given was for  use of the English regiment  in Flanders. Because of the Anglo-Spanish treaty this was no longer no illegal .- P. 109 (Edwards, Fawkes, p. 124)
Via  the river (with its easy crossing to Lambeth- and Catesby's lodgings- on the opposite bank)  the  gunpowder was  conveyed  to the cellar over a few months.

Guy Fawkes confessed  that twenty barrels was the initial amount, and that  more was brought in on July 20. The total was then thirty-six.  Fawkes said that two other types of cask, hogsheads and firkins ,  used.  The firkins were  the smallest containers generally used for transport. Frazier notes that there is not agreement however between two and ten thousand pounds is a good estimate. This  quantity  is   agreed to be sufficient to have blow up the House of Lords causing total distruction. ( The official receipt for the gunpowder, when it was returned  to the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London supports the other evidence that a substantial quantity of gunpowder was actually involved.  (Rodger, pp. 124-5) 

Fraizer notes that the  "government had a theoretical monopoly,(but) it meant very little in practical terms.  Gunpowder was part of the equipment of every soldier: his pay was docked to pay for it, which encouraged him to try and make the money back by selling some under cover.  The same was true of the home forces--the militia and trained bands.  Similarly every merchant vessel had a substantial stock.  Proclamations on the part of the government forbidding the selling of ordinance and munitions including gunpowder show how common the practice was."

 The Council had  encouraged the private internal  production of gunpowder in the last years of the reign of  Elizabeth. Powder mills were found  in many places, especially  around London.These  included: Rotherhithe, Long Ditton in Essex, Leigh Place near Godstone, and Faversham.  In 1599 powder makers were required  to sell to the government at a certain price. surplus could go to merchants, elsewhere at three pence mark up from the government rate.  Cessation of warfare and  disbandment of troops due to the Anglo-Spanish peace produced a glut of unwanted gunpowder.   Gunpowder was easy to obtain.  Anyone who knew  the system and possessed  money to spend could  expect  to obtain supplies.  Security  of storage was  qauite  lax.  Despite the fact that powder was  to be kept in locked vaults, it was often to be found in less secure storage.  Official complaints  demonstrate this. (Dr. Constam, Royal Armouries, to the author; H.M.C. Salisbury, XVI, p. 341; Bull, "Furie of the Ordnance"; Cruickshank, P. 125.)
Two Justices of the Peace for Southwark had gone looking for gunpowder and searched the London house of Magdalen Viscountess Montague in 1599. The Justices reported that it gunpowder "to have been lately brought hither". They searched "chamber cellar vaults" but it could not be found. ( ( Southern p. 288, \C.S.P. Domestic, 1603-1610, p. 256.

The formula for gunpowder was a mixture of  sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre.  At the end of the fifteenth century  alcohol and wate were added and the mixture was then oven-dried and broken into small crumbs. It was then called "corned-powder". In this form the powder  was insensitive to shock and therefore could be transported. It was quite sensitive to flame.(Constam;S.T.,II, p. 183.
pp 121-2

No one knows for sure when Guido Fawkes arrived back  from the continent, to take on the identity of John Johnson, he was most likely in London once  again by late August. This was when the  King returned to his hunting and  pilgrims set forth for St. Winifred's Well.   Fawkes and Wintour then  discovered that the gunpowder in the s cellar, had "decayed".  As often occurd with this mixture its  elements had separated.  The conspirators simply brought  more gunpowder and firewood.  In the summer also John Grant stockpiled weaponry at Norbrook, this  included muskets and powder.p. 142.

On November 7, the gunpowder "from out the vault of the Parliament House" was moved to the Tower of London.  It was transferred to: "His Majesty's Store within the office of Ordinance,"  The gunpowder it was noted in the  official receipt in the Debenture Book of the Royal Ordinance had been  "laid and placed for the blowing up of the said house (Parliament) and the desstruction of the King's Majesty, the nobility, and commonality there assembled." The shipment included a couple of iron crowbars and  eighteen hundredweight of powder . (Tierney, IV,pp. cxi-cxii.)
The powder was described officially as "decayed". Frazier writes" A cynical clerk in the Royal Ordinance might have reflected that the danger to the king and  all the rest of them had not really been so great after all. This powder (unlike the wretched stuff which had burnt up the conspirators at Holbeach) would not have exploded anyway.  The straightforward explanation for this failure in the Plotters' arrangements is that the powder had once again separated in its elements-as had happened previously- and that Guido had simply not realized the fact ( unless of course the "decay" had taken place in the two days following 5 November). A rider to this, of a more Machiavellian nature, involves the Earl of Salisbury. One may question whether he really tolerated with equanimity the presence of a substance such as gunpowder in the vault at Westminster, in such large quantities and for so long.  Perhaps a discreet search had established that he powder no longer constituted a real threat to anyone--except of course to Guy Fawkes himself by incriminating him."
p. 188

1. Frazier assists our discussion by clarifying the true relationship between gunpowder and state control. 
2. Clearly there was sufficient gunpowder to do the job.-I wonder why there is such debate as to quantity since there exists a receipt for the powder returned to stock which is clear as to the quantity- "eighteen hundredweight".
3. Clearly some of the gunpowder had "decayed" but it had been relpaced. 
4. Presumably the "decayed" powder was left in the cellar however, and would have been noted as being "decayed" when
    returned to the tower.
5. It is interesting that Catholic Gentlement were granted such easy acces to gunpowder. This is perhaps the legacy of the reign of Elizabeth and her extension of administration of the realm. The government was perhaps simply locked into working with powerful Catholic gentlemen so that the country could be governed and taxes collected. Access to gunpowder would be essential if these gentlemen were to function effectivly in this role.

6. It is curious that Frazier uses the round about explanation of powder decay to excuse Cecil from concern. This  makes assumptions about Fawkes' competance in the area of gunpowder management which are perhaps unfounded. Should we not have to assume that Fawkes knew what he was
doing? It is known that he did indeed check the powder and did relpace that portion which had decayed. In this instance Frazier is out on a limb. Additionally this explanation assumes that Cecil would be concerned that the government would be found out to have flushed out the Catholics via  a clever test and set-up rather than to have simply discovered the plot with the aid of the hand of God. Clearly Cecil would be victorious in either  instance.

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