The Life of a Conspirator
by Thomas Longueville · English · Gutenberg #39612 · 629,805 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Life of a Conspirator
Author: Thomas Longueville
Release date: May 4, 2012 [eBook #39612]
Language: English
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Transcriber's note:
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_Criminal Trials_
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THE LIFE OF A CONSPIRATOR
[Illustration: SIR EVERARD DIGBY
_From a portrait belonging to W. R. M. Wynne, Esq. of Peniarth, Merioneth_]
THE LIFE OF A CONSPIRATOR
Being a Biography of Sir Everard Digby by One of His Descendants
by the author of
"A Life of Archbishop Laud," By a Romish Recusant, "The
Life of a Prig, by One," etc.
With Illustrations
London
Kegan Paul, Trench, Truebner & Co., Ltd.
Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road
1895
PREFACE
The chief difficulty in writing a life of Sir Everard Digby is to steer
clear of the alternate dangers of perverting it into a mere history of
the Gunpowder Plot, on the one hand, and of failing to say enough of
that great conspiracy to illustrate his conduct, on the other. Again, in
dealing with that plot, to condemn all concerned in it may seem like
kicking a dead dog to Protestants, and to Catholics like joining in one
of the bitterest and most irritating taunts to which they have been
exposed in this country throughout the last three centuries.
Nevertheless, I am not discouraged. The Gunpowder Plot is an historical
event about which the last word has not yet been said, nor is likely to
be said for some time to come; and monographs of men who were, either
directly or indirectly, concerned in it, may not be altogether useless
to those who desire to make a study of it. However faulty the following
pages may be in fact or in inference, they will not have been written in
vain if they have the effect of eliciting from others that which all
students of historical subjects ought most to desire--the Truth.
I wish to acknowledge most valuable assistance received from the Right
Rev. Edmund Knight, formerly Bishop of Shrewsbury, as well as from the
Rev. John Hungerford Pollen, S.J., who was untiring in his replies to my
questions on some very difficult points; but it is only fair to both of
them to say that the inferences they draw from the facts, which I have
brought forward, occasionally vary from my own. My thanks are also due
to that most able, most courteous, and most patient of editors, Mr Kegan
Paul, to say nothing of his services in the very different capacity of a
publisher, to Mr Wynne of Peniarth, for permission to photograph his
portrait of Sir Everard Digby, and to Mr Walter Carlile for information
concerning Gayhurst.
The names of the authorities of which I have made most use are given in
my footnotes; but I am perhaps most indebted to one whose name does not
appear the oftenest. The back-bone of every work dealing with the times
of the Stuarts must necessarily be the magnificent history of Mr Samuel
Rawson Gardiner.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The portrait of Sir Everard Digby--Genealogy--His father a
literary man--His father's book--Was Sir Everard brought up a
Protestant?--At the Court of Queen Elizabeth--Persecution of
Catholics--Character of Sir Everard--Gothurst--Mary
Mulsho--Marriage--Knighthood 1-14
CHAPTER II.
Hospitality at Gothurst--Roger Lee--Sir Everard "Catholickly
inclined"--Country visiting 300 years ago--An absent
host--A good hostess--Wish to see a priest--Priest or
sportsman?--Father Gerard--Reception of Lady Digby--Question
of Underhandedness--Illness of Sir Everard--Conversion--Second
Illness--Impulsiveness of Sir Everard 15-32
CHAPTER III.
The wrench of conversion--Position of converts at different
periods--The Digbys as converts--Their chapel--Father
Strange--Father Percy--Chapels in the days of
persecution--Luisa de Carvajal--Oliver Manners--Pious
dodges--Stolen waters--Persecution under Elizabeth 33-48
CHAPTER IV.
The succession to the Crown--Accession of James--The Bye
Plot--Guy Fawkes--Father Watson's revenge on the
Jesuits--Question as to the faithlessness of
James--Martyrdoms and persecutions--A Protestant Bishop upon
them 49-69
CHAPTER V.
Catholics and the Court--Queen Anne of Denmark--Fears of the
Catholics--Catesby--Chivalry--Tyringham--The Spanish
Ambassador--Attitude of foreign Catholic powers--Indictments
of Catholics--Pound's case--Bancroft--Catesby and
Garnet--Thomas Winter--William Ellis--Lord Vaux--Elizabeth,
Anne, and Eleanor Vaux--Calumnies 70-96
CHAPTER VI.
Roger Manners--A pilgrimage--Harrowden--Catesby informs Sir
Everard of the Conspiracy--Scriptural precedents--Other
Gunpowder Plots--Mary Queen of Scots, Bothwell and
Darnley--Pretended Jesuit approval 97-113
CHAPTER VII.
A Latin Book--Immoderate friendships--Principles--Second-hand
approval--How Catesby deceived Garnet--He deceived his
fellow-conspirators--A liar 114-129
CHAPTER VIII.
Garnet's unfortunate conversation with Sir Everard--Garnet's
weakness--How Garnet first learned about the Plot--Secresy of
the Confessional--Catesby and the Sacraments--Catesby a
Catholic on Protestant principles--Could Garnet have saved
Sir Everard?--Were the conspirators driven to
desperation?--Did Cecil originate the Plot? 130-148
CHAPTER IX.
Financial aspects of the Gunpowder Plot--Sir Everard's
relations to his wife--Little John--Secret room at
Gothurst--Persecution of Catholics in Wales--The plan of
Campaign--Coughton--Guy Fawkes--His visit to Gothurst 149-168
CHAPTER X.
White Webbs--Baynham's Mission--All-Hallows at Coughton--All
Souls at Gothurst--An unwelcome Guest--The remains of
feudalism--Start from Gothurst--Arrival at Dunchurch--What
was going on in London--Tresham--The hunting-party--A
card-party--Arrival of the fugitives--The discovery in
London--The flight 169-191
CHAPTER XI.
Catesby lies to Sir Everard--Expected help from Talbot--The
hunting-party repudiates the conspirators--The future Earl of
Bristol--The start--Warwick--Norbrook--Alcester--Coughton--
Huddington--Talbot refuses to join in the Insurrection--Father
Greenway--Father Oldcorne--Whewell Grange--Shadowed--No
Catholics will join the conspirators--Don Quixote 192-218
CHAPTER XII.
Holbeche House--Sir Everard deserts--Sir Fulke Greville--The
Hue-and-Cry--Hunted--In cover--Caught--Journey to
London--Confiscation--The fate of the conspirators at
Holbeche--The Archpriest--Denunciations--Letter of Sir
Everard--Confession 219-236
CHAPTER XIII.
Threats of torture--Search at Mrs Vaux's house--Lady Digby's
letters to Salisbury--Sir Everard to his wife--Sir Everard
writes to Salisbury--Death of Tresham--Poem--Examinations 237-251
CHAPTER XIV.
Father Gerard's letter to Sir Everard--Sir Everard exonerates
Gerard--Sir Everard's letter to his sons 252-267
CHAPTER XV.
The trial--Appearance of the prisoners from different points
of view--Sir Edward Philips--Sir Edward Coke--His description
of the punishment for High Treason--Sir Everard's
speech--Coke's reply--Earl of Northampton--Lord
Salisbury--Sentence 268-288
CHAPTER XVI.
Waiting for death--Poem--Kind words for Sir Everard--The
injury he did to the Catholic cause--Two happy
days--Procession to the scaffold--Sir Everard's last
speech--Execution--Epilogue 289-306
CHAPTER I.
Nothing is so fatal to the telling of an anecdote as the prelude:--"I
once heard an amusing story," &c., and it would be almost as unwise to
begin a biography by stating that its subject was a very interesting
character. On the other hand, perhaps I may frighten away readers by
telling them at starting, this simple truth, that I am about to write
the history of a young man of great promise, whose short life proved a
miserable failure, who terribly injured the cause he had most at heart,
for which he gave his life, a man of whom even his enemies said, when he
had met his sad fate:--"Poor fellow. He deserved it. But what a pity!"
If the steady and unflinching gaze of one human being upon another can
produce the hypnotic state, it may be that, in a much lesser degree,
there is some subtle influence in the eternal stare of the portrait of
an ancestor. There is no getting away from it unless you leave the room.
If you look at your food, talk to a friend, or read a book, you know and
feel that his eyes are still rivetted upon you; and if you raise your
own, again, towards his, there he is, gravely and deliberately gazing at
you, or, you are half inclined to think, _through_ you at something
beyond and behind you, until you almost wish that you could be thrown
into some sort of cataleptic condition, in which a series of scenes
could be brought before your vision from the history of the long-dead
man, whose representation seems only to exist for the purpose of staring
you out of countenance.
In a large country house, near the west coast of Wales, and celebrated
for its fine library, hangs a full-length portrait which might well
impel such a desire. It represents a tall man, with long hair and a
pointed beard, in a richly-chased doublet, a lace ruff and cuffs, very
short and fringed trunk hose, and a sword by his side. He has a high
forehead, rather raised and arched eyebrows, a long nose, hollow cheeks,
and a narrow, pointed chin. His legs are thin; his left hand is placed
upon his hip; and with his right he holds a cane, which is resting on
the ground. At the bottom of the picture is painted, in Roman
characters, "Sir Everard Digby, Knight, OB. 1606."
Few people care for genealogies unless their own names are recorded in
them. The keenest amateur herald in matters relating to his own family,
will exhibit an amazing apathy when the pedigree of another person is
offered for his inspection; the shorter, therefore, my notice of Sir
Everard Digby's descent, the better. He was descended from a
distinguished family. It had come over from Normandy with William the
Conqueror, who had granted it lands at Tilton, which certainly were in
its possession in the sixteenth century, though whether the subject of
my biography inherited them, I am not quite sure. The first Sir Everard
Digby lived in the reigns of Henry I. and Stephen.[1] This powerful
family sided with Henry VII. against Richard III.; and on one occasion,
King Henry VII.[2] "did make Knights in the field seven brothers of his
house at one time, from whom descended divers houses of that name, which
live all in good reputation in their several countries. But this Sir
Everard Digby was the heir of the eldest and chiefest house, and one of
the chiefest men in Rutlandshire, where he dwelt, as his ancestors had
done before him, though he had also much living in Leicestershire and
other shires adjoining." He was the fourteenth in direct eldest male
descent from Almar, the founder of the family in the eleventh century.
Five of his forefathers had borne the name of Everard Digby, one of whom
was killed at the battle of Towton in 1641. Sir Everard's father had
also been an Everard, and done honour to the name; but literature and
not war had been the field in which he had succeeded. He published four
books.[3] The only one of these in my possession is his _Dissuasive from
taking the Goods and Livings of the Church_. It is dedicated "To the
Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord High Chancellor of
England, &c."
[1] Harleian MSS., 1364.
[2] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, Father Gerard, p. 87.
_N.B._--"The Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot," and "The Life of
Father John Gerard," are both published in one volume, entitled _The
Condition of Catholics under James I._, edited by Father John
Morris, S.J.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1871. It will be to this
edition that I shall refer, when I quote from either of these two
works.
[3] See _Bibliographia Britannica_, Vol. iii. p. 1697. The books
were:--I. _Theoria Analytica ad Monarchiam Scientiarum demonstrans._
II. _De Duplici Methodo, libri duo, Rami Methodum refutantes._ III.
_De Arte Natandi; libri duo._ IV. _A Dissuasive from taking the
Goods and Livings of the Church, &c._
The author's style may be inferred from the opening of his preface:--"If
my pen (gentle reader) had erst bin dipped in the silver streames
flowing from Parnassus Hill, or that Apollo with his sweet-sounding harp
would vouchsafe to direct the passage thereof unto the top of the high
Olympus; after so general a view of great varietie far and neere, I
might bouldly begin with that most excellent Poet Cicelides
Mus[e[ogonek]] paulo maiora canamus." I leave my readers to judge how
many modern publishers would read any further, if such a book were
offered to them in these days! Still, it is interesting as showing the
style of the times.
Father Gerard, an intimate friend of the Sir Everard Digby whose
life I am writing, mentions[4] "the piety of his parents," and that
"they were ever the most noted and known Catholics in that country"
(Rutlandshire); and Mr Gillow, in his _Bibliographical Dictionary of
English Catholics_[5], states that they "had ever been the most staunch
and noted Catholics in the county of Rutland." But here I am met with a
difficulty. Would a Catholic have written such a passage as the
following, which I take from the _Dissuasive_? It refers to that great
champion of Protestantism and Anglicanism, Queen Elizabeth.
[4] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
[5] P. 62.
"I cannot but write truely," he says, "that which the Clergie with the
whole realme confesse plainely: That we render immortell thankes unto
Almightie God, for preserving her most Roiall Majestie so miraculouslie
unto this daie, giving her a most religious heart (the mirror of all
Christian princes) once and ever wholly consecrated to the maintaining
of his divine worship in his holy Temple. From this cleare Christall
fountaine of heavenlie vertue, manie silver streames derive their
sundrie passages so happelie into the vineyarde of the Lorde, that
neither the flaming fury of outward enimies, nor the scorching
sacrilegious zeale of domesticall dissimulation, can drie up anie one
roote planted in the same, since the peaceable reigne of her most Roial
Majestie."
The writer of the notice of Sir Everard Digby in the _Biographia
Britannica_[6] appears to have believed his father to have been a
Protestant; but on what grounds he does not state. So familiar a friend
as Father Gerard is unlikely to have been mistaken on this point.
Possibly, however, in speaking of his "parents," he may have meant his
forefathers rather than his own father and mother. This seems the more
likely because, after his father's death, when he was eleven years old,
Sir Everard was brought up a Protestant. In those times wards were
often, if not usually, educated as Protestants, even if their fathers
had been Catholics; but if Sir Everard's mother had been remarkable for
her "piety" as a Catholic, and one of the "noted and known Catholics" in
her county, we might expect to find some record of her having
endeavoured to induce her son to return to the faith of his father, as
she lived until after his death. The article in the _Biographia_ states
that Sir Everard was "educated with great care, but under the tuition of
some Popish priests": Father Gerard, on the contrary, says that he "was
not brought up Catholicly in his youth, but at the University by his
guardians, as other young gentlemen used to be"; and in his own
_Life_,[7] he speaks of him as a Protestant after his marriage. Lingard
also says[8] that "at an early age he was left by his father a ward of
the crown, and had in consequence been educated in the Protestant
faith." I can see no reason for doubting that this was the case.
[6] Vol. iii. p. 1697.
[7] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clii.
[8] _History of England_, Vol. vii. chap. i.
At a very early age, Everard Digby was taken to the Court of Queen
Elizabeth, where he became "a pensioner,"[9] or some sort of equivalent
to what is now termed a Queen's page. He must have arrived at the Court
about the time that Essex was in the zenith of his career; he may have
witnessed his disgrace and Elizabeth's misery and vacillation with
regard to his trial and punishment. He would be in the midst of the
troubles at the Court, produced by the rivalry between Sir Walter
Raleigh and Sir Charles Blount; he would see his relative, Cecil,
rapidly coming into power; he could scarcely fail to hear the many
speculations as to the successor of his royal mistress.
[9] S. P. James I., Gun. P. Book, Part II. No. 135, Exam, of Sir E.
Digby--"He confesseth that he was a pencon to Quene Elizabeth about
six yeres, and tooke the othe belonging to the place of a pencioner
and no other."
