Part 1 (2/2)
”Sir Everard Digby's sons were both knighted soon after, and Sir Kenelm would often say it was a State design to disengage the king of his promise to the Pope and the King of Spain to indulge the Catholics if ever he came to be king here; and somewhat to his[9]
purpose was found in the Lord Wimbledon's papers after his death.
”Mr. Vowell, who was executed in the Rump time, did also affirm it so.
”Catesby's man (_George Bartlet_) on his death-bed confessed his master went to Salisbury House several nights before the discovery, and was always brought privately in at a back door.”
Father Gerard, it is true, does not lay very great stress on this evidence; but neither does he subject it to the criticism to which it is reasonably open. What is to be thought, for instance, of the accuracy of a writer, who states that 'Sir Everard Digby's two sons were both knighted soon after,' when, as a matter of fact, the younger, Kenelm, was not knighted till 1623, and the elder, John, not till 1635? Neither Sir Kenelm's alleged talk, nor that of Wotton and Vowell, prove anything. On the statement about Catesby I shall have something to say later, and, as will be seen, I am quite ready to accept what is said about Monteagle. The most remarkable allegation in the paper is that relating to the second Earl of Salisbury. In the first place it may be noted that the story is produced long after the event. As the words imply that Lenthall was dead when they were written down, and as his death occurred in 1681, they relate to an event which occurred at least seventy-six years before the story took the shape in which it here reaches us. The second Earl of Salisbury, we are told, informed Lenthall that the plot was 'his father's contrivance,' and Lenthall told Webb.
Are we quite sure that the story has not been altered in the telling?
Such a very little change would be sufficient. If the second Earl had only said, ”People talked about my father having contrived the plot,”
there would be nothing to object to. If we cannot conceive either Lenthall or Webb being guilty of 'leaving the story better than they found it,'--though Wood, no doubt a prejudiced witness, says that Lenthall was 'the grand braggadocio and liar of the age in which he lived'[10]--our anonymous and erudite friend who perpetrated that little blunder about the knighthood of Sir Everard Digby's sons was quite capable of the feat. The strongest objection against the truth of the a.s.sertion, however, lies in its inherent improbability. Whatever else a statesman may communicate to his son, we may be sure that he does not confide to him such appalling guilt as this. A man who commits forgery, and thereby sends several innocent fellow creatures to torture and death, would surely not unburden his conscience to one of his own children. _Maxima debetur pueris reverentia._ Moreover the second Earl, who was only twenty-one years of age at his father's death, was much too dull to be an intellectual companion for him, and therefore the less likely to invite an unprecedented confidence.
It is not only on the reception of second-hand evidence that I find myself at variance with Father Gerard. I also object to his criticism as purely negative. He holds that the evidence in favour of the traditional story breaks down, but he has nothing to subst.i.tute for it. He has not made up his mind whether Salisbury invented the whole plot or part of it, or merely knew of its existence, and allowed its development till a fitting time arrived for its suppression. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not for an instant complain of a historian for honestly avowing that he has not sufficient evidence to warrant a positive conclusion. What I do complain of is, that Father Gerard has not started any single hypothesis wherewith to test the evidence on which he relies, and has thereby neglected the most potent instrument of historical investigation. When a door-key is missing, the householder does not lose time in deploring the intricacy of the lock, he tries every key at his disposal to see whether it will fit the wards, and only sends for the locksmith when he finds that his own keys are useless. So it is with historical inquiry, at least in cases such as that of the Gunpowder Plot, where we have a considerable ma.s.s of evidence before us. Try, if need be, one hypothesis after another--Salisbury's guilt, his connivance, his innocence, or what you please. Apply them to the evidence, and when one fails to unlock the secret, try another. Only when all imaginable keys have failed have you a right to call the public to witness your avowal of incompetence to solve the riddle.
At all events, this is the course which I intend to pursue. My first hypothesis is that the traditional story is true--cellar, mine, the Monteagle letter and all. I cannot be content with merely negativing Father Gerard's inferences. I am certain that if this hypothesis of mine be false, it will be found to jar somewhere or another with established facts. In that case we must try another key. Of course there must be some ragged ends to the story--some details which must be left in doubt; but I shall ask my readers to watch narrowly whether the traditional story meets with any obstacles inconsistent with its substantial truth.
