CHAPTER VI.

FOOTNOTES:[82]In hisHistory of the Catholic Church in Scotland, translated by Father H. Blair, Canon Bellesheim says (Vol. iii. p. 347) that she was probably received into the Church in 1600. But Father Forbes Leith, in hisNarrative(pp. 272seq.) gives an authority stating it to have taken place in 1598.See also a very interesting article on “Anne of Denmark,”by the Rev. J. Stevenson, inThe Month, Vol. 16 (xxxv.) pp. 256-265.[83]History of England, from 1603-42. By S. R. Gardiner, Vol. i. p. 142. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13/23, 16/26; Persons to Aldobrandino, September 18/28,Roman Transcripts, R.O.[84]History of England, Gardiner, Vol. i, p. 116. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, Aug. 11, 1/11,Roman Transcripts, R.O.[85]History of England, Gardiner, Vol. i. p. 142.[86]In herQueens of England, Miss Strickland gives her authority for the statement that Queen Ann died “in edifying communion with the Church of England.”[87]Her practical concealment of her religion may have been chiefly on her husband’s account. Father Abercromby, S.J., who received her into the Church, wrote that James I. said to her:—“Rogo te, mea uxor, si non potes sine hujusmodi (sacerdote) vivere, utaris quam poteris, secretissime, alias periclitabitur corona nostra.”Bellesheim’s Hist., p. 453.[88]Father Gerard’sNarrative of the Gunpowder Plot, pp. 56, 57.[89]Dugdale’sWarwickshire, p. 506. Jardine’sCriminal Trials, Vol. ii. p. 26.[90]Court of King James I., Vol. i p. 103.[91]Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, pp. 1 and 2.[92]Essay on Chivalry.[93]Where Sir Walter obtained his authority for this statement I do not know.[94]S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I. No. 108.[95]Roman Transcripts, Sep. 24th, 1604, P.R.O.,Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, p. 4.[96]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 49.[97]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 50.[98]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.[99]Tierney’s Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. p. 42.[100]Dodd and Tierney, Vol. iv., Appendix xiv., pp. xciv., xcv.[101]Ib., Vol. iv. pp. 40, 41.[102]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.[103]Tierney’s Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. pp. 41, 42.[104]Court of King James I., Vol. i. p. 101.[105]Jardine’sGunpowder Plot, pp. 60-1.[106]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.[107]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol.xix. n. 41. Garnet’s statement.[108]S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Book, Part I., n. 108.[109]Narrative of the G. P., p. 138.[110]Records S.J., Series i. p. 329.[111]Life of Father Gerard, p. clxxxv.[112]Burke’s Peerage, 1872.[113]Narrative of the G. P., p. 137.[114]Gardiner.History of England, Vol. x. p. 364.[115]Gardiner’sHistory of England, Vol. i. p. 249.[116]It was to this Sir Christopher Hatton, that Sir Everard’s father had dedicated his bookA Dissuasive from taking away the Livings of the Church.[117]Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, Pollen, p. 20. P.R.O., March 11.[118]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n 40. SeeRecords S.J., Vol. iv. p. 157.[119]This could not mean the projected “burst”of gunpowder, of which she could have known nothing, but an attempt of some sort, about that time, to obtain relief for the Catholics by force of arms, which she appears to have expected, or rather, to have feared.[120]Somers Tracts, Vol. ii. p. 108, footnote.[121]Gunpowder Plot, pp. 176-8.

FOOTNOTES:

[82]In hisHistory of the Catholic Church in Scotland, translated by Father H. Blair, Canon Bellesheim says (Vol. iii. p. 347) that she was probably received into the Church in 1600. But Father Forbes Leith, in hisNarrative(pp. 272seq.) gives an authority stating it to have taken place in 1598.See also a very interesting article on “Anne of Denmark,”by the Rev. J. Stevenson, inThe Month, Vol. 16 (xxxv.) pp. 256-265.

See also a very interesting article on “Anne of Denmark,”by the Rev. J. Stevenson, inThe Month, Vol. 16 (xxxv.) pp. 256-265.

[83]History of England, from 1603-42. By S. R. Gardiner, Vol. i. p. 142. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13/23, 16/26; Persons to Aldobrandino, September 18/28,Roman Transcripts, R.O.

[84]History of England, Gardiner, Vol. i, p. 116. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, Aug. 11, 1/11,Roman Transcripts, R.O.

[85]History of England, Gardiner, Vol. i. p. 142.

[86]In herQueens of England, Miss Strickland gives her authority for the statement that Queen Ann died “in edifying communion with the Church of England.”

[87]Her practical concealment of her religion may have been chiefly on her husband’s account. Father Abercromby, S.J., who received her into the Church, wrote that James I. said to her:—“Rogo te, mea uxor, si non potes sine hujusmodi (sacerdote) vivere, utaris quam poteris, secretissime, alias periclitabitur corona nostra.”Bellesheim’s Hist., p. 453.

[88]Father Gerard’sNarrative of the Gunpowder Plot, pp. 56, 57.

[89]Dugdale’sWarwickshire, p. 506. Jardine’sCriminal Trials, Vol. ii. p. 26.

[90]Court of King James I., Vol. i p. 103.

[91]Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, pp. 1 and 2.

[92]Essay on Chivalry.

[93]Where Sir Walter obtained his authority for this statement I do not know.

[94]S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I. No. 108.

[95]Roman Transcripts, Sep. 24th, 1604, P.R.O.,Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, p. 4.

[96]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 49.

[97]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 50.

[98]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[99]Tierney’s Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. p. 42.

[100]Dodd and Tierney, Vol. iv., Appendix xiv., pp. xciv., xcv.

[101]Ib., Vol. iv. pp. 40, 41.