He may have accompanied her[10] "hunting and disporting" "every other
day," and seen her "set upon jollity"; he may have enjoyed the[11]
"frolyke" in "courte, much dauncing in the privi chamber of countrey
daunces befor the Q. M."; very likely he may have been in attendance
upon the Queen when she walked on[12] "Richmond Greene," "with greater
shewes of ability, than" could "well stand with her years." During the
six years that he was at Court, he probably came in for a period of
brilliancy and a period of depression, although there is nothing to show
for certain whether he had retired before the time thus described in an
old letter[13]:--"Thother of the counsayle or nobilitye estrainge
themselves from court by all occasions, so as, besides the master of the
horse, vice-chamberlain, and comptroller, few of account appeare there."
If Lingard is right, however,[14] he gave up his appointment at Court
the year before Elizabeth's death, and thus luckily escaped the time
when, as he describes her, she was[15] "reduced to a skeleton. Her food
was nothing but manchet bread and succory pottage. Her taste for dress
was gone. She had not changed her clothes for many days. Nothing could
please her; she was the torment of the ladies who waited on her person.
She stamped with her feet, and swore violently at the objects of her
anger."
[10] Lord Henry Howard to Worcester.
[11] Letter of Lord Worcester, Lodge III. p. 148.
[12] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
[13] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
[14] History, Vol. vii. chap. i.
[15] _Ib._, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
One thing that may have had a subsequent influence upon Digby, while he
was at the Court of Elizabeth, was the violence shown towards Catholics.
In the course of the fourteen years that followed the defeat of the
Spanish Armada before the death of the Queen,[16] "the Catholics groaned
under the presence of incessant persecution. Sixty-one clergymen,
forty-seven laymen, and two gentlemen, suffered capital punishment for
some or other of the spiritual felonies and treasons which had been
lately created." Although he had been brought up a Protestant, "this
gentleman," says Gerard,[17] "was always Catholicly affected," and the
severe measures dealt out to Catholics whilst he was at Court may have
disgusted him and induced him to leave it.
[16] Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. iii.
[17] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
I have shown how Father Gerard states[18] that Sir Everard Digby was
educated "at the University by his guardians, as other young gentlemen
used to be." It is to be wished that he had informed us at what
University and at what College; when he went there and when he left; as
his attendance at Court, together with a very important event, to be
noticed presently, which took place, or is said to have taken place,
when he was fifteen, make it difficult to allot a vacant time for his
University career.
[18] _Ib._
The young man,--he did not live to be twenty-five,--whose portrait we
have been looking at, is described in the _Biographia Britannica_[19] as
having been "remarkably handsome," "extremely modest and affable," and
"justly reputed one of the finest gentlemen in England." His great
personal friend, the already-quoted Father Gerard,[20] says that he was
"as complete a man in all things that deserved estimation, or might win
him affection, as one should see in a kingdom. He was of stature about
two yards high," "of countenance" "comely and manlike." "He was skilful
in all things that belonged to a gentleman, very cunning at his weapon,
much practised and expert in riding of great horses, of which he kept
divers in his stable with a skilful rider for them. For other sports of
hunting or hawking, which gentlemen in England so much use and delight
in, he had the best of both kinds in the country round about." "For all
manner of games which are also usual for gentlemen in foul weather, when
they are forced to keep house, he was not only able therein to keep
company with the best, but was so cunning in them all, that those who
knew him well, had rather take his part than be against him." "He was a
good musician, and kept divers good musicians in his house; and himself
also could play well of divers instruments. But those who were well
acquainted with him"--and no one knew him better than Father Gerard
himself--"do affirm that in gifts of mind he excelled much more than in
his natural parts; although in those also it were hard to find so many
in one man in such a measure. But of wisdom he had an extraordinary
talent, such a judicial wit and so well able to discern and discourse of
any matter, as truly I have heard many say they have not seen the like
of a young man, and that his carriage and manner of discourse were more
like to a grave Councillor of State than to a gallant of the Court as he
was, and a man of about twenty-six years old (which I think was his age,
or thereabouts)." In this Father Gerard was mistaken. Sir Everard Digby
did not live to be twenty-six, or even twenty-five. Gerard
continues:--"And though his behaviour were courteous to all, and
offensive to none, yet was he a man of great courage and of noted
valour."
[19] Vol. iii. p. 180.
[20] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
[Illustration: GOTHURST
The home of Sir Everard Digby; now called Gayhurst
_Dawsons Ph. Sc._]
We began by examining a portrait: let us now take a look at an old
country-house. Turning our backs on Wales, a country which has little to
do with my subject, we will imagine ourselves in Buckinghamshire, about
half way between the towns of Buckingham and Bedford, and about three
miles from Newport Pagnell, a little way from the high road leading in a
north-westerly direction. There stands the now old, but at the time of
which I am writing, the comparatively new house, known then as Gothurst.
Perhaps one of the chief attractions in Elizabethan architecture is
that, by combining certain features of both classical and gothic
architecture, it is a result, as well as an example, of that spirit of
compromise so dear to the English nation. If somewhat less picturesque,
and less rich and varied in colour, than the half-timbered houses of
Elizabethan architecture, the stone buildings of the same style are more
massive and stately in their appearance, and the newly-hewn stone of
Gothurst[21] presented a remarkably fine front, with its pillared porch,
its lengthy series of mullioned windows, and its solid wings at either
side. It was built upon rising ground, which declined gradually to the
rich, if occasionally marshy, meadows bordering on the river Ouse.[22]
It was a large house, although, like many others built in the same
style, the rooms were rather low in proportion to their size.[23] The
approach was through a massive gateway,[24] from which an avenue of
yews--which had existed in the time of the older house that formerly
stood on the same site--led up to the square space in front of the door.
Near the gateway was the old church, which was then in a very
indifferent state of repair,[25] and below this were three pieces of
water. Beyond them ran the river Ouse, and on the opposite side stood
the old tower and church of Tyringham. If the house was new, it was very
far from being the pretentious erection of a newly-landed proprietor.
Yet the estate on which it stood had more than once been connected with
a new name, owing to failures in the male line of its owners and the
marriages of its heiresses, since it had been held by a De Nouers, under
the Earl of Kent, half-brother to William the Conqueror. It had
passed[26] by marriage to the De Nevylls in 1408; it had passed in the
same way to the Mulshos in the reign of Henry VIII., and I am about to
show that, at the end of the sixteenth century, it passed again into
another family through the wedding of its heiress.
[21] "Antiently Gaythurst," says Pennant in his _Journey_. It is now
called Gayhurst.
[22] See Pennant's _Journey from Chester to London_, p. 437, _seq._
Also Lipscomb's _History and Antiquities of Bucks_, Vol. iv. 158,
_seq._
[23] The house is still standing, and is the residence of Mr
Carlile. The further side was enlarged, either in the eighteenth or
very early in the nineteenth century, in the style of Queen Anne;
but this in no way spoils the effect of the remarkably fine old
Elizabethan front.
[24] This has disappeared.
[25] Poem on _Everard Digby_, written by the present owner of
Gothurst, and privately printed.
[26] See Pennant's _Journey_, p. 438.
Mary Mulsho, the sole heiress of Gothurst, was a girl of considerable
character, grace, and gravity of mind, and she was well suited to become
the bride of the young courtier, musician, and sportsman excelling "in
gifts of mind," described at the beginning of this chapter. It can have
been no marriage for the sake of money or lands; for Everard Digby was
already a rich man, possessed of several estates, and he had had a long
minority; moreover, there is plenty of evidence to show that they were
devotedly attached to one another.
The exact date of their marriage I am unable to give. Jardine says[27]
that Sir Everard "was born in 1581," and that "in the year 1596 he
married"; and, if this was so, he can have been only fifteen on his
marriage. Certainly he was very young at the time, and Jardine may be
right; for, at the age of twenty-four, he said that a certain event,
which is known to have taken place some time after their marriage, had
happened seven or eight years earlier than the time at which he was
speaking.[28] I have made inquiries in local registers and at the
Herald's College, without obtaining any further light upon the question
of the exact date of his wedding. One thing is certain, that his eldest
son, Kenelm, was born in the year 1603. In that same year Everard Digby
was knighted by the new king, James I. He may have been young to receive
that dignity; but, as a contemporary writer[29] puts it, "at this time
the honour of knighthood, which antiquity preserved sacred, as the
cheapest and readiest jewel to preserve virtue with, was promiscuously
laid on any head belonging to the yeomandry (made addle through pride
and contempt of their ancestors' pedigree), that had but a court-friend,
or money to purchase the favour of the meanest able to bring him into an
outward room, when the king, the fountain of honour, came down, and was
uninterrupted by other business; in which case it was then usual for the
chamberlain or some other lord to do it." It is said that, during the
first three months of the reign of James I., the honour of knighthood
was conferred upon seven hundred individuals.[30]
[27] _Criminal Trials_, Vol. ii. p. 30.
[28] S. P. Dom. James I., Gunpowder Plot Book, Part II. No 135, B.
[29] Osborne's _Traditional Memorials_, p. 468. I quote from a
footnote on page 147 of the _Somers Tracts_, Vol. ii.
[30] See Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
We find Sir Everard and Lady Digby, at this period of our story,
possessed of everything likely to insure happiness--mutual affection,
youth, intelligence, ability, popularity, high position, favour at
Court, abundance of wealth, and a son and heir. How far this brilliant
promise of happiness was fulfilled will be seen by and bye.
CHAPTER II.
Young as he was, Sir Everard Digby's acquaintance was large and varied,
and Gothurst was a very hospitable house. Its host's tastes enabled him
thoroughly to enjoy the society of his ordinary country neighbours,
whose thoughts chiefly lay in the direction of sports and agriculture;
but he still more delighted in conversing with literary and
contemplative men, and when his guests combined all these qualities, he
was happiest. One such, who frequently stayed at Gothurst, is thus
quaintly described by Father Gerard.[31] Roger Lee "was a gentleman of
high family, and of so noble a character and such winning manners that
he was a universal favourite, especially with the nobility, in whose
company he constantly was, being greatly given to hunting, hawking, and
all other noble sports. He was, indeed, excellent at everything, &c." In
short, he appears to have been exactly the kind of man to make a
congenial companion for Sir Everard.[32]
[31] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cxxxvi.
[32] I write of Sir Everard and Lady Digby; but it is improbable
that he had received knighthood at the period treated of in this
chapter.
So intimate was he at Gothurst, even during the life of Lady Digby's
father, who had died at the time of which I am about to write, that, on
his visits there, he frequently took with him a friend, who, like
himself, was an intelligent, highly-educated, and agreeable man, of good
family, fond of hawking, hunting, and other sports, and an excellent
card-player.
Both Lee and his companion were Catholics, and, as I explained in the
last chapter, Sir Everard Digby, although brought up a Protestant, was
"Catholickly inclined, and entertained no prejudice whatever against
those of the ancient faith"; indeed, in one of his conversations with
Lee he went so far as to ask him whether he thought his friend would be
a good match for his own sister, observing that he would have no
objection to her marrying a Catholic; "for he looked on Catholics as
good and honourable men." Considering the pains, penalties, and
disabilities to which recusants, as they were called, were then exposed,
this meant very much more than a similar remark would mean in our times.
And not only was he unprejudiced, for he took a keen interest in the
religion of Catholics, and the three men talked frequently on that
subject, the speakers being usually Lee and Digby, the friend putting in
a word occasionally, but for the most part preferring to stand by as a
listener.
None of Lady Digby's family were Catholics;[33] her father had been an
ardent Protestant, and possibly, as is not uncommonly the case, the long
conversations about Catholicism would have more interest to one who had
been brought up in an extreme Protestant atmosphere, than to those who
had been accustomed to mix among people of both religions. At any rate,
it is pretty evident that the young wife often sat by while her husband
and his guests talked theology, and that she had gradually begun to form
her own ideas upon the subject.
[33] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cl.
In considering life at a hospitable country house, nearly three hundred
years ago, it is well to try to realise the difference between the
conditions under which guests can now be obtained and those then
existing. Visitors, and letters to invite them, are now conveyed by
railway, and our postal arrangements are admirable; then, the public
posts were very slow and irregular, many of the roads were what we
should call mere cart-tracks, and it took weeks to perform journeys
which can now be accomplished in twenty-four hours.
Our present system of filling our country houses just when we please,
and then taking a quiet time alone, or visiting at other country houses,
or betaking ourselves to some place for amusement, was impossible early
in the seventeenth century; at that period, the only chance of seeing
friends, except those living close at hand, was to receive them whenever
they found it convenient to come, and to make country houses, as it
were, hotels for such acquaintances who chanced to be passing near them
on their journeys. People who were on visiting terms not uncommonly rode
or drove up to each other's houses, without special invitation; and,
even when invited, if the distance were great, owing to the condition of
the roads and the frequent breakdowns in the lumbersome vehicles, it
rarely could be foreseen when a destination would be reached. Yet a
welcome was generally pretty certain, for, before the days of
newspapers, to say nothing of circulating libraries, hosts and hostesses
were not hypercritical of the guests who might come to relieve their
dulness, and the vestiges still remaining of the feudal hospitality of
the baron's great halls made them somewhat liberal and unfastidious as
to the social standing of those whom they received; nor was it very rare
for unknown travellers, who asked leave to take a short rest at a
strange house, to meet with a cordial welcome and liberal entertainment.
There was nothing out of the common, therefore, in guests so well known
at Gothurst as Roger Lee and his favourite companion riding up to that
house unexpected, yet certain of being gladly received; but, on a
certain occasion, they were both disappointed on reaching its arched and
pillared doorway, at being told that their host had gone to London. The
kind and graceful reception given by their hostess, however, did much to
make up for his absence.
The long, if rather low rooms, with their wide, mullioned windows, the
good supply, for those times, of books, and the picturesque grounds,
with the river flowing through them, made Gothurst a charming house to
stay at, and Sir Everard's man-cook[34] no doubt made the creature
comforts all that could be desired. For those who cared for sport, there
was plenty of agreeable occupation, for there were hawks and hounds and
well-filled stables. The young hostess, who had been brought up among
men who spent their lives in country amusements, could converse about
horses, dogs, and hunting if required; most probably, too, she often
carried a hawk on her wrist; and, as she shared her husband's tastes for
literature and serious reflection, she could suit herself to almost any
company.
[34] Even his under-cook was a man. Cal. Sta. Pa. Dom., 1603-10, p.
266.
Her two guests were prepared to talk about any topic that might seem
most pleasing to their hostess, and it was soon clear that she wished to
renew the conversations about religion which she had listened to with so
much attention when her friends had been last in her house in the
company of her husband. They were no less ready to discuss the same
subject with her, and the more she listened to them, the more she
questioned them, and the more she thought over their replies to her
difficulties, doubts, and objections, the more inclination did she feel
towards the creed they professed. She was well aware that her husband,
at the very least, had a high respect for it; that he already admitted
the truth of a great part of it, and that, in discussing it with Lee and
his friend, he had propounded arguments against it rather as those of
others than as his own; and when, after considerable solitary reflection
while her visitors were out of doors, she felt very nearly assured that
the Almighty could not approve of people professing a variety of creeds;
that of several religions, all teaching different doctrines, only one
could be right; that if God had revealed a right religion, he must have
ordained some one body of men to teach it, and that there was only one
body which seemed to have any claim to such tremendous authority, and
that the Roman Catholic Church. These thoughts made her earnestly wish
to talk the matter over with one of its priests, and consult him on the
question of her own position in respect to so all-important a subject.
