Part 7 (2/2)
Attorney, whose drift (as I have heard) is to prove that only being a Catholic is to be a traitor, whose book coming forth after the breach of so many promises, and before the ending of such a violent Parliament, can work no less effect in men's minds than a belief that every Catholic will be brought within that compa.s.s before the King and State have done with them. And I know, as the priest himself told me, that if he had not hindered, there had somewhat been attempted, before our offence,[257] to give ease to Catholics.
But being so safely prevented, and so necessary to avoid, I doubt not but your Lords.h.i.+p and the rest of the Lords will think of a more mild and undoubted safe course, in which I will undertake the performance of what I have promised, and as much as can be expected; and when I have done I shall be as willing to die as I am ready to offer my service, and expect not nor desire favour for it, either before the doing it, nor in the doing it, nor after it is done, but refer myself to the resolved course for me.”[258]
I have thought it well to set forth the pleadings on both sides, though it has led me somewhat out of my appointed track. Though our sympathies are with the weaker and oppressed party, it cannot be said that Digby's letter meets the whole case which Salisbury had raised. Whether that be so or not, it is enough, for our present purpose if we are able to discern that Salisbury had a case, and was not merely manoeuvring for place or power. At all events, his opinion, whether it were bad or good, had, in the spring of 1605, been accepted by James, and he was therefore in less need even than in the preceding year of producing an imaginary or half-imaginary plot to frighten to his side a king who had already come round to his ideas.
CHAPTER VII
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIESTS
It was unavoidable that the persecution to which Catholics were subjected should bear most hardly on the priests, who were held guilty of disseminating a disloyal religion. It is therefore no matter for surprise that we find, about April 1604,[259] an informer, named Henry Wright, telling Cecil that another informer named Davies, was able to set, _i.e._ to give information of the localities of above threescore more priests, but that he had told him that twenty princ.i.p.al ones would be enough. Davies, adds Wright, will not discover the treason till he had a pardon for it himself, and on this Father Gerard remarks 'that the treason in question was none other than the Gunpowder Plot there can be no question; unless, indeed, we are to say that the authorities were engaged in fabricating a bogus conspiracy for which there was no foundation whatever in fact.' Why this inference should be drawn I do not know. If Davies was a renegade priest he would require a pardon, and in order to get it he may very well have told a story about a treason which the authorities, on further inquiry, thought it needless to investigate further. It is to no purpose that Father Gerard produces an application to James in which it is stated that Wright had furnished information to Popham and Challoner who 'had a hand in the discovery of the practices of the Jesuits in the powder plot, and did reveal the same from time to time to your Majesty, for two years' s.p.a.ce almost before the said treason burst forth.'[260] That Wright, being in want of money, made the most of his little services in spying upon Jesuits is likely enough; but if he had come upon Gunpowder Plot two years before the Monteagle letter, that is to say, in October, 1603, some five months before it was in existence, except, perhaps, in Catesby's brain, we may be certain that he would have been far more specific in making his claim. The same may be said of Wright's letter to Salisbury on March 26, 1606, in which he pleads for a.s.sistance 'forasmuch as his Majesty is already informed of me that in something I have been, and that hereafter I may be, a deserving man of his Majesty and the State in discovering of villainous practices.' Very gentle bleating indeed for a man who had found out the Gunpowder Plot, as I have just said, before it was in existence!
Nor is much more to be made of the remainder of Father Gerard's evidence on this head. The world being what it was, what else could be expected but that there should be talk amongst priests of possible risings--Sir Everard Digby in his letter predicted as much--or even that some less wise of their number should discuss half formed plans, or that renegade priests should pick up their reckless words and report them to the Government, probably with some additions of their own?[261] When Father Gerard says that a vague statement by an informer, made as early as April 1604, refers to the Gunpowder Plot, because c.o.ke said two years later that it did,[262] he merely shows that he has little acquaintance with the peculiar intellect of that idol of the lawyers of the day. If Father Gerard had studied, as I have had occasion to do, c.o.ke's treatment of the case of the Earl and Countess of Somerset, he would, I fancy, have come to the conclusion that whenever c.o.ke smelt a mystery, there was a strong probability that it either never existed at all, or, at all events, was something very different from what c.o.ke imagined it to be.