[102]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[103]Tierney’s Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. pp. 41, 42.

[104]Court of King James I., Vol. i. p. 101.

[105]Jardine’sGunpowder Plot, pp. 60-1.

[106]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[107]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol.xix. n. 41. Garnet’s statement.

[108]S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Book, Part I., n. 108.

[109]Narrative of the G. P., p. 138.

[110]Records S.J., Series i. p. 329.

[111]Life of Father Gerard, p. clxxxv.

[112]Burke’s Peerage, 1872.

[113]Narrative of the G. P., p. 137.

[114]Gardiner.History of England, Vol. x. p. 364.

[115]Gardiner’sHistory of England, Vol. i. p. 249.

[116]It was to this Sir Christopher Hatton, that Sir Everard’s father had dedicated his bookA Dissuasive from taking away the Livings of the Church.

[117]Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, Pollen, p. 20. P.R.O., March 11.

[118]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n 40. SeeRecords S.J., Vol. iv. p. 157.

[119]This could not mean the projected “burst”of gunpowder, of which she could have known nothing, but an attempt of some sort, about that time, to obtain relief for the Catholics by force of arms, which she appears to have expected, or rather, to have feared.

[120]Somers Tracts, Vol. ii. p. 108, footnote.

[121]Gunpowder Plot, pp. 176-8.

In the summer of the year 1605, Sir Everard Digby spent a week in London, and stayed at the lodgings in the Savoy of his friend Roger Manners,[122]the eldest brother of Sir Oliver Manners, whose conversion to the Catholic faith has been already noticed. This Roger Manners married the daughter and heir of the famous Sir Philip Sydney, and eventually succeeded his father, as fifth Earl of Rutland. Although Sir Everard stayed with Roger Manners, he “commonlie dieted at the Mearmaid in Bred Streete.”[123]He spent much of his time with the excellent Sir Oliver Manners, which was all very well; but, unfortunately, Robert Catesby also “kept him companie”a great deal; without, however, letting him know what was chiefly occupying him in London just at that time. Thomas Winter also came to see Sir Everard whilst he was in London, and his friendship with men who were conspiring to an evil end was endangering Digby without his knowing it. At that time he had no idea that any plot was in existence, although he was doubtlessaware that many Catholics were considering what steps could be taken to relieve their condition; and the fact of his staying with Roger Manners proves that he had not come to London with any design of conferring with restless Catholics in a secret or underhand fashion.

After his visit to London, Sir Everard seems to have returned to Gothurst and to have continued his usual innocent country life, with its duties and pleasures. A letter among the Hatfield MS., written to him on the eleventh of June—his eldest boy’s birthday by the way[124]—treats of otter-hunting, and it is likely enough that Sir Everard practised this sport in the Ouse as well as in the other rivers and brooks of Buckinghamshire.

About the end of August, or perhaps early in September, 1605, a large party met at Gothurst, as guests of Sir Everard and Lady Digby, but with an ulterior purpose. To pray for the much-oppressed cause of the Catholic religion in England, for their suffering fellow-religionists, and for themselves, they had agreed to make a pilgrimage together to the famous shrine of St Winefride at Holywell, in Flintshire,[125]which would entail a journey of a hundred andfifty miles.[126]Sir Everard does not appear to have accompanied it; but, among those assembled at Gothurst who were to go on the pilgrimage were his young wife, Miss Anne Vaux, Brooksby and his wife, Thomas Digby, Sir Everard’s brother, who had evidently followed his example and become a Catholic, Sir Francis Lacon and his daughter, Father Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, a lay-brother named Nicholas Owen, who usually accompanied him, and Father Strange, Sir Everard’s chaplain, making, with their servants and others, a party of pilgrims numbering little short of thirty. Later on, Father Darcy and Father Fisher also joined them.[127]

If, as it seems, Sir Everard did not go with the pilgrimage, the reason may have been that he was engaged in endeavouring to negotiate the proposed marriage between young Lord Vaux and a daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, although it seemed early to do so, as the boy was then only about fourteen.

“Riding westward,[128]the party of pilgrims would stop for the night at some Catholic friend’s house, and in the morning the two priests would say Mass.Even at Shrewsbury, when they had to put up at an inn, and at ‘a castle in a holt at Denbighshire,’ the daily Masses were said without interruption, and even the servants were present. At St Winefride’s Well, too, though the inn must have been small for so large a number, the Holy Sacrifice was again offered, and then the ladies went barefoot to the Well.[129]At Holywell they stopped but one night. Returning next day, they slept at a farmhouse seven miles from Shrewsbury, and after that they were again in the circle of their friends.”[130]

About the end of September (1605) Sir Everard Digby went to stay at Harrowden with young Lord Vaux. While he was there, his host’s mother, her sister-in-law, Anne Vaux, and Father Garnet came thither on their return from the pilgrimage. His friend Catesby also arrived from a visit to Lord Mordaunt[131]at Turville. Anne Vaux, who, as I have said, had been uneasy about Catesby’s proceedings, was in a hurry for his departure to Flanders, where he was to command an English regiment. Father Garnet wrote a letter of introduction for him to a Jesuit priest in that country, and Catesby himself showed this letter to his nervous cousin,assuring her that he was so anxious to start that he would spend £500 in obtaining a license[132]to go abroad with his men and horses, about which, he pretended, there was some difficulty.

After a few days’ visit at Harrowden, the family seat of the Vaux’s, which was then in a rather dilapidated condition,[133]Sir Everard Digby invited Catesby, Mrs Vaux, and Father Garnet to stay with him at Gothurst; and he started with Catesby to ride home, leaving his other guests to follow them. The distance between Harrowden and Gothurst was something like fifteen miles, and Digby and his friend became very confidential in the course of it.