To meet with a priest was not easy in those times. Such priests as there
were in England rarely, if ever, declared themselves, except to
Catholics or would-be Catholics; for to make such a declaration, in this
country, amounted to self-accusation of the crime of High Treason. Her
two guests were Catholics, and would undoubtedly know several priests,
and where they could be found; but to reveal their names or their
whereabouts would be dangerous, both to those priests and to themselves,
and Lady Digby felt some hesitation in interrogating them on such
points. At last, rather than place one of her husband's favourite
companions in a position which might be unwelcome or even compromising,
she determined to consult, not Roger Lee, but the friend he had brought
with him. When she had delicately and nervously told him of her wish to
see a priest, she was far from reassured by observing that he was with
difficulty repressing a smile.[35] Could it be that he thought her a
silly woman, hurriedly contemplating a change of religion on too scanty
consideration? Or was the finding of a priest so difficult a thing just
then as to make a wish to attempt it absurd? His expression, however,
soon changed, and he told her, gravely enough, that he thought her
desire might very possibly be fulfilled; at any rate, he promised to
speak to Roger Lee about it. "In the meantime," he added, "I can teach
you the way to examine your conscience, as I myself was taught to do it
by an experienced priest." She was inclined to smile, in her turn, at
such an offer from a mere sportsman; so, thanking him, she allowed the
subject to drop.
[35] _Life of Gerard_, p. cli.
He had not left her very long before Roger Lee entered the room, and, as
he immediately told her that he had heard of her wish to have some
conversation with a priest, it was clear that his friend had lost no
time in informing him of it. Her surprise may be imagined when Lee
proceeded to tell her that his companion was himself a priest!
At first she refused to believe it.[36] "How is it possible he can be a
priest?" she asked, "has he not lived rather as a courtier? Has he not
played cards with my husband, and played well too, which is impossible
for those not accustomed to the game? Has he not gone out hunting, and
frequently in my hearing spoken of the hunt, and of hawks in proper
terms, without tripping, which no one could but one who has been trained
to it?"
[36] _Life of Father John Gerard_; p. cli.
She gave many other reasons for disbelieving that he could be a cleric;
and, finally, only accepted the fact on Roger Lee's reiterated and
solemn assurances.
"I pray you," she then said, "not to be angry with me, if I ask further
whether any other Catholic knows him to be a priest but you. Does ...
know him?"
"Yes," replied Lee, "and goes to confession to him."
Then she asked the same question concerning several other Catholics
living in the county, or the adjoining counties--among others, a lady
who lived about ten miles from Gothurst.
"Why," said Lee, "she not only knows him as a priest, but has given
herself, and all her household, and all that she has, to be directed by
him, and takes no other guide but him."
At this, she admitted that she was thoroughly satisfied. Whereupon Lee
remarked of his friend--
"You will find him, however, quite a different man when he has put off
his present character."
"This," wrote the priest himself, who was Father John Gerard, second son
of[37] Sir Thomas Gerard,[38] a Lancashire Knight, and an ancestor of
the present Lord Gerard. "This she acknowledged the next day, when she
saw me in my soutane and other priestly garments, such as she had never
before seen. She made a most careful confession, and came to have so
great an opinion of my poor powers, that she gave herself entirely to my
direction, meditated great things, which, indeed, she carried out, and
carries out still."
[37] This Sir T. Gerard was committed to the Tower on an accusation
"of a design to deliver Mary Queen of Scots out of her
confinement."--_Burke's Peerage_, 1886, p. 576.
[38] _Life of Gerard_, p. clii.
I can fancy certain people, on reading all this, saying, "How very
underhand!" I would ask them to bear in mind that for Father Gerard to
have acted otherwise, and to have gone about in "priestly garments,"
under his own name, would have been the same thing as to have gone to
the common hangman and to have asked him to be so obliging as to put the
noose round his neck, and then to cut him down as quickly as possible in
order that he might relish to the full the ghastly operation of
disembowelling and quartering. To this it may be replied that to conceal
his identity might be all very well, but that it was quite another thing
to stay at the house of a friend under that concealment, and, in the
character of a layman and a guest, to decoy his host's wife from her
husband's religion, in that host's and husband's absence, thus betraying
his friendship and violating his hospitality.
My counter-reply would be, that his host had frequently discussed
religious questions with both himself and Lee, and had shown, at least,
a very friendly feeling towards Catholics in general and their religion;
that, as has already been proved, he had in so many words declared
himself free from any objection to the marriage of his own sister with a
Catholic; nay, that he wished to see her[39] "married well, and to a
Catholic, for he looked on Catholics as honourable men;" and that Lady
Digby had determined to become a Catholic after due consideration and
without any unfair external influence. As to his revealing his priestly
character to her and exercising his priestly functions on her behalf, it
must be observed that she had expressed a particular wish to see and to
converse with a priest, without any such action on her part having been
suggested to her by either Gerard or Lee, and that, if Gerard had
continued to conceal his own priesthood, she would have simply been put
to the trouble, and possibly the dangers, of searching for some other
priest. If it be further objected that he ought at least to have waited
until her husband's return, I must so far repeat myself as to point out
that a man who had stated that he would have no objection whatever to
his sister's being married to a Catholic, might be fairly assumed to
have no objection to finding himself also married to a Catholic. Again,
since Lady Digby was convinced that her soul would only be safe when in
the fold of the Church, it would be natural that she should not like to
admit of any delay in her reception into it. This being the case, the
guests had their duties to their hostess, as well as to their host. It
is unnecessary to enter here into the question whether wives should
inform their husbands, and grown-up sons and daughters their parents,
before joining the Roman Catholic Church; I may, however, be allowed to
say that I believe it to be the usual opinion of priests, as well as
laymen, as it certainly is of myself, that in most cases, although
possibly not absolutely in every case, their doing so is not only
desirable, but a duty, provided no hindrance to the following of the
dictates of their consciences will result from so doing. Where it would
have such an effect, our Lord's teaching is plain and unmistakeable--"He
that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."
[39] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cli.
Some Protestants are under the impression that a conversion like Lady
Digby's, in which she consulted, and was received into the Church by, a
"priest in disguise" is "just the sort of thing that Roman Catholics
like." There could be no greater mistake! It is just what they do not
like. The secrecy of priests in the reign of James I. was rendered
necessary by persecution: so was that of the laity in housing and
entertaining them: so also were the precautions to conceal the fact that
mass was said in private houses, and that rooms were used as chapels.
Now I would not pretend for a moment that such a condition of things was
wholesome for either priests, Jesuits, laymen, or laywomen. There are
occasions on which secrecy may be a dire necessity, but it is, at best,
a necessary evil, and its atmosphere is unnatural, cramping, dangerous,
and demoralising, although the persecution producing it may lead to
virtue, heroism, and even martyrdom. The persecutions of the early
Christians by the Romans gave the Church hundreds of saints and martyrs;
yet surely those persecutions did not directly tend to the welfare of
Christianity; and I suppose that the authorities of the established
Church in this country would scarcely consider that Anglicanism would be
in a more wholesome condition if every diocese and cure were to be
occupied by a bishop or priest of the Church of Rome under the authority
of the Pope, although the privations of the dispossessed Anglican
clergy, and the inconveniences of the Anglican laity, might be the means
of bringing about many individual instances of laudable self-denial,
personal piety, and religious zeal. On the same principle, I think that
a Catholic student, with an elementary knowledge of the subject, when
approaching the history of his co-religionists in England during the
reign of James I., would have good grounds for expecting that, while
many cases of valiant martyrdom and suffering for the faith would
embellish the pages he was about to read, those pages would also reveal
that the impossibility of priests and religious living a clerical life,
and the necessity of their joining day by day in the pursuits and
amusements of laymen--laymen, often, of gaiety and fashion, if nothing
more--had led to serious irregularities in discipline; that the frequent
intervals without mass, or any other religious service or priestly
assistance, had had the effect of rendering the laity deficient in the
virtues which religious exercises and sacraments are supposed to
inculcate; that the constant and inevitable practice of secrecy and
concealment had induced a habit of mind savouring of prevarication, if
not of deception, and that in the embarrassing circumstances and among
the harassing surroundings of their lives, clergy as well as laity had
occasionally acted with neither tact nor discretion. No one is more
alive to the sufferings or the injustices endured by English Catholics
in the early part of the seventeenth century, or more admires the
courage and patience shown by many, if not most, of those who bore them,
than myself; and it is only in fairness to those sufferers, and with a
desire to look at their actions honestly, and, as much as may be,
impartially, that I approach the subject in this spirit. I have laid the
more emphasis on the dangers of secrecy, be it ever so unavoidable or
enforced, because of their bearing upon a matter which will necessarily
figure largely in the forthcoming pages.
Lady Digby had no sooner been received into the Church than she became
exceedingly anxious for the conversion of her husband, but news now
arrived which made her anxious about him on another account. A messenger
brought the tidings that Sir Everard was very seriously ill in London,
and Lady Digby at once determined to start on the journey of some
forty-five or fifty miles in order to nurse him. Her guests volunteered
to go to him also, and they were able to accomplish the distance, over
the bad roads of that period, much more rapidly than she was.
I will let Father Gerard give an account of his own proceedings with
Digby for himself.[40] "I spoke to him of the uncertainty of life, and
the certainty of misery, not only in this life, but especially in the
next, unless we provided against it; and I showed him that we have here
no abiding city, but must look for one to come. As affliction often
brings sense, so it happened in this case, for we found little
difficulty in gaining his goodwill.
[40] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cliii.
"He prepared himself well for confession after being taught the way; and
when he learnt that I was a priest, he felt no such difficulty in
believing as his wife had done, because he had known similar cases, but
he rather rejoiced at having found a confessor who had experience among
persons of his rank of life, and with whom he could deal at all times
without danger of its being known that he was dealing with a priest.
After his reconciliation he began on his part to be anxious about his
wife, and wished to consult with us how best to bring her to the
Catholic religion. We both smiled at this, but said nothing at the time,
determining to wait till his wife came up to town, that we might witness
how each loving soul would strive to win the other."
When Digby had recovered and had returned to Gothurst with his wife,
they both paid a visit to Father Gerard at the country house, some
distance from their own home, at which he lived as chaplain. This was
probably Mrs Vaux's house at Stoke Pogis, of which we shall have
something to say a little later. While there, he was taken ill even more
seriously than before. His life became in danger, and the best doctors
in Oxford were sent for to his assistance. They despaired of curing him,
and "he began to prepare himself earnestly for a good death." His poor
young wife, being told that her husband could not recover, began "to
think of a more perfect way of life," in case she should be left a
widow. It may be thought that she might at least have waited to do this
until after the death of her husband, but it is possible, and even
probable, although not mentioned by Father Gerard, that Sir Everard
himself desired her to consider what manner of life she would lead when
he should be gone. She would be a very young widow with a large
property, and Sir Everard would doubtless feel anxious as to what would
become of her.[41] "For some days," says Father Gerard, "she gave
herself to learn the method of meditation, and to find out God's will
with regard to her future life, how she might best direct it to his
glory. This was her resolution, but God had otherwise arranged, and for
that time happily."
[41] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cliii.
Gerard himself was, humanly speaking, the means of prolonging Digby's
life, for, in spite of the verdict of the great physicians from Oxford,
that nothing could save him, Father Gerard refused to give up all hope,
and persuaded him to send for a certain doctor of his own acquaintance
from Cambridge. "By this doctor, then, he was cured beyond all
expectation, and so completely restored to health that there was not a
more robust or stalwart man in a thousand."
Not very long after he had become a Catholic, Digby was roughly reminded
of the illegality of his position, by a rumour that his friend, Father
Gerard, who had gone to a house to visit, as a priest, a person who was
dying, was either on the point of being, or was actually, in the hands
of pursuivants. This news distressed him terribly. He immediately told
his wife that, if Father Gerard were arrested, he intended to take a
sufficient number of friends and servants to rescue him, and to watch
the roads by which he would probably be taken to London; and that "he
would accomplish" his "release one way or another, even though he should
spend his whole fortune in the venture." The danger of such an attempt
at that period was obvious. Certainly his desire to set free Father
Gerard was most praiseworthy, but whether, had he attempted it in the
way he proposed, he would have benefitted or injured the Catholic cause
in England, may be considered at least doubtful. A rescue by an armed
force would have meant a free fight, probably accompanied by some
bloodshed, with this result, that, if successful, the perpetrators would
most likely have been discovered, and sooner or later very severely
dealt with as aggressors against the officers of the law in the
execution of their duty, and that, if unsuccessful, the greater
proportion of the rescuing party would have met their deaths either on
the field at the time, or on the gallows afterwards. To attempt force
against the whole armed power of the Crown seemed a very Quixotic
undertaking, and the idea of dispersing the whole of his wealth, whether
in the shape of armed force or other channels, in a chimerical effort to
set free his friend, however generous in intent, scarcely recommends
itself as the best method of using it for the good of the cause he had
so much at heart. This incident shows Digby's hastiness and
impetuosity. Fortunately, the report of Father Gerard's arrest turned
out to be false; so, for the moment, any excited and unwise action on
Sir Everard's part was avoided.
CHAPTER III.
A change of religion causes, to most of those who make it, a very
forcible wrench. It may be, probably it usually is, accompanied by great
happiness and a sensation of intense relief; no regrets whatever may be
felt that the former faith, with its ministers, ceremonies, and churches
have been renounced for ever; on the contrary, the convert may be
delighted to be rid of them, and in turning his back upon the religion
of his childhood, he may feel that he is dismissing a false teacher who
has deceived him, rather than that he is bidding farewell to a guide who
has conducted him, however unintentionally, unwittingly, or unwillingly,
to the gate of safety. Yet granting, and most emphatically granting, all
this, we should not forget that there is another view of his position.
Let his rejoicing be ever so great at entering that portal and leaving
the land of darkness for the regions of light, be the welcome he
receives from his future co-religionists as warm as it may, and be his
confidence as great as is conceivable, the convert is none the less
forsaking a well-known country for one that is new to him, he is
leaving old friends to enter among strangers, and he is exchanging
long-formed habits for practices which it will take him some time to
understand, to acquire, and to familiarize.
A convert, again, is not invariably free from dangers. Let us take the
case of Sir Everard Digby. A man with his position, popularity, wealth,
intellect, and influence, was a convert of considerable importance from
a human point of view, and he must have known it. If he lost money and
friends by his conversion, much and many remained to him, and among the
comparatively small number of Catholics he might become a more leading
man than as a unit in the vast crowd professing his former faith; and
although, on the whole, the step which he had taken was calculated to be
much against his advancement in life, there are certain attractions in
being the principal or one of the principal men of influence in a
considerable minority. I am not for a moment questioning Digby's motives
in becoming a Catholic; I believe they were quite unexceptionable; all
that I am at the moment aiming at is to induce the reader to keep before
his mind that the position of an influential English convert, at the
beginning of the seventeenth century, like most other positions, had its
own special temptations and dangers, and my reasons for this aim will
soon become obvious.
In comparing the situation of a convert to Catholicism in the latter
days of Elizabeth or the early days of James I., with one in the reign
of Victoria, we are met on the threshold with the fact that terrible
bodily pains, and even death itself, threatened the former, while the
latter is exposed to no danger of either for his religion. In the matter
of legal fines and forfeitures, again, the persecution of the first was
enormous, whereas the second suffers none. But of these pains and
penalties I shall treat presently. Just in passing I may remark that
many a convert now living has reason for doubting whether any of his
forerunners in the times of Elizabeth or James I. suffered more
pecuniary loss than he. One parent or uncle, by altering a will, can
cause a Romish recusant more loss than a whole army of pursuivants.
Looking at the positions of converts at the two periods from a social
point of view, we find very different conditions. Instead of being
regarded, as he is now, in the light of a fool who, in an age of light,
reason, and emancipation from error, has wilfully retrograded into the
grossest of all forms of superstition, the convert, in the reigns of
Elizabeth and James, was known to be returning to the faith professed by
his fathers, one, two, or, at most, three generations before him. It was
not then considered a case of "turning Roman Catholic," but of returning
to the old religion, and even by people who cared little, if at all,
about such matters, he was rather respected than otherwise.