Before proceeding further, it will be well to remind my readers what the so-called traditional story is--or, rather, the story which has been told by writers who have in the present century availed themselves of the ma.n.u.script treasures now at our disposal, and which are for the most part in the Public Record Office. With this object, I cannot do better than borrow the succinct narrative of the Edinburgh Reviewer.[11]
Early in 1604, the three men, Robert Catesby, John Wright, and Thomas Winter, meeting in a house at Lambeth, resolved on a Powder Plot, though, of course, only in outline. By April they had added to their number Wright's brother-in-law, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes, a Yorks.h.i.+re man of respectable family, but actually a soldier of fortune, serving in the Spanish army in the Low Countries, who was specially brought over to England as a capable and resolute man. Later on they enlisted Wright's brother Christopher; Winter's brother Robert; Robert Keyes, and a few more; but all, with the exception of Thomas Bates, Catesby's servant, men of family, and for the most part of competent fortune, though Keyes is said to have been in straitened circ.u.mstances, and Catesby to have been impoverished by a heavy fine levied on him as a recusant.[12] Percy, a second cousin of the Earl of Northumberland, then captain of the Gentleman Pensioners, was admitted by him into that body in--it is said--an irregular manner, his relations.h.i.+p to the earl pa.s.sing in lieu of the usual oath of fidelity. The position gave him some authority and license near the Court, and enabled him to hire a house, or part of a house, adjoining the House of Lords. From the cellar of this house they proposed to burrow under the House of Lords; to place there a large quant.i.ty of powder, and to blow up the whole when the King and his family were there a.s.sembled at the opening of Parliament. On December 11, 1604, they began to dig in the cellar, and after a fortnight's labour, having come to a thick wall, they left off work and separated for Christmas.
Early in January they began at the wall, which they found to be extremely hard, so that, after working for about two months,[13]
they had not got more than half way through it. They then learned that a cellar actually under the House of Lords, and used as a coal cellar, was to be let; and as it was most suitable for their design, Percy hired it as though for his own use. The digging was stopped, and powder, to the amount of thirty-six barrels, was brought into the cellar, where it was stowed under heaps of coal or firewood, and so remained under the immediate care of Guy Fawkes,[14] till, on the night of November 4, 1605--the opening of Parliament being fixed for the next day--Sir Thomas Knyvet, with a party of men, was ordered to examine the cellar. He met Fawkes coming out of it, arrested him, and on a close search, found the powder, of which a mysterious warning had been conveyed to Lord Monteagle a few days before. On the news of this discovery the conspirators scattered, but by different roads rejoined each other in Warwicks.h.i.+re, whence, endeavouring to raise the country, they rode through Worcesters.h.i.+re, and were finally shot or taken prisoners at Holbeche in Staffords.h.i.+re.
It is this story that I now propose to compare with the evidence. When any insuperable difficulties appear, it will be time to try another key.
To reach the heart of the matter, let us put aside for the present all questions arising out of the alleged discovery of the plot through the letter received by Monteagle, and let us take it that Guy Fawkes has already been arrested, brought into the King's presence, and, on the morning of the 5th, is put through his first examination.
CHAPTER II
GUY FAWKES'S STORY
First of all, let us restrict ourselves to the story told by Guy Fawkes himself in the five[15] examinations to which he was subjected previously to his being put to the torture on November 9, and to the letters, proclamations, &c., issued by the Government during the four days commencing with the 5th. From these we learn, not only that Fawkes's account of the matter gradually developed, but that the knowledge of the Government also developed; a fact which fits in very well with the 'traditional story,' but which is hardly to be expected if the Government account of the affair was cut-and-dried from the first.
Fawkes's first examination took place on the 5th, and was conducted by Chief Justice Popham and Attorney-General c.o.ke. It is true that only a copy has reached us, but it is a copy taken for c.o.ke's use, as is shown by the headings of each paragraph inserted in the margin in his own hand. It is therefore out of the question that Salisbury, if he had been so minded, would have been able to falsify it. Each page has the signature (in copy) of 'Jhon Jhonson,' the name by which Fawkes chose to be known.