Perhaps there are few occasions on which it is easier to converse freely than a long ride with a single companion; in most cases, no one can possibly be within earshot, therefore the voice need not be unnaturally lowered; the speakers are not confronting each other, and this prevents any nervous dread lest the mention of subjects on which either feels strongly should raise a tell-tale blush or a quiver of a lip or eyelid; and, if the topic should become embarrassing, the surroundings of those on horseback enable them to change it more easily, and with less apparent effort or intention, than under almost any other conditions. Lastly, the fresh country air, asit is inhaled in the easy exercise of riding, clears the brain and invigorates the energies, and when is it fresher or pleasanter than on a fine day at the end of September, such as we can imagine Sir Everard Digby and Robert Catesby to have enjoyed on their ride from Harrowden to Gothurst? Both of them, as we read, were fine men, fine horsemen on fine horses, and old friends; and they must have made a handsome and well-assorted pair, as they went their way along the roads, through the woods, and over the commons of Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire.

Early in their ride, when they were well clear of the outskirts of the little market town of Wellingborough,[134]beside the famous Red Well of which, some twenty years later, Charles I. and his Queen were to dwell in tents, in order to drink its medicinal waters, Catesby told his companion that he had a communication of the greatest importance to make to him; that he was only at liberty to convey it upon an oath of secresy; and that from all others intrusted with the subject of this communication, the oath had not been accepted unless sealed and confirmed by Holy Communion—which alone would demonstrate its sacred and religious nature—but that, in the case of so honourable a man as Digby, a simple oath would suffice. This was paying a very flattering compliment, and, when Catesby drew a small poignard,handed it to him, and asked him to swear secresy upon it,[135]Sir Everard, thinking that the matter would concern some “stirres in Wales”on behalf of the persecuted Catholics, of which Catesby had talked at Gothurst during the summer, took the oath without much hesitation, and returned the little weapon.

Then Catesby began a long, earnest, and serious discourse. There can be little doubt that he would first dwell upon the desperate condition of their co-religionists in Great Britain, the hopelessness of redress or any improvement in their state, and the likelihood of their persecution becoming still more intolerable under the incoming parliament. At last, he told his patient and sympathetic listener that the time had come for action. They could expect no help from the king, no help from the parliament, no help from foreign Catholic princes or powers, no help from a general, an ordinary, and a legitimate rising among their Catholic fellow-countrymen; there was nothing for it, therefore, but to help themselves. It was plain enough where, and from whom, their greatest danger lay. The few must be sacrificed to save the many. He had been reading his Bible[136]—the very Protestants who so cruelly oppressed them would commend that—and there he found instances in which the deliberate assassination of tyrants appeared to be not only tolerated but commended.

I cannot guarantee that Catesby said exactly all these things to Digby; I merely enumerate the arguments which he is stated, on good authority, to have used in persuading those who joined in his plot; and it is well known that he found no other of his adherents so difficult to convince as Sir Everard; therefore it is most unlikely that he omitted one of his pleas in this case.

Between the Catholics and the Protestants, Catesby considered that there was a regular warfare; no war could be conducted without bloodshed, and in war all was fair. It might even be maintained that the righteous Catholics were in the position of executioners, who should carry out the extreme sentence of death upon the iniquitous and murderous villains who, under the names of princes and rulers, were persecuting and slaying God’s innocent people. Who were these princes and rulers? King James and his parliament. They richly deserved to die the death, and unless they were destroyed they would work even greater evils. Let the sword of justice fall upon them.

Were the Catholics to rise and invade the houses of parliament with drawn sabres? No. Such a thing would be impossible. Resort must be had to stratagem, a method to which holy men had often resorted in ancient times, as might be read in the sacred pages of the Old Testament. But, unlike the warriors of Israel, the modern Christiansoldier fought less with the sword than with that much more powerful medium known as gunpowder. It had already been the principal agent of destruction in many great battles; let it be used in the strife between the oppressed English Catholics and the king with his parliament.

Before entering into details of the proposed attack, it would be well to consider that the end aimed at was not any private revenge or personal emolument.[137]The sole object was to suppress a most unjust and barbarous persecution by the only expedient which offered the least prospect of success. There could be no doubt as to its being lawful, since God had given to every man the right of repelling force by force. If Digby should consider the scheme cruel, let him contrast it with the cruelties exercised during so many years against the English Catholics; let him calculate the number of innocent martyrs who had been butchered by the public executioner, or had died from ill-treatment or torture in prisons; let him estimate the thousands who had been reduced by the penal laws against recusants, from wealth or competence, to poverty or beggary; and then let him judge whether the sudden destruction of the rulers who had been guilty of such fearful persecutions, and avowedly intended persecutions yet more atrocious, could be condemned on the charge of cruelty. Nay, more; unless a decisive blow weredelivered very shortly, something like a massacre of Catholics might be expected, and,[138]“Mr Catesby tould him that the papistes throate should have been cutte.”

Catesby would then tell his friend and companion, as they rode through the peaceful Midland scenery, with its horse-chestnuts and its beeches in their rich autumn colouring, on that September afternoon, how he must be a man, and nerve himself to hear the means which it was proposed to employ for carrying out the judgment of God upon their wicked oppressors.[139]Every Catholic peer was to be warned, or enticed from the House of Lords on a certain day, and then, by the sudden explosion of a large quantity of gunpowder, previously placed beneath the Houses of Parliament, the king and his councillors, his Lords and his Commons, were to be prevented from doing any further mischief in this world. As soon as the execution was over, the Catholics would[140]“seize upon the person of the young prince, if he were not in the Parliament House, which they much desired. But if he were,”in which case, of course, he would be dead, “then upon the young Duke Charles, who then should be the next heir, and him they would erect, and with him and by his authority, the Catholic religion. If that did also fail them, then had they a resolution to take the Lady Elizabeth, who was in the keeping of the Lord Harrington in Warwickshire;and so by one means or other, they would be certain to settle in the crown one of the true heirs of the same.”How loyal they were!