Now it is different. During the two last generations, so many
conversions have apparently been the result of what is known as the
Oxford Movement, or of Ritualism, that converts are much associated in
men's minds with ex-clergymen, or with clerical families; and to tell
the truth, at least a considerable minority of Anglicans of good
position, while they tolerate, invite to dinner, and patronise their
parsons, in their inmost hearts look down upon and rather dislike the
clergy and the clergy-begotten.
At present, again, a prejudice is felt in England against an old
Catholic, _prima facie_, on the ground that he is probably either an
Irishman, of Irish extraction, or of an ancient Catholic English family
rendered effete by idleness, owing to religious disabilities, or by a
long succession of intermarriages. It would be easy to prove that these
prejudices, if not altogether without foundation in fact, are immensely
and unwarrantably exaggerated, but my object, at present, is merely to
state that they exist. Three hundred years ago, whatever may have been
the prejudices against Catholics, old or new, they cannot have arisen on
such grounds as these, and if Protestants attributed the tenacity of the
former and the determined return of the latter to their ancient faith
rather to pride than to piety, there is no doubt which motive would be
most respected in the fashionable world.
The conduct of the Digbys, immediately after their conversion, was most
exemplary. They threw themselves heart and soul into their religion,
and Father Gerard, who had received them into the Church, writes[42] of
Sir Everard in the highest terms, saying:--"He was so studious a
follower of virtue, after he became a Catholic, that he gave great
comfort to those that had the guiding of his soul (as I have heard them
seriously affirm more than once or twice), he used his prayers daily
both mental and vocal, and daily and diligent examination of his
conscience: the sacraments he frequented devoutly every week, &c."
"Briefly I have heard it reported of this knight, by those that knew him
well and that were often in his company, that they did note in him a
special care of avoiding all occasions of sin and of furthering acts of
virtue in what he could."
[42] _A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 89.
He read a good deal in order to be able to enter into controversy with
Protestants, and he was the means of bringing several into the
Church--"some of great account and place." As to his conversation, "not
only in this highest kind, wherein he took very great joy and comfort,
but also in ordinary talk, when he had observed that the speech did tend
to any evil, as detraction or other kind of evil words which sometimes
will happen in company, his custom was presently to take some occasion
to alter the talk, and cunningly to bring in some other good matter or
profitable subject to talk of. And this, when the matter was not very
grossly evil, or spoken to the dishonour of God or disgrace of his
servants; for then, his zeal and courage were such that he could not
bear it, but would publicly and stoutly contradict it, whereof I could
give divers instances worth relating, but am loth to hold the reader
longer." Finally, in speaking of those "that knew him" and those "that
loved him," Father Gerard says, "truly it was hard to do the one and not
the other."
Like most Catholics living in the country, and inhabiting houses of any
size, the Digbys made a chapel in their home, "a chapel with a
sacristy," says Father Gerard,[43] "furnishing it with costly and
beautiful vestments;" and they "obtained a Priest of the Society" (of
Jesus) "for their chaplain, who remained with them to Sir Everard's
death." Of this priest, Gerard says[44] that he was a man "who for
virtue and learning hath not many his betters in England." This was
probably Father Strange,[45] who usually passed under the _alias_ of
Hungerford. He was the owner of a property, some of which, in
Gloucestershire, he sold,[46] and "L2000 thereof is in the Jesuites'
bank" said a witness against him. He was imprisoned, after Sir Everard
Digby's death, for five or six years.[47] In an underground dungeon in
the Tower[48] "he was so severely tortured upon the rack that he dragged
on the rest of his life for thirty-three years in the extremest
debility, with severe pains in the loins and head." Once when he was in
agony upon the rack, a Protestant minister began to argue with him about
religion; whereupon, turning to the rack-master, Father Strange[49]
"asked him to hoist the minister upon a similar rack, and in like
fetters and tortures, otherwise, said he, we shall be fighting upon
unequal terms; for the custom everywhere prevails amongst scholars that
the condition of the disputants be equal."
[43] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clv.
[44] _A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 89.
[45] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, by Father Pollen, p.
15.
[46] _Records of the English Province._ S.J. Series, ix. x. xi., p.
3.
[47] _Ib._, p. 5, and Stoneyhurst MSS.
[48] _Ib._, p. 3.
[49] _Ib._, p. 4.
Another Jesuit Father, at one time private chaplain to Sir Everard
Digby, was Father John Percy,[50] who afterwards, under the _alias_ of
Fisher, held the famous controversy with Archbishop Laud in the presence
of the king and the Countess of Buckingham, to whom he acted as chaplain
for ten years. He also had been fearfully tortured in prison, in the
reign of Elizabeth; and if he recounted his experiences on the rack to
Sir Everard Digby, the hot blood of the latter would be stirred up
against the Protestant Governments that could perpetrate or tolerate
such iniquities.
[50] _Records_, S.J. Series, i., p. 527.
In trying to picture to himself the "chapel with a sacristy" made by the
Digbys at Gothurst, a romantic reader may imagine an ecclesiastical
gem, in the form of a richly-decorated chamber filled with sacred
pictures, figures of saints, crucifixes, candles, and miniature shrines.
Before taking the trouble of raising any such representation before the
mind, it would be well to remember that, in the times of which we are
treating, that was the most perfect and the best arranged chapel in
which the altar, cross, chalice, vestments, &c., could be concealed at
the shortest possible notice, and the chamber itself most quickly made
to look like an ordinary room. The altar was on such occasions a small
slab of stone, a few inches in length and breadth, and considerably less
than an inch in thickness. It was generally laid upon the projecting
shelf of a piece of furniture, which, when closed, had the appearance of
a cabinet. Some few remains of altars and other pieces of "massing
stuff," as Protestants called it, of that date still remain, as also do
many simple specimens used in France during the Revolution of last
century, which have much in common with them. To demonstrate the small
space in which the ecclesiastical contents of a private chapel could be
hidden away in times of persecution, I may say that, even now, for
priests who have the privilege of saying mass elsewhere than in churches
or regular chapels--for instance, in private rooms, on board ship,[51]
or in the ward of a hospital--altar, chalice, paten, cruets,
altar-cloths, lavabo, alb, amice, girdle, candlesticks, crucifix,
wafer-boxes, wine-flask, Missal, Missal-stand, bell, holy-oil stocks,
pyx, and a set of red and white vestments (reversible)--in fact,
everything necessary for saying mass, as well as for administering
extreme unction to the sick, can be carried in a case 18 inches in
length, 12 inches in width, and 8 inches in depth. Occasionally, as we
are told of the Digbys, rich people may have had some handsome
vestments; but a private chapel early in the sixteenth century must have
been a very different thing from what we associate with the term in our
own times, and however well furnished it may have been as a room, it
must have been almost devoid of "ecclesiastical luxury."
[51] In his _Mores Catholici_ (Cincinnati, 1841, Vol. II. p. 364),
Kenelm H. Digby says that "Portable altars were in use long before
the eleventh century. St Wulfran, Bishop of Sens, passing the sea in
a ship, is said to have celebrated the sacred mysteries upon a
portable altar."
Here and there were exceptions, in which Catholics were very bold, but
they always got into trouble. For instance, when Luisa de Carvajal came
to England, she was received at a country house--possibly Scotney
Castle, on the borders of Kent and Sussex--the chapel of which[52] "was
adorned with pictures and images, and enriched with many relics. Several
masses were said in it every day, and accompanied by beautiful vocal and
instrumental music." It was "adorned not only with all the requisites,
but all the luxuries, so to speak, of Catholic worship;" and Luisa could
walk "on a spring morning in a pleached alley, saying her beads, within
hearing of the harmonious sounds of holy music floating in the balmy
air." What was the consequence? "The beautiful dream was rudely
dispelled. One night, after she had been at this place about a month, a
secret warning was given to the master of this hospitable mansion, that
he had been denounced as a harbourer of priests, and that the
pursuivants would invade his house on the morrow. On the receipt of this
information, measures were immediately taken to hide all traces of
Catholic worship, and a general dispersion took place." I only give this
as a typical case to show how necessary it then was to make chapels and
Catholic worship as secret as possible.
[52] _The Life of Luisa de Carvajal_, by Lady G. Fullerton, p. 154,
_seq._
Sir Everard Digby was anxious that others, as well as himself, should
join the body which he believed to be the one, true, and only Church of
God, and of this I have nothing to say except in praise. An anecdote of
his efforts in this direction, however, is interesting as showing, not
only the necessities of the times, but also something of the character
and disposition of the man. In studying a man's life, there may be a
danger of building too much upon his actions, as if they proved his
inclinations, when they were in reality only the result of exceptional
circumstances, and I have no wish to force the inferences, which I
myself draw from the following facts, upon the opinions of other
people; I merely submit them for what they are worth.
Father Gerard says[53] that Sir Everard "had a friend for whom he felt a
peculiar affection," namely, Oliver Manners, the fourth son of John,
fourth Earl of Rutland, and said by Father J. Morris[54] to have been
knighted by King James I. "on his coming from Scotland," on April 22nd,
1603, but by Burke,[55] "at Belvoir Castle, 23rd April 1608." He was
very anxious that this friend should be converted to the Catholic faith,
and that, to this end, he should make the acquaintance of Father Gerard;
"but because he held an office in the Court, requiring his daily
attendance about the King's person, so that he could not be absent for
long together," this "desire was long delayed." At last Sir Everard met
Manners in London at a time when he knew that Father Gerard was there
also, "and he took an opportunity of asking him to come at a certain
time to play at cards, for these are the books gentlemen in London study
both night and day." Instead of inviting a card-party, Digby invited no
one except Father Gerard, and when Manners arrived, he found Gerard and
Digby "sitting and conversing very seriously." The latter asked him "to
sit down a little until the rest should arrive." After a short silence
Sir Everard said:--
[53] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clxvi. _seq._
[54] _Ib._, footnote to p. cciii.
[55] _Peerage_, 1886, p. 1173.
"We two were engaged in a very serious conversation, in fact, concerning
religion. You know that I am friendly to Catholics and to the Catholic
faith; I was, nevertheless, disputing with this gentleman, who is a
friend of mine, against the Catholic faith, in order to see what defence
he could make, for he is an earnest Catholic, as I do not hesitate to
tell you." At this he turned to Father Gerard and begged him not to be
angry with him for betraying the fact of his being a Romish recusant to
a stranger; then he said to Manners, "And I must say he so well defended
the Catholic faith that I could not answer him, and I am glad you have
come to help me."
Manners "was young and confident, and trusting his own great abilities,
expected to carry everything before him, so good was his cause and so
lightly did he esteem" his opponent, "as he afterwards confessed." After
an hour's sharp argument and retort on either side, Father Gerard began
to explain the Catholic faith more fully, and to confirm it with texts
of Scripture, and passages from the Fathers.
Manners listened in silence, and "before he left he was fully resolved
to become a Catholic, and took with him a book to assist him in
preparing for a good confession, which he made before a week had
passed." He became an excellent and exemplary Christian, and his life
would make an interesting and edifying volume.
All honour to Sir Everard Digby for having been the human medium of
bringing about this most happy and blessed conversion! It might have
been difficult to accomplish it by any other method. In those days of
persecution, stratagem was absolutely necessary to Catholics for their
safety sake, even in everyday life, and still more so in evangelism. As
to the particular stratagem used by Digby in this instance, I do not go
so far as to say that it was blame-worthy; I have often read of it
without mentally criticising it; I have even regarded it with some
degree of admiration; but, now that I am attempting a study of Sir
Everard Digby's character, and seeking for symptoms of it in every
detail that I can discover of his words and actions, I ask myself
whether, in all its innocence, his conduct on this occasion did not
exhibit traces of a natural inclination to plot and intrigue. Could he
have induced Manners to come to his rooms by no other attraction than a
game of cards, which he had no intention of playing? Was it necessary on
his arrival there to ask him to await that of guests who were not
coming, and had never been invited? Was he obliged, in the presence of
so intimate a friend, to pretend to be only well-disposed towards
Catholics instead of owning himself to be one of them? Need he have put
himself to the trouble of apologising to Father Gerard for revealing
that he was a Catholic? In religious, as in all other matters, there are
cases in which artifice may be harmless or desirable, or even a duty,
but a thoroughly straightforward man will shrink from the "pious dodge"
as much as the kind-hearted surgeon will shrink from the use of the
knife or the cautery.
Necessary as they may have been, nay, necessary as they undoubtedly
were, the planning, and disguising, and hiding, and intriguing used as
means for bringing about the conversions of Lady Digby, Sir Everard
Digby, and Oliver Manners, though innocent in themselves, placed those
concerned in them in that atmosphere of romance, adventure, excitement,
and even sentiment, which I have before described, and it is obvious
that such an atmosphere is not without its peculiar perils.
It is certainly very comfortable to be able to preach undisturbed, to
convert heretics openly, and to worship in the churches of the King and
the Government; yet even in religion, to some slight degree, the words
of a certain very wise man may occasionally be true, that[56] "stolen
waters are sweeter, and hidden bread is more pleasant." Nothing is more
excellent than missionary work; but it is a fact that proselytism, when
conducted under difficulties and dangers, whether it be under the
standard of truth or under the standard of error, is not without some of
the elements of sport; at any rate, if it be true, as enthusiasts have
been heard to assert, that even the hunted fox is a partaker in the
pleasures of the chase, the Jesuits had every opportunity of enjoying
them during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.
[56] Proverbs ix. 17.
Besides a consideration of the personal characteristics of Sir Everard
Digby, and the position of converts to Catholicism in his times, it will
be necessary to take a wider view of the political, social, and
religious events of his period. Otherwise we should be unable to form
anything like a fair judgment either of his own conduct, or of the
treatment which he received from others.
The oppression and persecution of Catholics by Queen Elizabeth and her
ministers was extreme. It was made death to be a priest, death to
receive absolution from a priest, death to harbour a priest, death even
to give food or help of any sort to a priest, and death to persuade
anyone to become a Catholic. Very many priests and many laymen were
martyred, more were tortured, yet more suffered severe temporal losses.
And, what was most cruel of all, while Statutes were passed with a view
to making life unendurable for Catholics in England itself, English
Catholics were forbidden to go, or to send their children, beyond the
seas without special leave.
The actual date of the Digbys' reception into the Catholic Church is a
matter of some doubt. It probably took place before the death of
Elizabeth. That was a time when English Catholics were considering their
future with the greatest anxiety. Politics entered largely into the
question, and where politics include, as they did then, at any rate, in
many men's minds, some doubts as to the succession to the crown,
intrigue and conspiracy were pretty certain to be practised.
CHAPTER IV.
The responsibility of the intrigues in respect to the claims to the
English throne, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, rests to
some extent upon Queen Elizabeth herself. As Mr Gardiner puts it:--[57]
"She was determined that in her lifetime no one should be able to call
himself her heir." It was generally understood that James would succeed
to the throne; but, so long as there was the slightest uncertainty on
the question, it was but natural that the Catholics should be anxious
that a monarch should be crowned who would favour, or at least tolerate
them, and that they should make inquiries, and converse eagerly, about
every possible claimant to the throne. Fears of foreign invasion and
domestic plotting were seriously entertained in England during the
latter days of Elizabeth, as well as immediately after her death.
"Wealthy men had brought in their plate and treasure from the country,
and had put them in places of safety. Ships of war had been stationed in
the Straits of Dover to guard against a foreign invasion, and some of
the principal recusants had, as a matter of precaution, been committed
to safe custody."[58]
[57] _History of England_, from the Accession of James I. to the
outbreak of the Civil War, 1603-1642, Vol. i. p. 79.