That the Government believed, with or without foundation, that there were plots abroad, and that priests had their full share in them, may be accepted as highly probable. It must, however, be remembered that in Salisbury's eyes merely to be a priest was _ipso facto_ to be engaged in a huge conspiracy, because to convert an Englishman to the Roman Catholic faith, or to confirm him in it, was to pervert him from his due allegiance to the Crown. Regarded from this point of view, the words addressed by Salisbury to Edmondes on October 17, 1605, 'more than a week,' as Father Gerard says, 'before the first hint of danger is said to have been breathed,'[263] are seen to be perfectly in character, without imagining that the writer had any special information on the Gunpowder Plot, or any intention of making use of it to pave the way for more persecuting legislation than already existed.
”I have received” writes Salisbury, ”a letter of yours ... to which there needeth no great answer for the present ... because I have imparted to you some part of my conceit concerning the insolencies of the priests and Jesuits, whose mouths we cannot stop better than by contemning their vain and malicious discourses, only the evil which biteth is the poisoned bait, wherewith every youth is taken that cometh among them, which liberty (as I wrote before) must for one cause or other be retrenched.”[264]
This language appears to Father Gerard to be ominous of further persecution. To me it appears to be merely ominous of an intention to refuse pa.s.sports to young men of uncertain religion wis.h.i.+ng to travel on the Continent.
We can now understand why it was that Salisbury and the Government in general were so anxious to bring home the plot, after its discovery, to some, at least, of the priests, and more especially to the Jesuits.
Three of these, Garnet, Greenway and Gerard, were in England while the plot was being devised, and were charged with complicity in it. Of the three, Garnet, the Provincial of England, was tried and executed; the other two escaped to the Continent. My own opinion is that Gerard was innocent of any knowledge of the plot,[265] and, as far as I am concerned, it is only the conduct of Garnet and Greenway that is under discussion. That they both had detailed knowledge of the plot is beyond doubt, as it stands on Garnet's own admission that he had been informed of it by Greenway, and that Greenway had heard it in confession from Catesby.[266] A great deal of ink has been spilled on the question whether Garnet ought to have revealed matters involving destruction of life which had come to his knowledge in confession; but on this I do not propose to touch. It is enough here to say that the law of England takes no note of the excuse of confession, and that no blame would have been due on this score either to the Government which ordered Garnet's prosecution, or to the judges and the jury by whom he was condemned, even if there had not been evidence of his knowledge when no question of confession was involved.
In considering Garnet's case the first point to be discussed is, whether the Government tampered with the evidence against the priests, either by omitting that which made in favour of the prisoner, or by forging evidence which made against him. An instance of omission is found in the mark 'hucusque' made by c.o.ke in the margin of Fawkes's examination of November 9, implying the rejection of his statement that, though he had received the communion at Gerard's hands as a confirmation of his oath, Gerard had not known anything of the object which had led him to communicate.[267] The practice of omitting inconvenient evidence was unfortunately common enough in those days, and all that can be said for c.o.ke on this particular occasion is, that the examination contained many obvious falsehoods, and c.o.ke may have thought that he was keeping back only one falsehood more. c.o.ke, however, at Garnet's trial did not content himself with omitting the important pa.s.sage, but added the statement that 'Gerard the Jesuit, being well acquainted with all designs and purposes, did give them the oath of secrecy and a ma.s.s, and they received the sacrament together at his hands.'[268] Clearly, therefore, c.o.ke is convicted, not merely of concealing evidence making in the favour of an accused, though absent, person, but of subst.i.tuting for it his own conviction without producing evidence to support it. All that can be said is, in the first place, that Gerard was not on trial, and could not therefore be affected by anything that c.o.ke might say; and that, in the second place, even if c.o.ke's words were--as they doubtless were--accepted by the jury, the position of the prisoners actually at the bar would be neither better nor worse.
