Philip Marlow Sidney

“ What was he like? 'A tall man, wrapped in a cloak' is all we are told about him, and nothing more. He appears suddenly on the scene at night, presses a letter into the hands of Mounteagle's footman, and disappears again, and for ever, into the darkness! This individual may, of course, merely have been an illiterate man, simply hired to deliver a letter to Lord Mounteagle, and ignorant all the while of the letter's contents; or he may have been a trusted person in the service of Mounteagle, Warde, and Tresham. ”

“ The power of the Jesuits was, as the loyal Romanists but too well perceived, a source of weakness to their cause and a source of strength to the King's Protestant advisers, who cleverly made the methods of the Jesuits an excuse for tarring the whole Roman Catholic body with the same brush, and for bringing all its members into disfavour with the Protestant public, insufficiently well-informed to know how to discriminate between the patriotic priests and the Spanish faction. ”

“ The means how to have compassed so great an act, was not to be performed by strength of men, or outward violence, but by a secret conveyance of a great quantity of gunpowder in a vault under the Upper House of Parliament, and so to have blown up all out of a clap, if God out of his mercy and just revenge against so great an abomination had not destined it to be discovered, though very miraculously, even some 12 hours before the matter should have been put into execution. ”

“ Catesby, his friend, whom he esteemed dearer than anything else in the world. And this mercy he desired not for any fear of the image of death, but for grief that so shameful a death should leave so perpetual a blemish and blot unto all ages, upon his name and blood. But, howsoever that this was his first offence, yet he humbly submitted himself to the mercy of the King ”

“ A lie was not a lie, if told in the interests of the plot. 'Master Catesby' complained Garnet, 'did me much wrong, and hath confessed that he told them he asked me a question in Queen Elizabeth's time of the powder action, and that I said it was lawful. All which is most untrue. He did it to draw in others.' A man of great courage and resolution, he possessed a wonderful power of making his friends both like and serve him. ”

“ To sum up: the whole of the case against Lord Mounteagle seems strong in the extreme. That a man with such bad antecedents, and connected by such close ties with the principal plotters, could have been ignorant of what was going on, it would seem futile to conjecture. That he was a party to writing the famous letter addressed to himself can no longer be disputed; and the evidence circumstantial though it be in favour of his having been an accessory both to the compilation of this letter and to the betrayal of the plot to Cecil, appears to me beyond all doubt. ”

“ Amongst that small, but strong faction of the English Roman Catholics which favoured the Jesuits, Garnet was popular, whilst his erudition and pleasant manners made him many friends even in exterior circles hostile to his Society. But the fact that he was practically nothing more than a tool in the hands of Father Parsons served to render his chances of gaining the goodwill of the majority of his co-religionists in England practically hopeless, whilst strange stories about his intemperate habits were widely circulated. ”

“ And for my brother Greenway, I would the truth were known; for the false reports that are, making him more faulty than he is. I should not have charged him, but that I thought he had been safe. I pray God the Catholics may not fare the worse for my sake; and I exhort them all to take heed they enter not into any treasons, rebellions, or insurrections against the King. ”

“ As soon as he discovered that Anne Vaux had obtained an insight into what was going on, he had wit enough to discern that, woman-like, she could not keep the secret to herself, and that, terrified at what she had heard, she would do her best to prevent the explosion, if only in order to save the innocent Roman Catholic peers in Parliament, such as the Lords Stourton, Mordaunt, Mounteagle, and Montague. ”

“ OF the vast importance of the Gunpowder Treason, considered as an historical event, there can be no doubt. The consequences of its conception and failure are felt by English Roman Catholics even to this day. It determined for ever the question whether they could possibly recover the ground they had lost since the death of Queen Mary. The complete exposure of the conspirators' schemes was the one thing needed by the Protestant Government [1] to serve as an excuse to crush, not a section only, but the whole of the Romanist party in England. ”

“ I give my Brother many thanks for his sweet comforts, and assure him that now I desire death; for the more I think on God's mercy the more I hope in my own case: though others have censured our intention otherwise than I understood them to be, and though the act be thought so wickid by those of judgment, yet I hope that my understanding it otherwise, with my sorrow for my error, will find acceptance at God's hands. I have not as yet acknowledged the knowledge of any Priest in particular, nor will do to the hurt of any but myself, whatsoever betide me. ”

“ The appearance of the lay-brothers only induced Bromley to continue the search; for if, he argued, two men could be forced by hunger to appear from places where he thought it was impossible for a human being to lie hid, why should not there be other men concealed in some equally strange hiding-place, and likewise be starved into revealing themselves? Moreover, Gerard confesses that Owen and Chambers had 'but one apple between them.' His attempt, therefore, to make them act the part of martyrs, sacrificing their lives to save those of their masters', is merely a fable of his own invention. ”