[58] Gardiner's _History of England_, Vol. i. p. 85.
When James VI. of Scotland, the son of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots,
ascended the throne, rendered vacant by the death of Elizabeth, as James
I. of England, no voice was raised in favour of any other claimant,
and[59] "the Catholics, flattered by the reports of their agents, hailed
with joy the succession of a prince who was said to have promised the
toleration of their worship, in return for the attachment which they had
so often displayed for the house of Stuart." King James owed toleration,
says Lingard, "to their sufferings in the cause of his unfortunate
mother;" and "he had bound himself to it, by promises to their envoys,
and to the princes of their communion."
[59] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
The opinion that the new king would upset and even reverse the
anti-Catholic legislation of Elizabeth was not confined to the Catholic
body: many Protestants had taken alarm on this very score, as may be
inferred from a contemporary tract, entitled[60]_Advertisements of a
loyal subject to his gracious Sovereign, drawn from the Observation of
the People's Speeches_, in which the following passage occurs:--"The
plebes, I wotte not what they call them, but some there bee who most
unnaturally and unreverentlie, by most egregious lies, wound the honour
of our deceased soveraigne, not onlie touching her government and good
fame, but her person with sundry untruthes," and after going on in this
strain for some lines it adds:--"Suerlie these slanders be the doings of
the papists, ayming thereby at the deformation of the gospell." [61] On
the other hand, there were both Catholics and Puritans who were
distrustful of James. Sir Everard cannot have been long a Catholic, when
a dangerous conspiracy was on foot. Sir Griffin Markham, a Catholic, and
George Brooke, a Protestant, and a brother of Lord Cobham's, hatched the
well-known plot which was denominated "the Bye," and, among many others
who joined it, were two priests, Watson and Clarke, both of whom were
eventually executed on that account. Its object appears to have been to
seize the king's person, and wring from him guarantees of toleration for
both Puritans and Catholics. Father Gerard acquired some knowledge of
this conspiracy, as also did Father Garnet, the Provincial of the
Jesuits, and Blackwell, the Archpriest; and they insisted upon the
information being laid instantly before the Government. Before they had
time to carry out their intention, however, it had already been
communicated, and the complete failure of the attempt is notorious. The
result was to injure the causes of both the Catholics and the Puritans,
and James never afterwards trusted the professions of either.
[60] Somers Tracts, Vol. ii. p. 147. From the Cotton Library,
Faustina, c. 11, 12, fol. 61.
[61] "James was an alien." "Supposing that on such principles King
James was rejected, who would come next? The Lady Arabella Stuart,
descended from Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. in the same manner
as King James, save that her father was a second son, and King
James's father was the eldest. But she had the fact of her birth and
domiciliation within the kingdom of England as a counter-poise to
her father's want of primogeniture." "Without openly professing
Roman Catholicism, she was thought to be inclined that way, and to
be certainly willing to make favourable terms with the Roman
Catholics." Introduction by J. Bruce to _Correspondence of King
James VI. of Scotland with Cecil and others_.
So far as the Catholics were concerned, the "Bye" conspiracy
unfortunately revealed another; for Father Watson, in a written
confession which he made in prison, brought accusations of disloyalty
against the Jesuits. It was quite true that, two years earlier, Catesby,
Tresham, and Winter--all friends of Sir Everard Digby's--had endeavoured
to induce Philip of Spain to invade England, and had asked Father Garnet
to give them his sanction in so doing; but Garnet had "misliked it," and
had told them that it would be as much "disliked at Rome."[62]
[62] Dodds' _Church History of England_, Vol. iv. p. 8. Tierney's
Notes.
Winter had arranged that if Queen Elizabeth should die before the
invasion, the news should be at once sent to the Spanish court. For this
purpose, a Yorkshire gentleman, named Christopher Wright, and one Guy,
or Guido, Faukes, or Fawkes, "a soldier of fortune," of whom we shall
have more to say by-and-bye, were sent to the Court of Spain in
1603. Although Father Garnet disapproved of the plan, he had given
Wright a letter of introduction to a Jesuit at the Spanish Court.
Neither Wright nor Fawkes were able to rouse King Philip, who said that
he had no quarrel with his English brother, and that he had just
appointed an ambassador to the Court of St James's to arrange the terms
of a lasting peace with the English nation. Knowing something of this,
Father Watson used it as an instrument of revenge against the Jesuits,
who, he knew, had intended to warn King James against his own attempt to
entrap him.[63] "It is well known to all the world," he wrote, "how the
Jesuits and Spanish faction had continually, by word, writing, and
action, sought his majesty's destruction, with the setting up of another
prince and sovereign over us; yea, and although it should be revealed
what practises they had, even in this interim betwixt the proclaiming
and crowning of his majesty." And then he enumerated some of these
"practises," among others, "levying 40,000 men to be in a readiness for
the Spaniard or Archduke; by buying up all the great horses, as Gerard
doth; by sending down powder and shot into Staffordshire and other
places, with warning unto Catholics to be in a readiness; by collection
of money under divers pretences, to the value of a million;" "by
affirming that none might yield to live under an heretic (as they
continually termed his majesty);" "and by open speech that the king and
all his royal issue must be cut off and put to death." In making these
bitter and, for the most part, untrue accusations against the Jesuits,
he complained that he was "accounted for no better than an infidel,
apostate, or atheist, by the jesuitical faction," and that he was never
likely "to receive any favour" from his majesty "so long as any Jesuit
or Spaniard" remained "alive within this land."
[63] Dodds' _Church History of England_, Appendix i. p. xxxv.
Undoubtedly, during the cruel persecutions of Elizabeth, Jesuits, as
well as secular priests, and Catholic laymen too, for that matter, had
hoped that her successor on the English throne might be of their own
religion; they had good cause for doing so; the Pope himself had urged
the enthronement of a Catholic monarch for their country, and in
fairness, it must be admitted that not a few Englishmen, who considered
themselves royalist above all others, had at one time refused to regard
Elizabeth herself as the legitimate possessor of the British crown; but,
when James had been established upon the throne, with the exception of a
few discontents, such as the conspirators in the "Bye" plot and the
diminutive Spanish party, the English Catholics, both lay and clerical,
acknowledged him as their rightful king. Pope Clement VIII.[64]
"commanded the missionaries" in England "to confine themselves to their
spiritual duties, and to discourage, by all means in their power, every
attempt to disturb the tranquillity of the realm;" he also ordered "the
nuncio at Paris to assure James of the abhorrence with which he viewed
all acts of disloyalty," and he despatched "a secret messenger to the
English Court with an offer to withdraw from the kingdom any missionary
who might be an object of suspicion to the Council."
[64] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
Unfortunately, the discovery of the two conspiracies above mentioned, in
which Catholics were implicated, weighed more with James than any
assurances of goodwill from the Pope or his emissaries. Had not Watson
given King's evidence? Had not foreign invasion been implored by
Catholics? Had they not intended "the Lady Arabella" as a substitute for
his own Royal Majesty upon the throne? And had they not treasonably
united with their extreme opposites, the Puritans, in a design to
capture his precious person, with a view to squeezing concessions out of
him, if not to putting him to death? To some extent he did indeed
endeavour to conciliate the higher classes among his Catholic subjects,
by inviting them to court, by conferring upon them the honour--such as
it was--of knighthood, as in the case of Sir Everard Digby, and by
promising to protect them from the penalties of recusancy, so long as by
their loyalty and peaceable behaviour they should show themselves worthy
of his favour and his confidence, but he absolutely and abruptly
refused all requests for toleration of their religious worship, and more
than once, he even committed to the Tower Catholics who had the
presumption to ask for it.
The times were most trying to a recent convert like Sir Everard Digby. I
will again quote Lingard[65] to show how faithless was James to the
promises he had made of relief to his Catholic subjects:--"The
oppressive and sanguinary code framed in the reign of Elizabeth was
re-enacted to its full extent; it was even improved with additional
severities."
[65] Vol. vii. chap. i.
And then, after describing the severe penalties inflicted upon those who
sent children "beyond the seas, to the intent that" they "should reside
or be educated in a Catholic college or seminary," as well as upon "the
owners or masters of ships who" conveyed them, and adding that "every
individual who had already resided or studied, or should hereafter
reside or study in any such college or seminary, was rendered incapable
of inheriting or purchasing or enjoying lands, annuities, chattels,
debts, or sums of money within the realm, unless at his return to
England, he should conform to the Established Church, he
says:--"Moreover, as missionaries sometimes eluded detection under the
disguise of tutors in gentlemen's houses, it was provided that no man
should teach even the rudiments of grammar without a license of the
diocesan, under the penalty of forty shillings per day, to be levied on
the tutor himself, and the same sum on his employer."
And again, when James had been a year on the throne, the execution of
the penal laws enabled the king "... to derive considerable profit,"
says Lingard.[66] "The legal fine of L20 per lunar month was again
demanded; and not only for the time to come, but for the whole period of
the suspension; a demand which, by crowding thirteen separate payments
into one of L260, exhausted the whole annual income of men in
respectable but moderate circumstances. Nor was this all. By law, the
least default in these payments subjected the recusant to the forfeiture
of all his goods and chattels, and of two-thirds of his lands,
tenements, hereditaments, farms, and leases. The execution of this
severe punishment was intrusted to the judges at the assizes, the
magistrates at the sessions, and the commissioners for causes
ecclesiastical at their meetings. By them warrants of distress were
issued to constables and pursuivants; all the cattle on the lands of the
delinquent, his household furniture, and his wearing apparel, were
seized and sold; and if, on some pretext or other, he was not thrown
into prison, he found himself and family left without a change of
apparel or a bed to lie upon, unless he had been enabled by the charity
of his friends to redeem them after the sale, or to purchase with
bribes the forbearance of the officers. Within six months the payment
was again demanded, and the same pauperizing process repeated."
[66] Vol. vii. chap. i.
It may be only fair to say, however, that Mr Gardiner thinks Lingard was
guilty of exaggeration on one point; for he says[67] "the L20 men were
never called upon for arrears, and, as far as I have been able to trace
the names, the forfeitures of goods and chattels were only demanded from
those from whom no lands had been seized."
[67] _History of England_, 1603-42, Vol. i. p. 329, footnote.
A letter in Father Garnet's handwriting to Father Persons on these
topics should have a special interest for us, as it was pretty certainly
written at Gothurst, where he seems to have been staying at the time it
is dated, October 4 and 21, 1605. It says[68]:--"The courses taken are
more severe than in Bess's time.... If any recusant buy his goods again,
they inquire diligently if the money be his own: otherwise they would
have that too. In fine, if these courses hold, every man must be fain to
redeem, once in six months, the very bed he lieth on: and hereof, of
twice redeeming, besides other precedents, I find one here in Nicolas,
his lodging," _i.e._, in the house of Sir Everard Digby. "The judges now
openly protest that the king will have blood, and hath taken blood in
Yorkshire; and that the king hath hitherto stroked papists, but now will
strike:--and this is without any desert of Catholics. The execution of
two in the north is certain:"--three persons, Welbourn and Fulthering at
York, and Brown at Ripon, had in fact been executed in Yorkshire that
year for recusancy.[69] Father Garnet continues:--"and whereas it was
done upon cold blood, that is, with so great stay after their
condemnation, it argueth a deliberate resolution of what we may expect:
so that you may see there is no hope that Paul," _i.e._ Pope Paul V.,
"can do anything; and whatsoever men give out there, of easy proceedings
with Catholics, is mere fabulous. And yet, notwithstanding, I am assured
that the best sort of Catholics will bear all their losses with
patience: but how these tyrannical proceedings of such base officers may
drive particular men to desperate attempts, that I cannot answer
for;--the king's wisdom will foresee."
[68] I quote from _Dodd and Tierney_, Vol. iv., Appendix xvi., p.
ciii.
[69] Challoner, ii. 12, 13.
Mr Gardiner, in noticing the fines levied on recusants, mentions[70] one
point in connection with them which would be peculiarly vexatious to a
man of Sir Everard Digby's temperament and position. "The Catholics must
have been especially aggrieved by the knowledge that much of the money
thus raised went into the pockets of courtiers. For instance, the
profits of the lands of two recusants were granted to a foot-man, and
this was by no means an isolated case."
[70] _History of England_, 1603-42, Vol i. p. 230.
Sir Everard Digby's great friend, Father Gerard, also testifies at
great length to the persecutions under Elizabeth and James.[71] Father
Southwell was put "nine times most cruelly upon the torture," and the
law against the Catholics "put to cruel death many and worthy persons,"
and "many persons of great families and estimation were at several times
put to death under pretence of treason, which also was their cloak to
cover their cruelties against such priests and religious as were sent
into England by authority from His Holiness to teach and preach the
faith of Christ, and to minister his sacraments."
[71] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 16. _seq._
Again, "their torturing of men when they were taken to make them confess
their acquaintance and relievers, was more terrible than death by much,
&c." "Besides the spoiling and robbing laymen of their livings and
goods, with which they should maintain their families, is to many more
grievous than death would be, when those that have lived in good estate
and countenance in their country shall see before them their whole life
to be led in misery, and not only themselves, but their wives and
children to go a-begging." "And to these the continual and cruel
searches, which I have found to be more terrible than taking itself. The
insolencies and abuses offered in them, and in the seizures of goods,
the continual awe and fear that men are kept in by the daily expectance
of these things, while every malicious man (of which heresy can want no
plenty) is made an officer in these affairs, and every officer a king
as it were, to command and insult upon Catholics at their pleasure." It
may be readily imagined how the writer of all this would discuss this
bad state of affairs with Sir Everard at Gothurst.
I have no wish to exaggerate the sufferings endured by Catholics during
the reigns of Elizabeth and the early Stuarts. I willingly admit that in
many cases the legal penalties were not enforced against them, nay, I
would go further and frankly remind my Catholic readers--Protestants may
possibly not require to have their memories thus stimulated--that half a
century had not elapsed since Protestants were burned at the stake in
Smithfield for their religion by Catholics. Besides all this, it is
certain that toleration, as we understand it, is a comparatively modern
invention, and that if Mary Queen of Scots had ascended the English
throne, or if it had fallen into the hands of Spain, Protestants in this
country might not have had a very comfortable time of it, especially in
the process of disgorging property taken from the Church, and that,
under certain circumstances, some of them might even have suffered death
for their faith; but, while readily making this admission, I doubt
whether any Catholic government ever attempted to oblige a people to
relinquish a religion, which it had professed for many centuries, with
the persistency and cruelty which the governments of Elizabeth and James
I. exercised in endeavouring to oblige every British subject to reject
the religion of his forefathers. Instances are not wanting of Catholics
dealing out stern measures towards those who introduced a new religion
into a country; this, on the contrary, was a case of punishing those who
refused to adopt a new religion.
Nor was this the only ground on which the persecutions by James appeared
unfair, tyrannical, and odious to Catholics. During the reign of
Elizabeth they had endured their sufferings as the penalties of a
religion contradicting that of their monarch. Perhaps they did not
altogether blame her so much for her persecutions, as for persecuting
the right religion in mistake for the wrong; and, after all, they knew
she had been persuaded by her Council that, for purposes of State, it
was necessary to break off relations with the Apostolic See, and to
maintain the newly-fangled Anglican faith; they knew that the refusal of
Rome to acknowledge her legitimacy, threatened the very foundations of
her throne, and consequently made every Catholic seem a traitor in her
eyes; they knew, too, that the Holy See had favoured Mary Queen of
Scots, whom she had regarded as her most dangerous rival. Under these
circumstances, therefore, while they found their troubles and trials
excessively bitter, they may not have been very profoundly astonished at
them. But when James, after a brief respite, continued and even
increased the persecutions of the previous reign, they looked at the
matter in quite a different light. In the first place, they expected
that the Protestant son of so Catholic a mother, who had suffered
imprisonment and death because she was a Catholic, could scarcely become
the friend and accomplice of those who had betrayed and martyred his
mother. I am not trenching on the question of the martyrdom of Mary
Queen of Scots; I am merely writing of the feeling respecting her death,
prevalent at that time among members of her own religion in this
country. Secondly, unlike Elizabeth, James had no cause for fearing the
Holy See; it never questioned his legitimacy; it had assisted him when
King of Scotland; its adherents in England had almost universally hailed
his accession to the crown with loyalty and rejoicing; and, as I have
already shown, the Pope had sent messages to him, offering to assist in
assuring the allegiance of the Catholics by removing any priests who
might be obnoxious to him.