Much more serious is Father Gerard's argument that the confession of Bates, Catesby's servant, to the effect that he had not only informed Greenway of the plot, but that Greenway had expressed approval of it, was either not genuine, or, at least, had been tampered with by the Government. As Father Gerard again italicises,[269] not a pa.s.sage from the examination itself, but his own abstract of the pa.s.sage, it is better to give in full so much of the a.s.sailed examination as bears upon the matter:--
”Examination of Thomas Bate,[270] servant to Robert Catesby, the 4th of December, 1605, before the Lords Commissioners.
”He confesseth that about this time twelvemonth his master asked this said examinant whether he could procure him a lodging near the Parliament House. Whereupon he went to seek some such lodging and dealt with a baker that had a room joining to the Parliament House, but the baker answered that he could not spare it.
”After that some fortnight or thereabouts (as he thinketh) his master imagining, as it seemed, that this examinant suspected somewhat of that which the said Catesby went about, called him to him at Puddle Wharf in the house of one Powell (where Catesby had taken a lodging) and in the presence of Thomas Winter, asked him what he thought what business they were about, and this examinant answered that he thought they went about some dangerous business, whereupon they asked him again what he thought the business might be, and he answered that he thought they intended some dangerous matter about the Parliament House, because he had been sent to get a lodging near that House.
”Thereupon they made this examinant take an oath to be secret in the business, which being taken by him, they told him that it was true that they meant to do somewhat about the Parliament House, namely, to lay powder under it to blow it up.
”Then they told him that he was to receive the sacrament for the more a.s.surance, and he thereupon went to confession to a priest named Greenway, and in his confession told Greenway that he was to conceal a very dangerous piece of work that his master Catesby and Thomas Winter had imparted unto him, and that he being fearful of it, asked the counsel of Greenway, telling the said Greenway (which he was not desirous to hear) their particular intent and purpose of blowing up the Parliament House, and Greenway the priest thereto said that he would take no notice thereof, but that he, the said examinant, should be secret in that which his master had imparted unto him, because that was for a good cause, and that he willed this examinant to tell no other priest of it; saying moreover that it was not dangerous unto him nor any offence to conceal it, and thereupon the said priest Greenway gave this examinant absolution, and he received the sacrament in the company of his master Robert Catesby and Mr. Thomas Winter.
”Thomas Bate, Nottingham, Suffolk, E. Worcester, H. Northampton, Salisbury, Mar, Dunbar.”
Indorsed:--”_The exam._ of Tho. Bate 4 Dec. 1605. _Greenway_, --.”[271]
Out of this doc.u.ment arise two questions which ought to be kept carefully distinct:--
1. Did the Government invent or falsify the doc.u.ment here partially printed?
2. Did Bates, on the hypothesis that the doc.u.ment is genuine, tell the truth about Greenway?
1. In the first place, Father Gerard calls our attention to the fact that the doc.u.ment has only reached us in a copy. It is quite true; though, on the other hand, I must reiterate the argument, which I have already used in a similar case,[272] that a copy in which the names of the Commissioners appear, even though not under their own hands, falls not far short of an original. If this copy, being a forgery, were read in court, as Father Gerard says it was,[273] some of the Commissioners would have felt aggrieved at their names being misused, unless, indeed, the whole seven concurred in authorising the forgery, which is so extravagant a supposition that we are bound to look narrowly into any evidence brought forward to support it.
Father Gerard's main argument in favour of the conclusion at which he leads up to--one can hardly say he arrives at this or any other clearly announced conviction--is put in the following words:--
<script>