On first hearing of this inhuman, detestable, and diabolical scheme, Sir Everard was overcome with horror, as well he might be, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Catesby induced him to consider it any further.[141]If Sir Everard had been a man of firm will and determination of character, he would have obeyed his conscience and resolutely followed his own good instincts; but instead of doing so, he was weak enough to listen with attention and interest to the arguments of Catesby. To a man of a religious mind like Sir Everard Digby, those of a Scriptural character would be some of the most persuasive, and his companion would hardly fail to point out the wholesale massacres and cruelties apparently sanctioned in the Old Testament.

If he so pleased, he could quote plenty of biblical precedents for slaying and maiming, on a far larger scale than was proposed in the Gunpowder Plot, which would be a mere trifle in comparison with some of the following butcheries:—“They warred against the Midianites,”“and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian.”[142]“They slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men.”“And they slewof Moab at that time ten thousand men, all lusty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man.”[143]“David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand.”[144]“The other Jews,”“slew of their foes seventy and five thousand.”[145]“Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Juda an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers,”[146]just as King James and the English Government had forsaken Him, in Catesby’s and Sir Everard’s opinions.

If it were objected that all these fell in battle, and that it was quite a different thing to murder people by stealth in cold blood, could not Catesby have replied that “Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him [Sisera], and smote the nail into his temple, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.”[147]Jael Heber’s wife was acting as hostess to a friend who had come into her tent for shelter and protection, and had fallen asleep. Yet Deborah and Barak sang in honour of this performance:—[148]“Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; she broughtforth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down: at her feet he bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down dead.”“So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord.”[149]Might not, and ought not, the English Catholics to sing much such a song in honour of Catesby, Digby, and their fellow-conspirators, when the king and the Parliament should be blown up, and fall, and lie down, at their feet, where they should fall down dead? Was there not something biblical and appropriate, again, in destroying the enemies of the Lord with fire? “Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them.”[150]“Thou shalt be fuel for the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land.”[151]And had not the very gentlest of men, even the God-man, said, “I am come to send fire on the earth?”Surely, too, if Holy Writ did not specially mention gunpowder, it constantly threatened one of its ingredients, namely brimstone, to the wicked!

Under the old dispensation, it was considered a religious duty to fall upon the enemies of the Lord and slay them; under the new, it would be as religious a duty to get under them and slay them. This was merely a detail, a simple reversal of theprocess, conducing to exactly the same results, and quite as Scriptural in its character.

A massacre by means of an explosion of gunpowder was neither a novel nor an exclusively Catholic notion. Persons observed, “There be recounted in histories many attempts of the same kynds, and some also by Protestants in our days: as that of them who at Antwerp placed a whole barke of powder in the great street of that citty, where the prince of Parma with his nobility was to passe: and that of him in the Hague that would have blown up the whole councel of Holland upon private revenge.”[152]

Within the last half century, had not great earls and statesmen, in Scotland, conspired together to blow up with gunpowder the Queen’s own husband, as he lay ill in bed, in his house; had not four men been destroyed by this means,[153]and had not the principal conspirator “declared,”with how much truth or falsehood it is not necessary to pause here to inquire,[154]“that the Queen”—the very pious martyr-queen, Mary, herself,—“was a consenting party to the deed,”[155]and had not that very pious queen married that very conspirator after he had brought about the murder of her first husband?

It would be scarcely too much to say that, early inthe seventeenth century, the ethics of explosives were not properly understood. Catesby might argue that gunpowder was a destructive agent, the primary and natural use of which was to kill directly, and that its indirect use, by exploding it in a tube, thereby propelling a missile, was a secondary, less natural, and possibly less legitimate use. And, if it were objected that to employ it in either way would be right in war, but wrong in peace, he could bring forward the exceedingly dangerous theory (which has been made use of by Irish-American dynamitards in the nineteenth century), that oppressed people, who do not acknowledge the authority of those who rule over them, may consider themselves at war with those authorities, a theory which Catesby’s Jesuit friends would have negatived instantly, if he had asked their opinion about it.

Any attempt to prove the iniquity of Catesby’s conspiracy is so unnecessary that I will not waste time in offering one. I have only to endeavour to imagine the condition of mind in which he and his friends were able to look upon it with approval, and the arguments they may have used in its favour.

Next to passages and precedents from Scripture in support of his diabolical scheme, Catesby would be well aware that its approval by authorities of the Church, and especially by Fathers of the Society of Jesus, would have most influence with his friend SirEverard. To the surprise of the latter, he informed him that he had laid the matter before the Provincial of the Society, and had obtained his consent to the scheme.

He admitted that the Jesuits were not fully aware of all the particulars; it was not intended to put them to the dangers of responsibility for the deed itself, or anything connected with it; already their very priesthood was high treason, and the last thing that Catesby and his friends desired was to add to their perils; but their approval of the design in general was of such importance that neither Catesby himself, nor any of those admitted into the secret, would have acted without it, and this Catesby declared he had obtained.