Even Goodman, the Protestant Bishop of Gloucester, wrote[72]:--"After
Sixtus Quintus succeeded Clement Octavus, a man, according to his name,
who was much given to mercy and compassion. Now to him King James did
make suit to favour his title to the crown of England, which as King
James doth relate in his book, _Triplici nodo triplex cuneus_, the Pope
did promise to do." James said that he would show favour to
Catholics[73] "were it not that the English would take it ill, and it
would much hinder him in his succession; and withall, that his own
subjects in Scotland were so violent against Catholics, that he, being
poor, durst not offend them. Whereupon the Pope replied, that if it were
for want of means, he would exhaust all the treasures of the church and
sell the plate to supply him." And again, says Goodman of the English
Catholics and King James[74]:--"And certainly they had very great
promises from him." Nevertheless,[75] "he did resolve to run a course
against the papists," and "at his discourses at table usually he did
express much hatred to them."
[72] _The Court of King James I._, Vol. i. p. 82 _seq._
[73] _Ib._, p. 83.
[74] _The Court of King James I._, Vol. i. p. 86.
[75] _Ib._ p. 87.
Father Gerard writes that[76] there were "particular embassagies and
letters from His Majesty unto other Princes, giving hope at least of
toleration to Catholics in England, of which letters divers were
translated this year into French and came so into England, as divers
affirmed that had seen them." He was also "well assured that immediately
upon Queen Elizabeth's sickness and death, divers Catholics of note and
fame, Priests also, did ride post into Scotland, as well to carry the
assurance of dutiful affection from all Catholics unto His Majesty as
also to obtain his gracious favour for them and his royal word for
confirmation of the same. At that time, and to those persons, it is
certain he did promise that Catholics should not only be quiet from any
molestations, but should also enjoy such liberty in their houses
privately as themselves would desire, and have both Priests and
Sacraments with full toleration and desired quiet. Both the Priests that
did kneel before him when he gave this promise (binding it with the word
of a Prince, which he said was never yet broken), did protest so much
unto divers from whom I have it. And divers others, persons of great
worth, have assured me the same upon the like promise received from His
Majesty, both for the common state of Catholics and their own
particular."
[76] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 24.
It is dangerous to make too much of evidence against which there may be
the shadow of a suspicion. Father Gerard's personal testimony can be
accepted without the smallest hesitation; but that of Father Watson, who
was probably one of the priests he mentioned who "did kneel before"
James when he made the solemn promise which Father Gerard heard of at
second hand, should be received with more caution. Lord Northampton's
statement in his speech at Sir Everard Digby's trial should certainly
obtain very careful consideration. "No man," said he,[77] "can speak
more soundly to the point than myself; for being sent into the prison by
the King to charge him with this false alarm" (_i.e._, the report that
James had promised toleration to Catholics), "only two days before his
death, and upon his soul to press him in the presence of God, and as he
would answer it at another bar, to confess directly whether at either
or both these times he had access unto his Majesty at Edinburgh, his
Majesty did give him any promise, hope, or comfort of encouragement to
Catholics concerning toleration; he did there protest upon his soul that
he could never win one inch of ground or draw the smallest comfort from
the King in those degrees, nor further than that he would have them
apprehend, that as he was a stranger to this state, so, till he
understood in all points how those matters stood, he would not promise
favour any way; but did protest that all the crowns and kingdoms in this
world should not induce him to change any jot of his profession, which
was the pasture of his soul and earnest of his eternal inheritance. He
did confess that in very deed, to keep up the hearts of Catholics in
love and duty to the King, he had imparted the King's words to many, in
a better tune and a higher kind of descant than his book of plainsong
did direct, because he knew that others, like sly bargemen, looked that
way when their stroke was bent another way. For this he craved pardon of
the King in humble manner, and for his main treasons, of a higher nature
than these figures of hypocrisy, and seemed penitent, as well for the
horror of his crime as for the falsehood of his whisperings."
[77] _Criminal Trials_, Jardine, Vol. ii. p. 177.
Probably Northampton may have exaggerated, possibly he may have lied, in
making this statement; but there is this to be remembered, that owing to
his false testimony against the Jesuits, already recorded in this
chapter, Father Watson must be regarded as a somewhat discredited
witness, and it will not do for us Catholics to accept his verbal
evidence against King James, and then to turn round and repudiate the
evidence against the Jesuits in his own handwriting,[78] without some
very strong reason for so doing. A reason of a certain strength does
indeed exist; for Watson's evidence against James was given freely and
uninterestedly; whereas his evidence against the Jesuits may very
probably have been offered in the hope that it might be accepted as the
price of pardon, or at least of some mitigation of the awful sufferings
included in the form of death to which he had been sentenced.
[78] Quoted above. I copied from Dodd; but the original may be found
in the S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. iii. n. 16.
Even if we altogether discard Watson's evidence of James's promises,
enough remains to satisfy my own mind that the new king had given the
Catholics more or less hope of toleration; and, if I am too easily
satisfied on this point, there can be no sort of question that Sir
Everard Digby, who was often with Father Gerard, and that many other
English Catholics had been assured, rightly or wrongly, and believed,
wrongly or rightly, that King James had solemnly promised to give them
immunity from persecution, if not freedom of worship, and that he had
basely and treacherously broken his faith with them and sold them for
the price of popularity among his far more numerous Protestant subjects:
who, then, can blame them for considering themselves to have been most
unjustly, perfidiously, and infamously treated by that monarch?
It may be worth while to quote here again from Goodman, the Protestant
Bishop of Gloucester, respecting the persecutions of the Catholics in
the reign of James.[79] "Now that they saw the times settled, having no
hope of better days, but expecting that the uttermost rigour of the law
should be executed, they became desperate; finding that by the laws of
the kingdom their own lives were not secured, and for the coming over of
a priest into England it was no less than high treason. A gentlewoman
was hanged only for relieving and harbouring a priest; a citizen was
hanged only for being reconciled to the Church of Rome: besides, the
penal laws were such and so executed that they should not subsist:--what
was usually sold in shops and openly bought, this the pursuivant would
take away from them as being popish and superstitious. One knight did
affirm that in one term he gave twenty nobles in rewards to the
doorkeeper of the attorney-general; another did affirm, that his third
part which remained to him of his estate did hardly serve for his
expense in law to defend him from other oppressions, besides their
children to be taken from home to be brought up in another religion. So
they did every way conclude that their estate was desperate, etc." If
objection should be taken to Goodman as a witness on the Protestant
side, on the ground that he eventually became a Catholic, I would reply
that, at the time he wrote what I have quoted, he was, as the editor of
his _Court of James the First_ says,[80] "an earnest and zealous
supporter of the Church," of England, and of James I., Goodman himself
writes[81] in that very book:--"Truly I did never know any man of so
great an apprehension, of so great love and affection--a man so truly
just, so free from all cruelty and pride, such a lover of the church,
and one that had done so much good for the church." Such an admirer of
King James might certainly be trusted not to say a word that he could
honestly avoid about the ill-treatment endured by any class of his
subjects during his reign.
[79] _The Court of King James I._, Vol. i. pp. 100-1.
[80] Introduction, p. viii.
[81] Vol. i. p. 91.
CHAPTER V.
Considering that the king had been led to distrust the Catholics through
the two lately discovered plots in which some of their number had taken
part, the best policy for those who remained loyal, and these were by
far the majority, would have been to have taken every opportunity of
displaying their faithfulness to their sovereign, and, for those whose
position so entitled them, to present themselves as often as they
conveniently could at his Court, even if their welcome was somewhat
cold. Digby chose to follow an exactly opposite course. He went to Court
on James's accession and received knighthood, and then he returned to
the country, only visiting London occasionally, and then not going to
Court. Like his fellow-Catholics, he at first entertained hopes that the
new king was about to exhibit toleration, and as much as any of them was
he disappointed and embittered as time speedily began to prove the
contrary. One cause of Sir Everard Digby's disgust at the aspect of
affairs, early in James the First's reign, may have been that, as a
courtier, he had expected much from the Queen's being a Catholic,[82]
and that not only did no apparent good come of it, but her example gave
the greatest discouragement, as well as grave scandal, to such of her
subjects as professed her own religion. Indeed, all that can safely be
said of her Catholicism, is that she was[83] "a Catholic, so far, at
least, as her pleasure-loving nature allowed her to be of any religion
at all." Nevertheless, "she took great delight in consecrated,"--or, as
Catholics would say, blessed or sacred--"objects." She had allowed
herself to be crowned by[84] "a Protestant Archbishop; but when the time
arrived for the reception of the Communion, she remained immovable on
her seat, leaving the King to partake alone." "Enthusiastic Catholics
complained that she had no heart for anything but festivities and
amusements, and during the rest of her life she attended the services of
the church sufficiently to enable the Government to allege that she was
merely an enemy of Puritanical strictness." On one occasion, the
king,[85] "with some difficulty," had actually "induced her to receive
the Communion with him at Salisbury, but she had been much vexed with
herself since, and had refused to do it again. On Christmas Day she had
accompanied him to Church, but since then he found it impossible to
induce her to be present at a Protestant service. At one time Sir
Anthony Standen, a Catholic, was employed by James on a mission to some
of the Italian States, and he brought home with him some objects of
devotion, as a present from the Pope to the Queen of England. These
delighted her; yet, when the king heard of them, they were returned to
the Pope through the Nuncio in Paris."
[82] In his _History 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 his _Narrative_ (pp. 272 _seq_.) 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, in _The 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.
Now to any good Catholic, especially to an exceedingly zealous convert
in his first fervour, like Sir Everard Digby, a Protestant king might be
tolerable, provided he treated his Catholic subjects properly; but a
court presided over by a queen, herself a convert, who was a most
indifferent Catholic, if not an apostate,[86] would be odious in the
extreme. It was difficult enough, in any case, to make many simple
Catholics understand that there was anything very wrong in avoiding
persecution by putting in an occasional appearance at the Protestant
churches, without joining in the service, if they heard mass when they
could, and went regularly to confession and communion; but the
difficulty was immensely increased when they heard that the greatest
lady in the land, who was herself a Catholic, did that very thing.
Again, the country-gentlemen of high estate, Sir Everard Digby among
them, suffered fines and penalties for their faith; yet here was the
Catholic queen herself, contently living in the greatest luxury, and
yielding on the most important points of her religion, in order to
obtain it.[87] No wonder, therefore, that Sir Everard Digby absented
himself from Court, however impolitic it may have been in him to do so.
[86] In her _Queens 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.
In his country home, at Gothurst, he brooded, with much impatience, over
the wrongs of his co-religionists, nor can it have been a pleasant
reflection that at any moment his beautiful house might be broken into
by pursuivants, who would hunt every recess and cupboard in it, in
search of a priest, or of what Anglicans then denominated
"massing-stuff." Should they suspect that the most richly carved pieces
of oak-work concealed a hiding-place, the "officers of justice" would
ruthlessly shatter them to pieces with axe or crowbar; his wife's
private rooms would not be safe from the intrusion of the pursuivants,
or the bevy of rough followers who might accompany them; and, if his
house were filled with guests, even were they Protestants, it would none
the less necessarily be given up to the intruders for so long a time as
they might choose to remain. The invasion would be as likely to be made
by night as by day; no notice would be given of its approach, and, as
its result, not only might the domestic chaplain be carried off a
prisoner, with his face to a horse's tail and his legs tied together
beneath its girths, but Sir Everard himself would be liable to be taken
away in the same humiliating position, on a charge of High Treason.
The fine which Catholics had to pay must have been sufficiently annoying
even to a rich man like Sir Everard Digby, and this annoyance would be
greatly increased by the knowledge that to poorer men it meant ruin, as
well as by the remarks of his less wealthy Catholic friends that "after
all, to him it was a mere nothing."
The present was bad enough, and worse things were expected in the
future. Most of us know the fears with which we hear that a Prime
Minister of opposite politics to our own is going to bring in a bill, in
the coming session, directed against our personal interests; even the
coming budget of a Chancellor of the Exchequer on our own side of the
House, in a very bad year, is anticipated with serious misgivings.
Imagine, therefore, the terrors of the Catholics whose lives would
already have been rendered unendurable, had the laws existing against
them been put into full force, when they not only observed a rapidly
increasing zeal among magistrates and judges in their proceedings
against Romish recusants, but heard, on what appeared to be excellent
authority, that additional, and most cruel, legislation against them was
to be enacted in the Parliament shortly to be opened.
One of the most remarkable features in Sir Everard Digby's character was
his extreme susceptibility to the influence of others; and, for this
reason, what may seem, at first sight, an undue proportion of a volume
devoted to his biography, must necessarily be allotted to a description
of the friends, and more especially one particular friend, under whose
influence he fell; and, if my readers should sometimes imagine that I
have forgotten Sir Everard Digby altogether, or if they should feel
inclined to accuse me of writing Catesby's life rather than Digby's, I
can assure them that I am guiltless on both counts. For the moment,
however, I must beg them to prepare themselves for an immediate and long
digression, or rather an apparent digression, and warn them that it will
be followed by many others.
To an impetuous man, zealous to the last degree, but not according to
knowledge, few things are more dangerous than an intimate friend of
similar views and temperament. Exactly such a friend had Sir Everard
Digby. Here is a description of him by one who knew him well.[88] He
"grew to such a composition of manners and carriage, to such a care of
his speech (that it might never be hurtful to others, but taking all
occasions of doing good), to such a zealous course of life, both for the
cause in general, and for every particular person whom he could help in
God's service, as that he grew to be very much respected by most of the
better and graver sort of Catholics, and of Priests, and Religious also,
whom he did much satisfy in the care of his conscience; so that it might
plainly appear he had the fear of God joined with an earnest desire to
serve Him. And so no marvel though many Priests did know him and were
often in his company. He was, moreover, very wise and of great judgment,
though his utterance was not so good. Besides, he was so liberal and apt
to help all sorts, as it got him much love. He was of person above two
yards high, and, though slender, yet as well proportioned to his height
as any man one should see. His age (I take it) at his death was about
thirty-five, or thereabouts. And to do him right, if he had not fallen
into"--one particular and exceedingly "foul action and followed his own
judgment in it (to the hurt and scandal of many), asking no advice but
of his own reasons deceived and blinded under the shadow of zeal; if, I
say, it had not been for this, he had truly been a man worthy to be
highly esteemed and prized in any commonwealth."
[88] Father Gerard's _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 56, 57.
Be his attractions and virtues what they might, this man, Robert
Catesby, had not anything like such an unblemished past as his friend,
Sir Everard Digby. He was of an old Warwickshire and Northamptonshire
family--he was the lineal descendant of William Catesby, who was
attainted and executed for high treason after the battle of Bosworth
Field.[89] Robert Catesby's father, who had been an ardent Catholic, had
suffered considerable losses in his estate, and been imprisoned on
account of his religion; but Robert himself, on his father's death,
apostatized, became exceedingly dissolute, and still further
impoverished the family property by his extravagance. Goodman, Bishop of
Gloucester, says of him:[90] "For Catesby, it is very well known that he
was a very cunning, subtle man, exceedingly entangled in debts, and
scarce able to subsist."