The first part of the examination turns upon Fawkes's movements abroad, showing that the Government had already acquired information that he had been beyond sea. Fawkes showed no reluctance to speak of his own proceedings in the Low Countries, or to give the names of persons he had met there, and who were beyond the reach of his examiners. As to his movements after his return to England he was explicit enough so far as he was himself concerned, and also about Percy, whose servant he professed himself to be, and whose connection with the hiring of the house could not be concealed. Fawkes stated that after coming back to England he 'came to the lodging near the Upper House of Parliament,' and 'that Percy hired the house of Whynniard for 12_l._ rent, about a year and a half ago'; that his master, before his own going abroad, _i.e._, before Easter, 1605, 'lay in the house about three or four times.'
Further, he confessed 'that about Christmas last,' _i.e._, Christmas, 1604, 'he brought in the night time gunpowder [to the cellar under the Upper House of Parliament.]'[16] Afterwards he told how he covered the powder with f.a.ggots, intending to blow up the King and the Lords; and, being pressed how he knew that the King would be in the House on the 5th, said he knew it only from general report and by the making ready of the King's barge; but he would have 'blown up the Upper House whensoever the King was there.' He further acknowledged that there was more than one person concerned in the conspiracy, and said he himself had promised not to reveal it, but denied that he had taken the sacrament on his promise. Where the promise was given he could not remember, except that it was in England. He refused to accuse his partners, saying that he himself had provided the powder, and defrayed the cost of his journey beyond sea, which was only undertaken 'to see the country, and to pa.s.s away the time.' When he went, he locked up the powder and took the key with him, and 'one Gibbons' wife, who dwells thereby, had the charge of the residue of the house.'
Such is that part of the story told by Fawkes which concerns us at present. Of course there are discrepancies enough with other statements given later on, and Father Gerard makes the most of them. What he does not observe is that it is in the nature of the case that these discrepancies should exist. It is obvious that Fawkes, who, as subsequent experience shows, was no coward, had made up his mind to s.h.i.+eld as far as possible his confederates, and to take the whole of the blame upon himself. He says, for instance, that Percy had only lain in the house for three or four days before Easter, 1605; a statement, as subsequent evidence proved, quite untrue; he pretends not to know, except from rumour and the preparations of the barge, that the King was coming to the House of Lords on the 5th, a statement almost certainly untrue. In order not to criminate others, and especially any priest, he denies having taken the Sacrament on his promise, which is also untrue.
What is more noticeable is that he makes no mention of the mine, about which so much was afterwards heard, evidently--so at least I read the evidence--because he did not wish to bring upon the stage those who had worked at it. If indeed the pa.s.sage which I have placed in square brackets be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence upon the mine. He must have made a positive a.s.sertion, soon afterwards found to be untrue, that the cellar was hired several months before it really was.[17] This pa.s.sage is, however, inserted in a different hand from the rest of the doc.u.ment. My own belief is that it gives a correct account of a statement made by the prisoner, but omitted by the clerk who made the copy for c.o.ke, and inserted by some other person. n.o.body that I can think of had the slightest interest in adding the words, whilst they are just what Fawkes might be expected to say if he wanted to lead his examiners off the scent. At all events, even if these words be left out of account, it must be admitted that Fawkes said nothing about the existence of a mine.
Though Fawkes kept silence as to the mine, he did not keep silence on the desperate character of the work on which he had been engaged. ”And,”
runs the record, ”he confesseth that when the King had come to the Parliament House this present day, and the Upper House had been sitting, he meant to have fired the match and have fled for his own safety before the powder had taken fire, and confesseth that if he had not been apprehended this last night, he had blown up the Upper House, when the King, Lords, Bishops, and others had been there, and saith that he spake for [and provided][18] those bars and crows of iron, some in one place, some in another, in London, lest it should be suspected, and saith that he had some of them in or about Gracious Street.”[19]
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