Upon a zealous convert, like Sir Everard Digby, such an assurance would exercise a great influence. Nor was it only of sacerdotal approval that Catesby boasted; he was able to add that he had obtained the consent, as well as the assistance, of John Wright, a Catholic layman and a Yorkshire squire; of Sir Everard’s own friend, Thomas Winter; of his eldest brother, Robert Winter,[156]“an earnest Catholic,”at whose house the pilgrims to St Winefride’s Well had stayed for a night on their way thither; of Ambrose Rookwood, a Catholic,[157]“ever very devout,”who had actually been one of the pilgrims; of John Grant,[158]“azealous Roman Catholic,”who, like his brother-in-law, Robert Winter, had entertained the St Winifride’s pilgrims for a night in his walled and moated house, and of Thomas Percy, a relative of the Earl of Northumberland’s, and a very recent and earnest convert to the Church.

FOOTNOTES:[122]S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I, No. 108.[123]Ib.[124]So it is usually believed, and so wrote Ben Jonson—“Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June”;—so, too, Richard Farrar—“Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June.”But some authorities give a different date, and the question has been fiercely disputed.[125]Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, by J. H. Pollen, S. J., p. 15.[126]A party, including ladies, would not be likely to travel faster than thirty miles a day over the bad roads, therefore it would take more than four times as long to go, then, from Gothurst to Holywell, as it would now take to go from Gothurst to the famous shrine at Lourdes, in the Pyrenees.[127]Cal. Sta. Pa. Dom., 1603-10, p. 270.[128]Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, Pollen, p. 18.[129]Jardine, in hisNarrative of the Gunpowder Plot(p. 180), says that the ladies walked barefoot from Holt, that is to say, a distance of about twenty miles.[130]Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, pp. 18, 19.[131]Henry, fourth Baron Mordaunt, was suspected of being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot. He was committed to the Tower, and fined by the Star Chamber. See Burke’sDormant and Extinct Peerages, p. 380.[132]Father Garnet and the G. P., Pollen, p. 21.[133]Life of Father Gerard, p. cxxxv.[134]S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part 2, No. 135.[135]S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part 2, No. 135.[136]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.[137]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.[138]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xviii. n. 24.[139]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi., No. 94, 20 Nov. 1605, B, C, and D.[140]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 85.[141]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.[142]Numbers xxxi. 7, 8. For the benefit of my Protestant readers, I quote my Scripture from the Anglican version, to show them that there is nothing “apocryphal”in it.[143]Judges iii. 29.[144]2 Samuel viii. 5.[145]Esther viii. 16.[146]2 Chron. xxviii. 6.[147]Judges iv. 21.[148]Judges v. 24seq.[149]Judges v. 31.[150]Isaiah xlvii. 14.[151]Ezekiel xxi. 32.[152]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap, i., footnote.[153]Ib., Vol. vi. chap. ii.[154]Recent historical research tends to absolve Mary Queen of Scots from all imputation of complicity in this horrible crime.[155]Bellesheim’s Hist. Cath. Ch. of Scot., trans. H. Blair, Vol. iii. p. 112.[156]Narrative, G. P., Gerard, p. 71.[157]Ib., p. 85.[158]Jardine’sGunpowder Plot, p. 52.

FOOTNOTES:

[122]S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I, No. 108.

[123]Ib.

[124]So it is usually believed, and so wrote Ben Jonson—“Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June”;—so, too, Richard Farrar—“Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June.”But some authorities give a different date, and the question has been fiercely disputed.

[125]Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, by J. H. Pollen, S. J., p. 15.

[126]A party, including ladies, would not be likely to travel faster than thirty miles a day over the bad roads, therefore it would take more than four times as long to go, then, from Gothurst to Holywell, as it would now take to go from Gothurst to the famous shrine at Lourdes, in the Pyrenees.

[127]Cal. Sta. Pa. Dom., 1603-10, p. 270.

[128]Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, Pollen, p. 18.

[129]Jardine, in hisNarrative of the Gunpowder Plot(p. 180), says that the ladies walked barefoot from Holt, that is to say, a distance of about twenty miles.

[130]Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot, pp. 18, 19.

[131]Henry, fourth Baron Mordaunt, was suspected of being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot. He was committed to the Tower, and fined by the Star Chamber. See Burke’sDormant and Extinct Peerages, p. 380.

[132]Father Garnet and the G. P., Pollen, p. 21.

[133]Life of Father Gerard, p. cxxxv.

[134]S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part 2, No. 135.

[135]S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part 2, No. 135.

[136]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[137]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[138]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xviii. n. 24.

[139]S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi., No. 94, 20 Nov. 1605, B, C, and D.

[140]Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 85.

[141]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[142]Numbers xxxi. 7, 8. For the benefit of my Protestant readers, I quote my Scripture from the Anglican version, to show them that there is nothing “apocryphal”in it.

[143]Judges iii. 29.

[144]2 Samuel viii. 5.

[145]Esther viii. 16.

[146]2 Chron. xxviii. 6.

[147]Judges iv. 21.

[148]Judges v. 24seq.

[149]Judges v. 31.

[150]Isaiah xlvii. 14.

[151]Ezekiel xxi. 32.

[152]Lingard, Vol. vii. chap, i., footnote.

[153]Ib., Vol. vi. chap. ii.

[154]Recent historical research tends to absolve Mary Queen of Scots from all imputation of complicity in this horrible crime.

[155]Bellesheim’s Hist. Cath. Ch. of Scot., trans. H. Blair, Vol. iii. p. 112.

[156]Narrative, G. P., Gerard, p. 71.

[157]Ib., p. 85.

[158]Jardine’sGunpowder Plot, p. 52.