[89] Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, p. 506. Jardine's _Criminal Trials_,
Vol. ii. p. 26.
[90] _Court of King James I._, Vol. i p. 103.
Some three or four years before Sir Everard Digby's conversion, Catesby
had returned to the faith of his fathers. Whatever may have been the
love of his God manifested by the reformed reprobate, his hatred of his
queen, and afterwards of his king, was unmeasured. I have no desire to
say anything in disparagement of Catesby's religious fervour; but,
considering that he had once abjured the Catholic faith, it may be no
harm to remark that some people seem to like to profess the religion
hated most by their enemies, and to exhibit zeal for it in proportion to
that shown by their enemies against it. With several of his friends,
Catesby joined the ill-fated conspiracy of the Earl of Essex, in the
course of which he was wounded, taken prisoner, and finally ransomed for
L3000 in all. When fighting for Essex, he greatly distinguished himself
as a swordsman. Later, as I have already said, he was implicated in the
intrigue that sent Christopher Wright and Guy Fawkes to Madrid in the
hope of inducing Philip of Spain to depose James I. A modern Jesuit,
Father J. Hungerford Pollen, has well said of him:[91] "The owner of
large estates in the counties of Northampton, Warwick, and Oxford,
honourably married, with issue to perpetuate the ancient family of which
he was the only representative--such is not the sort of man we should
have thought likely to engage in a desperate adventure, and this
presumption might be further strengthened by the consideration of his
moral qualities. He was brave and accomplished, attractive to that
degree which makes even sober men risk life and fortune to follow where
he should lead, honest of purpose and truthful, and, above all,
exceedingly zealous for religion. These qualities should have, and
would have, insured him from the frightful error into which he fell, had
they not run to excess in more than one direction. Full of the chivalry
that characterised the Elizabethan period, he was also infected with its
worldliness, a failing which ill accorded with the patience every
Catholic had to practice, and, moreover, his force of character carried
him into obstinate adherence to his own views and plans. This it was
that worked such ruin upon himself and all those who came in contact
with him. Happy times may lead such men so to direct their energies,
that the evil side of their character is never displayed, but times of
great temptation often bring out the latent flaw in unexpected ways."
[91] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 1 and 2.
This is admirably put, except, perhaps, on one single point; and it is
one of such importance that I will pause to consider it, especially as
it applies to Sir Everard Digby, almost, if not quite, as much as to
Catesby. In the reign of Elizabeth, it was not chivalry but the decay
and abolition of chivalry and the chivalrous spirit which occasionally
led to deeds which a knight-errant would have despised. As Sir Walter
Scott says:--[92] "the habit of constant and honourable opposition,
unembittered by rancour or personal hatred, gave the fairest opportunity
for the exercise of the virtues required from him whom Chaucer terms a
very perfect gentleman." Again he says:--"We have seen that the abstract
principles of chivalry were, in the highest degree, virtuous and noble,
nay, that they failed by carrying to an absurd, exaggerated, and
impracticable point, the honourable duties which they inculcated."
Chivalry, therefore, acted as a wholesome check upon the barbarity, the
licentiousness, and the semi-civilisation of the middle ages, and when
it was abolished, the knights and nobles, in spite of all the glamour of
refinement and education in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth, still retained enough of the savage brutality of their
forefathers to be occasionally very dangerous, when the discipline of
chivalry had been withdrawn. "It is needless," says Sir Walter Scott,
"by multiplying examples, to illustrate the bloodthirsty and treacherous
maxims and practices, which, during the sixteenth century, succeeded to
the punctilious generosity exacted by the rules of chivalry. It is
enough to call to the reader's recollection the bloody secret of the
massacre of St Bartholomew, which was kept by such a number of the
Catholic noblemen for two years,[93] at the expense of false treaties,
promises, and perjuries, and the execution which followed on naked,
unarmed, and unsuspecting men, in which so many gallants lent their
willing swords." Now I am not going to enter here upon the question of
Sir Walter Scott's historical accuracy, or its contrary, on this
horrible massacre; but might he not have extended his period "of
treacherous maxims and practices," which "succeeded to the punctilious
generosity exacted by the rules of chivalry," a few years later, and
included, with the Massacre of St Bartholomew, the Gunpowder Plot?
Catesby was quite a man of the type contemplated by Sir Walter Scott,
gallant, charming, zealous, brave to a degree, and even pious, yet with
something of the wild, lawless, and bloodthirsty spirit of the but
partially-tamed savage, which every now and then asserted itself, until
an even later period, unless it was kept under control by some such laws
as those of chivalry. It was not, therefore, chivalry, but the _want_ of
chivalry, which led to the spirit, habits, and actions of Catesby and
the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot.
[92] _Essay on Chivalry._
[93] Where Sir Walter obtained his authority for this statement I do
not know.
I hope this digression--a digression from a digression--may be pardoned.
It is high time that I returned to Robert Catesby in his relations to
Sir Everard Digby.
It was likely enough that Sir Everard Digby should become intimate with
a zealous Catholic landowner in the neighbouring counties of
Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, especially as Catesby's mother's
house, at Ashby St Legers, was little more than twenty miles from
Gothurst; but probably the reason of his seeing so much of him was that
Catesby's first cousin, Tyringham of Tyringham, lived only
three-quarters of a mile from Gothurst, the two estates adjoining each
other, either house lying within a short distance of the high road, on
opposite sides of it.
Once on intimate terms, Sir Everard and Catesby were constantly
together. In speaking of his master, Sir Everard's page, William Ellis,
said in his examination[94]:--"both at London and in the countrie Mr
Robert Catesby hath kept him companie."
[94] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I. No. 108.
In this not altogether desirable "companie," Sir Everard Digby spent
much time "in cogitation deep" upon the treatment of his
fellow-religionists and countrymen. Both men were exasperated by the
persecution which was going on around them, by the fickleness of their
king, and by the dangers to which they, their wives, their families--for
Sir Everard, as well as Catesby, had a child now--and their estates were
exposed. Perhaps most irritating of all, to country-gentlemen of high
position, was the then prevalent custom of sub-letting, or farming, the
fines and penalties levyable upon Catholics to men who squeezed every
farthing out of them that was possible. To be persecuted and fined by an
authorized public official was bad enough; but to be pestered and
tormented by a pettifogging private person who had purchased the right
of doing so, as a speculation, must have been almost unendurable. The
subject, however, which Digby and Catesby discussed most would probably
be the severe anti-Catholic legislation which was apprehended from the
new parliament. In this, said Catesby, the great danger lay. His
surmises as to the form it might take would give him and his friend, Sir
Everard, ample scope for contemplation, speculation, and conversation.
The words of Scripture, "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof," do
not appear to have occurred to their memories.
In periods of trouble and danger, as indeed in all others, men of
different dispositions and temperaments take different views and
different lines of conduct; there are optimists and pessimists, men who
counsel endurance, men who advocate active resistance, men who advise
waiting a little to see what may turn up, and men who urge that not a
moment is to be lost. And so it was among the persecuted Catholics
during the early years of the reign of James I. At the very time that
men like Digby and Catesby were in the deepest depression of hopeless
anxiety, the Spanish Ambassador was congratulating himself because he
fancied he saw symptoms of the king's inclination to become[95] a
convert to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, among those who took
the most gloomy view of the prospect, there were very distinct phases of
thought and action. "England will witness with us," says Father
Gerard,[96] "that the greatest part by much did follow the example and
exhortation of the Religious and Priests that were their guides, moving
them and leading them by their own practice to make their refuge unto
God in so great extremities.... This we found to be believed practically
by most, and followed as faithfully, preparing themselves by more often
frequentation of the Sacraments, by more fervent prayer, and by perfect
resignation of their will to God, against the cloud that was like to
cover them, and the shower that might be expected would pour down upon
them after the Parliament, unto which all the chief Puritans of the land
were called, and only they or their friends selected out of every shire
to be the framers of the laws, which thereby we might easily know were
chiefly intended and prepared against us."
[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.
But he says all were not quite so perfect, and of these imperfect there
were two leading divisions. The first[97] "fainted in courage, and, as
St Cyprian noteth of his times, did offer themselves unto the
persecutors before they felt the chief force of the blow that was to be
expected." Sir Everard Digby was not one of these. The second division
were, as Father Gerard might most veraciously say, "much different from
these, and ran headlong into a contrary error. For being resolved never
to yield or forsake their faith, they had not patience and longanimity
to expect the Providence of God, etc." It is to be feared that he may
have noticed this want of patience and longanimity in Sir Everard Digby
and his companions. "They would not endure to see their brethren so
trodden upon by every Puritan," he goes on to say of this class, "so
made a prey to every needy follower of the Court, or servant to a
Councillor, so presented and pursued by every churchwarden and minister,
so hauled to every sessions when the Justices list to meet, so wronged
on every side by the process of excommunication or outlawry, and forced
to seek for their own by law, and then also to be denied by law, because
they were Papists; finally both themselves and all others to be
denounced traitors and designed to the slaughter. These things they
would not endure now to begin afresh after so long endurance, and
therefore began amongst themselves to consult what remedy they might
apply to all these evils," &c., "so that it seems they did not so much
respect what the remedy were, or how it might be procured, as that it
might be sure and speedy--to wit, to take effect before the end of the
Parliament from whence they seemed to expect their greatest harm."
[97] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 50.
Those who followed the latter course may have included some who were in
other respects good Christians; whether they showed the spirit of
Martyrs and Confessors is another question.
Few things discouraged the English Catholics more than the goodwill and
peaceful disposition shown to the new king by foreign Catholic kings and
princes, notwithstanding that one final effort was made on their behalf
by Spain, just as the treaty was being concluded with England for peace
and the renewal of commercial intercourse. Velasco, the constable of
Castile, who negotiated that treaty on behalf of Spain, was visited by
Winter, at Catesby's suggestion, and urged to assist the English
Catholics. Although he promised to speak on their behalf, he made it
clear that his country would make no sacrifice to obtain toleration for
them.[98] So far as he had promised, he kept his word. He told James
that whatever indulgence he might show to them would be regarded by
Philip as a personal act of friendship towards himself, and that they
were prepared to make a voluntary offering annually in the place of the
fines at that time imposed upon them by law; and he laid before him
statistics of the distress to which very many respectable English
families had been reduced by clinging to the faith of their forefathers.
[98] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
James's reply was very decided. On any diplomatic question relating to
the interests of England and Spain he would be ready and glad to confer
with the Spanish representative, but the government of his own subjects
was a domestic matter upon which he could not consent to enter with a
foreigner. Besides this, he informed Velasco that, even were he himself
inclined to better the condition of the Catholics, his doing so would
offend his Protestant subjects to such an extent as to endanger his
throne.
It would almost seem as if Velasco's endeavours on behalf of the
Catholics had a contrary effect to that which had been intended; for,
instead of granting them the smallest relief, James issued a
proclamation, ordering the judges and magistrates to enforce the penal
laws, and to adopt measures calculated to insure the detection of
Catholic recusants. Before the judges started on their circuits, he
called them together and charged them "to be diligent and severe against
recusants."[99] Accordingly, in the year 1604, about 1000 recusants were
indicted in Yorkshire, 600 in Lancashire, and in the counties of Oxford,
Berks, Gloucester, Monmouth, Hereford, Salop, Stafford, and in Wigorn,
1865.[100] Of Buckinghamshire, Sir Everard Digby's county, I can find no
return. In all, the number of Catholic recusants convicted in the years
1604-5 amounted to 5500. In July, a priest named Sugar was executed at
Warwick, simply and only because he was a priest, and a layman, named
Grissold, for "accompanying and assisting" him.[101] In the Star
Chamber, a man named Pound accused Sergeant Phillips of injustice in
condemning a neighbour of his to death, for no other crime except that
he had entertained a Jesuit. Not only did the lords of the Star Chamber
confirm and approve of this sentence of Sergeant Phillips, but they
condemned Pound himself to lose one ear in London and one "in the
country where he dwelleth," and to be fined L1000, unless he would
impeach those who advised him to make the suit. Fortunately this
tremendous sentence was commuted, at the intercession of the French and
Venetian Ambassadors, to standing for a whole day in the pillory.[102]
[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.
Bancroft had just ascended the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury, full
of zeal against the Papists. He urged his suffragan bishops to select
the more wealthy and earnest among the Catholics, and, after first
trying "sweet" and "kind means," to excommunicate them if they should
refuse to conform. Forty days after their excommunication, the Bishops
were to certify their names in Chancery, and then to sue out a writ _de
excommunicato capiendo_, an instrument which subjected the delinquents
to outlawry, forfeiture, and imprisonment, and deprived them of the
right of recovering debts, of suing for damages, of effecting legal
sales or purchases, and of conveying their properties either by will or
otherwise.[103] Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, writes[104]:--"The
Spiritual Court did not cease to molest them, to excommunicate them,
then to imprison them; and thereby they were utterly unable to sue for
their own." Nor were the rumours of an approaching increase of
severities, to be enacted in the ensuing parliament, mere exaggerated
fancies. The denunciations of the Chancellor in the Star Chamber, and of
Archbishop Bancroft at St Paul's Cross, confirmed the reports that
sterner legislation against recusants was impending in the coming
session. On the other hand, it is just possible that these official
threats may have been uttered only to terrify the Catholics into
submission, and with no very serious expectation of their fulfilment.
[103] Tierney's Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. pp. 41, 42.
[104] _Court of King James I._, Vol. i. p. 101.
During those distressing times, Catesby's friends, among whom not the
least was Sir Everard Digby, observed a change in his manner. He looked
anxious and careworn; he was moody and abstracted at one moment,
unusually loquacious and excitable at another. His mysterious absences
from home were another source of uneasiness to those most intimate with
him; so, too, were his large purchases of horses, arms, and gunpowder,
which also attracted the attention of people who were not his friends;
but he took great trouble to inform everybody that he was about to raise
300 horse, to join the English regiment which the Spanish Ambassador had
prevailed upon King James to allow to be levied in England for the
assistance of the Archduke in Flanders.[105]
[105] Jardine's _Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 60-1.
Nevertheless, his friends were not satisfied. If he were really going to
join the army in the Low Countries, why these long delays?
Great as was their intimacy, Catesby was in the condition just described
for many months without confiding the real reason of his activity to Sir
Everard Digby; although it is probable that he warned him to be prepared
for any emergency which might arise for the use of men, arms, and
horses. Both Digby and Catesby were heartily tired of a state of passive
endurance; the tyranny which was crushing the Catholics was daily
increasing, and Sir Everard might very naturally suppose that while
Catesby had no definite plan for resisting it, he wished to be ready in
case foreign powers might come to their assistance, or the whole body of
English Catholics, goaded to desperation, might rise in rebellion
against their oppressors. Freely as he might appear to talk to Digby,
and satisfied as the latter may have felt that he had the confidence of
his friend, Catesby in reality feared to intrust a great secret, which
was absorbing his attention, to the brave but straightforward master of
Gothurst.
Another of Catesby's friends was less easy about him than Sir Everard
Digby. Father Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, suspected that some
mischief was brewing, and seized an opportunity, when sitting at
Catesby's own table, of inculcating the duty of patient submission to
persecution. His host, who was his personal friend as well as a great
respecter of his wisdom as a priest, showed considerable irritation.