Believing that his principal friends, and the priests for whom he felt the greatest veneration, had either joined in or expressed their approval of the scheme, Sir Everard began to be half inclined to consent to it. Was there to be a great enterprise, entailing personal activity and danger for the good of the Catholic cause, and was he to shrink from taking part in it? Was he alone, among the most zealous Catholic laymen of England, to show the white feather in a time of peril? Could he call himself a man if he trembled at the very thought of bloodshed? Yet, in truth, the idea of the cold-blooded massacre which was proposed appalled him; fair fighting he would rather rejoice in, but wholesale assassination was to the last degree repulsive to his nature. Hesitating and miserable, he reached Gothurst with his guest without giving any definite answer to the question whether he would join in the conspiracy.

When they were in the house, Catesby showed him a book justifying proceedings which he claimed to be similar to the proposed plot. “I saw,”he wrote afterwards to his wife,[159]“I saw the principal point of the case, judged by a Latin book of M. D., my brother’s father-in-law.”What book it may have been we have no means of knowing; but we do know that the perils of comparing parallel cases are notorious: and, unfortunately, the production of this book had the effect of turning the scale, and inducing Digby to join in the infamous plot.

Necessary as it is for a biographer of Sir Everard Digby carefully to consider all the arguments that are likely to have influenced him in consenting to the Gunpowder Plot, it is all-important to keep before the mind the cause which, on his own admission,[160]was the first and most potent of his assent to the conspiracy. This was[161]“the friendship and love he bare to Catesby, which prevailed so much, and was so powerful with him, as that for his sake he was ever contented and ready to hazard himself and his estate.”

Sir Everard was a man of what may be termed violent friendship. We have already seen his almost immoderate attachment to Father Gerard. It was an excellent thing that he should have such a man for a firm friend; but his feeling towards him was something much more than that. Father Gerard was “his brother.”The Jesuits make a rule of avoiding whatthey term “particular friendships,”and the great aggression of affection would certainly not come from Father Gerard’s side. And now we find him loving Catesby to such an extent as to be “ready to hazard himself and his estate”“for his sake.”

There is such a thing as an undue admiration for “the man who thinks as I do.”It proceeds from a combination of pride and weakness. The man in question is the embodiment of “my”principles, and therefore to be worshipped, and, holding “my”principles, his decisions, which are presumably formed upon those principles, must be right, and “my”adoption of them will save me the trouble of forming any for myself. Such is the line of argument which men of Sir Everard Digby’s type mentally follow. When, again, some difficulty presents itself, concerning which they have never thought at all, they argue to themselves after this fashion. “My friend agrees with me about A, B, and C, topics on which we are both well informed; therefore I may safely follow his advice about D, a subject of which I at present know nothing, but about which, when I have studied it, I may logically assume that I shall agree with him.”

Few men act on principle at first hand. To a vast majority, it is too invisible, intangible, difficult to define, and difficult to realise, to serve as either a guide or a support. Yet some of those who are least able, coolly, logically, and consistently to understand and adhere to a principle in the abstract, are the most enthusiastic inadvocating, the most vigorous in defending, and the most extravagant in extending to the most extreme limits, its reflection, or supposed reflection, in the person and behaviour of a friend; and they are apt, in their devotion to the friend, to forget the principle. It was thus in the case of Sir Everard Digby and Robert Catesby. In his friendship with Catesby, Sir Everard was eager to be one of the most pronounced champions of the Catholic religion, yet when Catesby acted in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of that religion, Sir Everard clung to the visible friend to the neglect of the invisible principle, which, theoretically, he held to be more precious than life itself.

When one idea takes too forcible possession of the mind, although the objections to it may collectively be overpowering, if taken one by one, it is easy to dispose of them, and then to blind the eyes, to stifle the conscience, and to imagine a glamour of righteousness, unselfishness, and heroism, in iniquity, self-pleasing, and even cruelty. Digby experienced this fatal facility. He did not at once consent to Catesby’s request without the least pretence of considering its merits; but he combatted the objections to it one by one, and thus easily defeated them. He endeavoured to regard the matter from Catesby’s point of view, and he found the process simple, if not agreeable.

And here let me say that I wish I could honestlyrepresent Sir Everard as having consented hurriedly to the plot in a hot-headed love of adventure. The evidence, unfortunately, all points the other way. He was persuaded with great difficulty by Catesby. He disliked the look of the whole thing, and he finally consented to it after cool and deliberate reflection. I admit that he was impulsive; I do not deny that, in this instance, he may have acted on sudden impulse at particular stages of his lengthened agony of doubt and indecision, or that, after being too slow in obeying his first impulse to refuse to hear another word about the atrocious project, he may have yielded too hurriedly to his later impulse to throw in his lot with the friend whom he trusted; but I cannot excuse him on the ground that his adhesion to the conspiracy was the result of a momentary convulsion of enthusiastic folly.

He objected; he feared the destruction of Catholic peers; he talked over the pretended opinions of the Jesuit Fathers; he read a so-called authority in a book shown to him by Catesby; he calculated the chances of success and failure; he thought over the question of men, money, arms, and horses; and then, with false conclusions, on false premises, in a sort of spasm of wrongheadedness, he, who had been depending excessively on clerical direction—even Jesuits admit that there is such a thing as being over-directed—suddenly acted, upon a question involving an enormous issue, without any advice whatever exceptthat of the man who was tempting him to what, he must have seen, had,prima facie, the colour of a most odious crime. I am not forgetting that Catesby vaunted Jesuit approval; but what good Catholic would take clerical advice upon an intricate point at second hand from another layman? Or, to put it in another form, what prudent man would commit himself to a lawsuit simply because a friend told him that his lawyer recommended him to sue an adversary under very similar circumstances? Digby had good reason for knowing that the Jesuit Father, whose opinion he most valued—Father Gerard—would strongly object to what was proposed; but he fancied that he himself knew better what was for the good of the Church; so, after meekly wavering in a state of great uncertainty, like the weak man that he was, he suddenly yielded and agreed to partake in what he persuaded himself to be a pious act on behalf of his religion, but was in reality a piece of unprecedented pious folly; and few things are more certain than that, be his personal virtues ever so exalted, and his intentions ever so pure, the pious fool can do, and often does, more to injure the cause of religion than even the scientific fool to injure that of science, which is saying much.

It is now my duty to explain how grossly Sir Everard was deceived by Catesby, when he was assured that any Jesuit Fathers had approved of the conspiracy “in general, though they knew not theparticulars.”What I am about to write may appear a long digression; but it should be remembered that it was chiefly upon Catesby’s assurance of the approval of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus that Sir Everard consented to join in the conspiracy; therefore the amount of consent actually obtained from them, if any, is of the utmost importance to my story.

Here is Father Gerard’s account of the so-called approval of the plot, which Catesby had extracted from Father Garnet, and on the strength of which he persuaded Sir Everard Digby and others to join in it.[162]“Having a great opinion both of the learning and virtue of the Fathers of the Society, Mr Catesby desired to get, by cunning means, the judgment of their Superior, so as he should never perceive to what end the question were asked.”This makes Father Gerard’s opinion of Catesby’s shameful dishonesty in the affair unmistakably clear. “Therefore,”he continues, “coming to Father Garnet, after much ordinary talk, and some time passed over after his arrival”(at a house in Essex, in June 1605, that is to say, about three months before he revealed the plot to Sir Everard) “one time he took occasion (upon some speech proposed about the wars in the Low Countries or such like)”—observe the fraud of this! Catesby was to have command of a regiment in the “Low Countries,”so he clearly intended to lead FatherGarnet to suppose that he was contemplating a position in which he might very probably find himself whenthere—“to ask how far it might be lawful for the party that hath the just quarrel to proceed in sacking or destroying a town of the enemy’s, or fortress, when it is holden against them by strong hands. The Father answered that, in a just war, it was lawful for those that had right to wage battle against the enemies of the commonwealth, to authorise their captains or soldiers, as their officers, to annoy or destroy any town that is unjustly holden against them, and that such is the common doctrine of all Divines: in respect that every commonwealth must, by the Law of Nature, be sufficient for itself, and therefore as well able to repel injuries as to provide necessaries; and that, as a private person mayvim vi repellere, so may the commonwealth do the like with so much more right, as the whole is of more importance than a part; which, if it were not true, it should follow that Nature had provided better for beasts than for men, furnishing them with natural weapons as well to offend as to defend themselves, which we see also they have a natural instinct to use, when the offence of the invader is necessary for their own defence. And therefore that it is not fit to think that God, Who, by natural reason, doth provide in a more universal and more noble manner for men than by natural instinct for beasts, hath left any particular person, and much less a commonwealth, withoutsufficient means to defend and conserve itself; and therefore not without power to provide and use likely means to repel present injuries, and to repress known and hurtful enemies. And that, in all these, the head of the commonwealth may judge what is expedient and needful for the body thereof.”Much of all this was useless to Catesby’s purpose; but he waited patiently, and when Father Garnet had finished speaking, he answered, “that all this seemed to be plain in common reason, and the same also practised by all well-governed commonwealths that ever have been, were they never so pious or devout. But, said he, some put the greatest difficulty in the sackage of towns and overthrowing or drowning up (sic) of forts, which, in the Low Countries”—the Low Countries again! mark his deceitfulness—“and in all wars is endeavoured, when the fort cannot otherwise be surprised, and the same of great importance to be taken. How, then, those who have right to make the war may justify that destruction of the town or fort, wherein there be many innocents and young children, and some perhaps unchristened, which must needs perish withal? Unto this the Father answered, that indeed therein was the greatest difficulty; and that it was a thing could never be lawful in itself, to kill an innocent, for that the reason ceaseth in them for which the pain of death may be inflicted by authority, seeing the cause why a malefactor and enemy to the commonwealth may be put to death is in respect of the common good, which is tobe preferred before his private (for otherwise, considering the thing only in itself, it were not lawful to put any man to death); and so because the malefactor dothin re gravihinder the common good, therefore by the authority of the magistrate that impediment may be removed. But now, as for the innocent and good, their life is a help and furtherance to the common good, and therefore in no sort it can be lawful to kill or destroy an innocent.”

Determined as Catesby was to twist Father Garnet’s words into “a parallel case,”he wanted something more tangible than this to work upon. Accordingly he said:—“That is done ordinarily in the destruction of the forts I spake of.”“It is true, said the Father, it is there permitted, because it cannot be avoided; but is done asper accidens, and not as a thing intended by or for itself, and so it is not unlawful. As if we were shot into the arm with a poisoned bullet, so that we could not escape with life unless we cut off our arm; thenper accidenswe cut off our hand and fingers also which were sound, and yet being, at that time of danger, inseparably joined to the arm, lawful to be cut off, which it were not lawful otherwise to do without mortal sin. And such was the case of the town of Gabaa, and the other towns of the tribe of Benjamin, wherein many were destroyed that had not offended. With which Mr Catesby, seeming fully satisfied, brake presently into other talk, the Father at that time little imagining at what he aimed, thoughafterwards, when the matter was known, he told some friends what had passed between Mr Catesby and him about this matter, and that he little suspected then he would so have applied the general doctrine of Divines to the practice of a private and so perilous a case, without expressing all particulars, which course may give occasion of great errors, as we see it did in this.”

If Sir Everard Digby had heard the conversation on which the vaunted “consent”of the Jesuits had been founded, there can be little doubt that he would have refused to have anything to do with the conspiracy on such grounds. Father Gerard probably heard the account of the interview, after the failure of the plot, from Father Garnet himself.