Instead of treating the Provincial of the Jesuits with his usual
reverence and courtesy, he flushed up and angrily exclaimed[106]:--"It
is to you, and such as you, that we owe our present calamities. This
doctrine of non-resistance makes us slaves. No authority of priest or
pontiff can deprive man of his right to repel injustice."
[106] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
Another friend and frequent guest of young Sir Everard's, after he
became a Catholic, should be noticed. A younger son of a Worcestershire
family, Thomas Winter had attractions for Digby, in his profound zeal
for the Catholic Church, his scholarship, his knowledge of foreign
languages, his powers of conversation, and his military experiences, as
he had served in Flanders, France, and, says Father Gerard, "I think,
against the Turk." Unlike Catesby, he was "of mean stature, but strong
and comely," and of "fine carriage." He was very popular in society, and
"an inseparable friend to Mr Robert Catesby." In age he was about ten
years older than Sir Everard. Whatever his zeal may have been for the
Catholic Church, he did not always live in the odour of sanctity, and on
one occasion he incurred the grave displeasure of Father Garnet by
conveying a challenge to a duel from John Wright, one of the earliest
conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, to an adversary who had offended
him. The combatants met, and Winter, as Wright's second, measured the
swords of both duellists to ascertain whether they were of equal length;
but the actual encounter was somehow prevented at the last moment.[107]
Father Garnet says that he had a "hard conceit of him."
[107] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n. 41. Garnet's statement.
In dealing with the subject of Digby's friends, certainly his page,
William Ellis, ought not to be forgotten. I have been unable to discover
any details of his birth, except that he was heir to L80 a year--a much
larger income, of course, in those days than in these--"if his father
did him right." He entered Sir Everard's service at the age of
seventeen, about May 1604.[108] How faithful he was to his master will
appear by-and-bye.
[108] S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Book, Part I., n. 108.
Among Sir Everard's younger friends was Lord Vaux of Harrowden, a cousin
of Catesby's. One reason of the intimacy is thus described by Father
Gerard.[109] "Sir Everard had many serious occasions to come to my Lord
Vaux's; and then in particular, as I have learned since, being come from
his [Digby's] ancient house and chief living, which lay in Rutlandshire,
from whence he could not go unto the house where his wife and family lay
[Gothurst], but he must pass the door of Lord Vaux, his house, which
also made him there an ordinary guest." To harbour priests, and to
defend the Catholic cause was no new thing in the family of Vaux, for,
some twenty or thirty years earlier, Lord Vaux's grandfather had been
imprisoned and fined for sheltering Father Campian in his house.[110]
His grandmother had been a daughter of John Tresham of Rushton, and of
his cousin, Francis Tresham, we shall hear something presently. His
mother and his aunts, Anne and Elizabeth, were most pious Catholics, but
the religious atmosphere in which he was brought up does not seem to
have led him to perfection; for, although as a young man he suffered
imprisonment for his faith,[111] he afterwards had two sons, who bore
the name of Vaux, by Lady Banbury during her husband's lifetime;[112]
and, although he married her after Lord Banbury's death, she never had
another child. Worse still, he left Harrowden and the other family
estates to his illegitimate children, instead of to his brother, who
succeeded him in the title, although his wife, on her side, claimed for
her son that, as he was born during her first husband's lifetime, he had
a legal right to the title of Banbury. Accordingly, this son changed his
surname to Knollys, and once actually sat, as Lord Banbury, in the House
of Lords. As is well known, his descendants went on claiming and
disputing the title until the year 1813, when their right to it was
finally disallowed.
[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.
But what specially concerns my story is that Sir Everard Digby was
endeavouring to bring about a marriage for this (then) very young Lord
Vaux, with the "Lord Chamberlain his daughter,"[113] as Father Gerard
writes; and, in a footnote, is added "Earl of Suffolk. Erased in Orig."
If this footnote is right, Sir Everard was probably trying to make a
match for the youth with the very girl whom he eventually married, as
Lady Banbury had been Elizabeth Howard, the eldest daughter of Lord
Suffolk. Suffolk was Lord Chamberlain,[114] and curiously enough (when
we consider that he seems to have had negotiations with Sir Everard
Digby with respect to a match between his daughter and Lord Vaux), in
his capacity of Lord Chamberlain, he suspected and led to the discovery
of the gunpowder laid in the cellar beneath the Houses of
Parliament.[115]
[113] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 137.
[114] Gardiner. _History of England_, Vol. x. p. 364.
[115] Gardiner's _History of England_, Vol. i. p. 249.
Sir Everard visited a good deal at the house of Lord Vaux's mother, Mrs
Elizabeth Vaux. This was a house in Buckinghamshire at Stoke Poges, that
had been built by Sir Christopher Hatton,[116] the Lord Chancellor, who
had died childless. It was let for a term of years to Mrs Vaux, and she
not only established Father Gerard in it as her chaplain, but had
hiding-places and other arrangements made, so that he could receive
priests and Catholic laymen, as he might think well, for the good of the
cause of religion. Here Sir Everard was probably thrown a good deal with
Catesby and Tresham, as they were both related to his young host. Lord
Vaux's two aunts, Miss Anne Vaux and Eleanor, the wife of Edward
Brooksby, lived with him and his mother, and Miss Anne was one of those
who had serious misgivings as to the mysterious conduct of her cousin,
Robert Catesby.[117] "Seeing at Winter's and Grant's"--Grant was a
popular Warwickshire squire, a Catholic, and celebrated for his
undaunted courage--"their fine horses in the stable, she told Mr Garnet
that she feared these wild heads had something in hand, and prayed him
to talk to Mr Catesby and to hinder anything that possibly he might, for
if they should attempt any foolish thing, it would redound to his
discredit. Whereupon he said he would talk to Mr Catesby."
[116] It was to this Sir Christopher Hatton, that Sir Everard's
father had dedicated his book _A 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.
Another account of what was probably the same interview was given by
Father Garnet himself, in his examination of March 12th, 1605. [118] "He
sayth that Mrs Vaux came to him, eyther to Harrowden or to Sir Everard
Digby's at Gothurst, and tould this exam{t}. that she feared that some
trouble or disorder was towards [them], that some of the gentlewomen
had demanded of her where they should bestow themselves until the
burst[119] was past in the beginning of the Parliament. And this exam{t}.
asking her who tould her so, she said that she durst not tell who tould
her so: she was [choked] with sorrow."
[118] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n 40. See _Records 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.
An attempt was made, later, to represent the name of Vaux to be the same
as that of Fawkes:--[120] "Mrs Anne Vaux, or Fawkes, probably a relative
of the conspirator;" for which there seems to be no foundation, and
certainly there is none for the base imputation, in the same paragraph,
of immorality between Anne Vaux and Father Garnet. Even the Protestant
historian, Jardine, repudiates this calumny at considerable length.[121]
[120] _Somers Tracts_, Vol. ii. p. 108, footnote.
[121] _Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 176-8.
CHAPTER VI.
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 doubtless aware 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.
[122] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I, No. 108.
[123] _Ib._
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.
[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.
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 and fifty 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]
[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.
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]
[128] _Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, Pollen, p. 18.
[129] Jardine, in his _Narrative 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.
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 L500 in obtaining a license[132] to go abroad with his men and
horses, about which, he pretended, there was some difficulty.
[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's _Dormant and Extinct Peerages_, p.
380.
[132] _Father Garnet and the G. P._, Pollen, p. 21.
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.
[133] _Life of Father Gerard_, p. cxxxv.
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, as it 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.
[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.
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.
[136] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
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 Christian soldier 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 were delivered
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."
[137] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
[138] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xviii. n. 24.
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!
[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.
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.
[141] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
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 slew of 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.
[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.
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 brought forth 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!
[147] Judges iv. 21.
[148] Judges v. 24 _seq._
[149] Judges v. 31.
[150] Isaiah xlvii. 14.
[151] Ezekiel xxi. 32.
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 the process, 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]
[152] _Lingard_, Vol. vii. chap, i., footnote.
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?
[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.
It would be scarcely too much to say that, early in the 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 Sir Everard. 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]
"a zealous 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.
[156] _Narrative_, G. P., Gerard, p. 71.
[157] _Ib._, p. 85.
[158] Jardine's _Gunpowder Plot_, p. 52.
CHAPTER VII.
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.
[159] "Letters of Sir Everard Digby" in _Gunpowder Treason_, p. 177.
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."
[160] Speech at his trial.
[161] _Gunpowder Treason_, by Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, p. 55.
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 what they 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 in advocating, 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 honestly represent 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 except that 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 the particulars." 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 Father Garnet to suppose
that he was contemplating a position in which he might very probably
find himself when _there_--"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 may _vim 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, without sufficient 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 to be 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 doth _in re gravi_ hinder 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."
[162] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 65 _seq._
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 as _per 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; then _per accidens_ we
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, though
afterwards, 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."
[163] Hatfield MS., 110, 30. Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot,
p. 7.
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.
[164] _Records, S. J._, Vol. iv., p. 108.
[165] _History of the Gunpowder Plot_, Jardine, Appendix, p. 329.
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 the interest 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.
[166] Examination, March 13. _Records, S. J._, Vol. III., p. 157.
[167] _Ib._
[168] _Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, Pollen, p. 8.
[169] _Ib._, p. 10.
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 Digby
at 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 somewhat qualified 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 of _The 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.
[170] _The Month_, No. 369, p. 353-4.
CHAPTER VIII.
In the last chapter we saw how Catesby, by means of his infamous
perversion of Father Garnet's words, induced several of his friends,
among others, and last of all, Sir Everard Digby, to join in his
conspiracy; but even with his extraordinary powers of personal influence
and persuasion, his unscrupulousness, and his intimate friendship with
Sir Everard, it is just possible that he might have failed in enlisting
him as a conspirator, had it not been for a most unfortunate, and
apparently unguarded, remark made by Father Garnet.
Garnet had been at his wits' end to put a stop to the dangerous
inclination to civil rebellion which he had observed among certain of
the English Catholics; and, in his despair, he had written to Father
Claudius Aquaviva, the General of the Society of Jesus:[171]--"If the
affair of the toleration go not well, Catholics[172] will no more be
quiet. What shall we do? Jesuits cannot hinder it. Let the Pope forbid
all Catholics to stir."
[171] _Narrative of the G. P._, Gerard, pp. 72-3.
[172] "Wherein he meant belike Mr Catesby and some such whom he most
feared," says Father Gerard; _ib._
The date of this letter was August 29, 1604,[173] that is to say, more
than a year before Sir Everard Digby had ever heard of the Plot. Now,
will it be believed that when he was asked by Sir Everard Digby what the
meaning of "the Pope's Brief was"[174] [which "Brief" it may have been
matters little to my purpose; Lingard[175] thought it referred to that
of July 19, 1603], Father Garnet was weak enough--can I use a milder
term?--to reply "that they were not (meaning Priests) to undertake or
procure stirrs: _but yet they would not hinder any, neither was it the
Pope's mind they should, that should be undertaken for Catholick good_."
And this after all his anxiety that the Pope should be induced to
"forbid all Catholics to stir!" I say "after," for if the conversation
had taken place very much earlier, what reason would Sir Everard have
had for saying:--"This answer, with Mr Catesby's proceedings with him
and me gave me absolute belief that the matter in general was approved,
though every particular was not known." If the point be pressed that it
_may_ have been earlier, I would reply, be it so; for in the very
initiatory stages of the Plot, Father Garnet learned that some scheme
was in hand, although he knew nothing of its details, and even then he
was most anxious to prevent any "stirr." Let me quote Father
Pollen.[176] "About midsummer 1604, some steps in the Plot having been
already taken, Catesby intimated that they had something in hand, but
entered into no particulars. Father Garnet dissuaded him. Catesby
answered, 'Why were we commanded before to keep out one that was not a
Catholic, and now may not exclude him?' And this he thought an
'invincible argument,' and 'was so resolved in conscience that it was
lawful to take arms for religion, that no man could dissuade it, but by
the Pope's prohibition. Whereupon I [_i.e._, Garnet] urged that the Pope
himself had given other orders, &c.'" Yet Garnet told Sir Everard Digby
that priests "would not hinder any" "stirs" "that should be undertaken
for the Catholick good," "neither was it the Pope's mind that they
should."
[173] _Father Garnet and the G. P._, p. 4.
[174] _Papers and Letters of Sir Everard Digby._ Paper 9.
[175] Hist. Eng., Vol. viii Note H. H. H. 9.
[176] Father Garnet and the G. P., p. 4.
A friend of my own, who is a great admirer of Father Garnet, as well as
a deeply read student of his times, disagrees with me in my view of
Father Garnet's speech to Sir Everard about the "stirrs." He
writes:--"It seems to me you make too much of _one word_, and not enough
of the _known tenour_ of his instructions." Well, in the first place,
this one word is the chief thing that I have to deal with, in respect to
Father Garnet. I am not writing a life of Garnet, but of Sir Everard
Digby; and as Sir Everard stated that on that one word, to a great
extent, depended his belief that the plot was approved of by the
Jesuits, and consequently his consent to join in that plot, it is
scarcely possible for me to "make too much of it." Moreover, I expressly
pointed out that it was contrary to "the known tenour of his
instructions," and I emphasised the fact that it was a direct
contradiction to those instructions, as well as to his wishes, and that
it was given in a moment of good-natured weakness; but I venture to
suggest that that weakness, instead of being contrary to what we know of
his character, was in remarkable accordance with it.
I will admit that I long hesitated to use the word "weakness" in
connection with Father Garnet; but he himself practically owned that he
was not always free from it.
"I acknowledge," he wrote,[177] before his death, "that I was bound to
reveal all knowledge that I had of this or any other treason out of the
sacrament of confession. And whereas, partly upon hope of prevention,
partly for that I would not betray my friend, I did not reveal the
general knowledge of Mr Catesby's intention, which I had by him, I do
acknowledge myself highly guilty to have offended God, the King's
Majesty and Estate, and humbly ask of all forgiveness, exhorting all
Catholics that they no way follow my example." To Father Greenway,
again, he wrote:--[178] "Indeed, I might have revealed a general
knowledge I had of Mr Catesby out of confession, but hoping of the
Pope's prevention, and being loth to hurt my friend, I acknowledge to
have so far forth offended God and the king."
[177] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xx. n. 12.
[178] Hatfield MS., 115 fol. 154.
With all humility, I beg to submit that a feeble, unguarded, nervous and
indulgent speech such as that about the "stirrs," attributed by Sir
Everard Digby to Father Garnet, is not very inconsistent with that good
Father's conduct, as described by himself in the above manuscripts.
The question whether Father Garnet did, or did not, die a martyr,
however interesting, is altogether apart from my subject; a life of Sir
Everard Digby is in no way affected by that controversy; nor am I taking
upon myself the offices of Devil's Advocate in Garnet's case, when I
endeavour to do justice to that of Sir Everard.
I fully admit that _if_ Father Garnet was weak, his weakness was owing
to an excess of kindheartedness and a loyalty to his friends that
bordered on extravagance. I am well aware that it is easy to be "wise
after the event," and that that sort of wisdom is too cheap to justify
confident or summary sentences on those whose surroundings in their own
times were so complicated as to make it impossible to put ourselves
exactly in their places. Again, it may be that Sir Everard misheard or
misunderstood Garnet, that his memory failed him, or even that he lied.
Yet, again, it is possible that Digby's letter may have been incorrectly
transcribed, though I can see no reason for thinking this at all likely
to be the case.
There is, however, another side to the question. The mischief which may
be wrought by a holy, amiable, but weak man, especially one whose dread
of giving pain to others, or putting them into bad faith, or making them
give up all religion by saying more than they can bear, when it is his
duty to speak plainly, fully, and decidedly, is almost unlimited; and if
we are to hesitate to form opinions of the actions and characters of
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