Father Garnet’s own much shorter account of the conversation may be given here.[163]Mr Catesby “asked me whether, in case it were lawful to kill a person or persons, it were necessary to regard the innocents, which were present, lest they also should perish withal. I answered that in all just wars it is practised and held lawful to beat down houses and walls and castles, notwithstanding innocents were in danger, so that such battering were necessary for the obtaining of victory, and that the multitude of innocents, or the harm which might ensue by their death, were not such that it might countervail the gain and commodity of the victory. And in truth I never imagined anything of the King’s Majesty, nor of any particular, and thought it, as it were, an idle question, till I saw him, when we had done, make solemn protestation that he would never be known to have asked me any such question as long as he lived.”

That Father Garnet believed Catesby to have deceived him and to have told untruths about him is evident from one of his letters written in orange juice in the Tower. He says[164]“Master Catesby did me much wrong, and hath confessed that he tould them that he said he asked me a question in Q. Eliz. time of the powder action, and that it was unlawfull. All which is most untrew. He did it to draw in others.”Again he writes[165]“I doubt not Mr Catesby hath fained many such things for to induce others,”Sir Everard Digby, of course, among the rest.

Some of the modern admirers of Father Garnet have maintained that the worse Catesby, the worse Garnet; the better Catesby, the better Garnet. Without suggesting the exact converse, I would venture to point out the danger to Garnet’s memory in anything that might tend to show some sort of co-partnership in spirit and intention between himself and Catesby. All the facts lead me to a very different conclusion, and one which is much more to theinterest of Garnet’s memory, namely, that Catesby deceived him from first to last, and that he was, in fact, the innocent dupe of Catesby. To begin with, Catesby, when, during the first half year of James’s reign, Garnet desired him not to join in “some stirring, seeing the King kept not his promise,”deceived Garnet by assuring him “he would not.”[166]He deceived him in 1604, when, on Garnet’s urging him not to take up arms, etc., against the king,[167]“he promised to surcease.”He deceived him when he put a case before him on the question of slaying “innocents together with nocents,”as if it concerned his projected campaign in Flanders, when it really concerned the Gunpowder Plot. He deceived him at the[168]“house in Essex,”when he “assured”him “that all his plans were unexceptionable.”He deceived him when he[169]“promised”“to do nothing before the Pope was informed by”“messenger.”He deceived him at White Webbs, when he told him that what he had in hand was quite “lawfull.”He deceived him at Harrowden when he said that he was going to start for the war in the Low Countries as soon as he possibly could.

In other places I either have shown, or will show, that he deceived all his fellow-conspirators, that he induced them to join in the plot on false pretences, and that he told the lie direct to Sir Everard Digbyat Dunchurch. Undoubtedly he had a charming manner, he was an agreeable and well-informed companion; there is much in his history that is interesting, much that is romantic, much that excites pity, but let not any modern Catholics imagine that by attempting to minimise his misdoings they will do any credit to the cause of the Church; for the man began as a libertine, and, after a period of spasmodic piety, ended as a liar. Catesby was one of those people who are fond of asking for priestly advice, obey it only if it coincides with their own wishes, and have no scruple whatever in misquoting it to their friends. This race is not extinct, nor is it limited to the male sex. Sometimes the performance is varied: instead of misquoting the advice of the priest, these candid penitents misstate the case on which they ask the priest to form an opinion.

Such people are exceedingly dangerous, and do immense mischief to the cause of the Catholic Church. When we consider the evil that may be wrought by one inaccurate and not over-scrupulous woman of this sort, who says to her friends:—“Oh, you may be quite easy in your mind. I asked Father Dash, and he told me there was no harm whatever in it,”of some action which that Father would have condemned in the most unqualified terms, what limit can be put to the disaster that a man like Catesby might bring upon a credulous friend such as Sir Everard Digby?

It is unfortunate that there should be men of the Digby class as well as the Catesby! A priestly judgment has to be given in a court in which the inquirer is witness for both plaintiff and defendant, as well as advocate for both plaintiff and defendant. The friend, therefore, of the inquirer, who is asked to accept the decision which he brings from that spiritual court, ought not to do so unless he feels assured either that he would lay his case with absolute impartiality before that tribunal, or that the judge would discredit his evidence if given with partiality. Now, knowing Catesby very intimately, had Sir Everard Digby good reasons for believing that he could be trusted as an absolutely impartial witness and an absolutely impartial advocate on both sides? or else that the priest consulted would certainly detect any flaw in the evidence of a man so notorious for his plausibility and his powers of persuasion? If not, and he was determined only to join in the enterprise on the condition that it had priestly consent, he was bound either to go and ask it for himself, or, if his oath of secrecy prevented this, to refuse to have anything further to do with the conspiracy. So far as I have been able to ascertain of the previous history of Robert Catesby, he was one of the very last men from whom I should have felt inclined to take spiritual advice or spiritual consent at second hand; and, on this point, I find it difficult to exculpate Sir Everard Digby, although the difficulty is somewhatqualified by an unhappy remark made to Sir Everard by Father Garnet, to be noticed presently.

But first let us notice an incident which, in the case of two men professing to be practical Catholics, is nothing short of astounding! As a modern Jesuit, the present editor ofThe Month, the chief Jesuit journal in this country, points out,[170]Catesby “peremptorily demanded of”his associates in the conspiracy, of whom Sir Everard Digby was one, “a promise that they would not mention the project even in confession, lest their ghostly fathers should discountenance and hinder it.”Considering that that project, even when regarded in the most favourable light, was one likely to entail very intricate questions of conscience in the course of its preparation and its fulfilment, it is inconceivable how men called, or calling themselves, good Catholics could either make such a demand or consent to it.

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