“ And, whereas some of His Majesty's Council, but especially your Lordship, is known to be (as the Philosophers term it) primus motor of such uncharitable taking advantage by so foul a scandal to root out all memory of Catholics either by sudden massacre, banishment, prisonment, and some other unsupportable vexations, and oppression, or perhaps by decreeing in this next Parliament some more cruel and horrible law against Catholics than is already made. ”

“ In which I must need do my Lord Chamberlain his right, that he could take no satisfaction until he might search that matter to the bottom; wherein I must confess I was much less forward; not but that I had sufficient advertisement, that most of those that now are fled (being all notorious Recusants) with many other of that kind, had a practice in hand for some stir this Parliament; but I never dreamed it should have been in such nature, because I never read nor heard the like in any State to be attempted ingross by any conspiration, without some distinction of persons. ”

“ He was, moreover, an adept in the art of equivocation, in which he had been instructed by so proficient a tutor as Father Garnet himself. On his death-bed he astonished even Cecil by the recklessness of his perjury. ”

“ He was not, for instance, so well educated or so learned as Thomas Winter; he was no better born than at least six of his confederates—nor, indeed, so nobly descended as was Percy; in private life he was not more esteemed or better behaved than Ambrose Rookewood; whilst, as a soldier, his reputation was not equal to that of Guido Faukes, nor, as a swordsman, either to that of Catesby or John Wright. In a word, he is erroneously supposed by the man in the street to have been the only respectable person engaged in the Gunpowder Plot. ”

“ Moreover, Garnet, as the head of a branch of a Society determined on subjugating England, was as much a national enemy as any Spaniard. The Jesuits were fighting hard to destroy the liberties of England, and it was necessary, therefore, to deal with them severely. In the interests of their Society, they would stop at no offence, however shocking, when occasion served. In removing Garnet, then, the Government of James I. only put to death a man whose existence at large in London constituted a ceaseless danger to the commonwealth. ”

“ No man ever more completely destroyed all prospects of a brilliant career than had he by the surrender of Deventer. By the States-General, acting in concert with England, a price was put upon his head, and he went to Spain, there to advise King Philip in his plans for the invasion of England. Stanley's scheme, as tendered to the Spanish King, was to land an army in Ireland, and after conquering that country, to disembark troops at Milford Haven. ”

“ It is this common ignorance that has helped Jesuits, and other interested persons, in their task of trying to obscure the history of the Plot as much as possible, with the view of inducing the modern world to call into question the accuracy of the facts, and by hook or by crook trying to clear the name and fame of Father Henry Garnet, and other Jesuit priests, from the imputation of the possession of a guilty knowledge of Robert Catesby's proceedings. ”

“ There is every reason to believe that about Michaelmas (1605) he was staying with Catesby and Percy at Bath. It was probably an additional stroke of fortune for him that Catesby was killed at Holbeach, for that arch-conspirator, 'the deare Robine' of Mounteagle's affection, must have become at the last pretty well acquainted with his friend's intrigues. Percy, slain at Holbeath, might have revealed something, for he also was with Mounteagle at Bath. It is noteworthy, too, that after being at Bath Catesby admitted into the conspiracy, Rookewood, Sir Everard Digby, and Tresham. ”

“ Neither of these gentlemen, therefore, was proved guilty of being an accessory to the Gunpowder Plot, of which they knew nothing when they joined Digby's 'hunting-party.' They merely thought there had been, under Catesby, an attempt made at an armed rising in London, which had failed, and to which the march to Holbeach was a sequel. Catesby, beyond doubt, grossly deceived them as to what had really taken place in London, and they foolishly believed what he said. ”

“ But, before dealing with the delivery of this mysterious letter, it should be stated that Mounteagle was by no means the only one of the Roman Catholic peers whom one or more of the conspirators had hoped to save, by giving them a hint to prevent their attending the opening of Parliament. The greater number of the conspirators were naturally unwilling to sacrifice members of their own communion, and were most desirous of giving them warning, without, at the same time, divulging the existence of the conspiracy. ”

“ He told him, that Thomas Percy had hired both the house, and part of the cellar, or vault, under the same; and that the wood and coal therein were the said gentleman's own provision. Whereupon, the Lord Chamberlain, casting his eye aside, perceived a fellow standing in a corner there, calling himself the said Percy's man, and keeper of the house for him, but indeed was Guido Faukes, the owner of that hand which should have acted that monstrous tragedy. ”

“ In point of energy and administrative ability, he stood out head and shoulders above all his confederates, and he alone amongst them was competent to put the conspiracy into working order, and to keep it so long strictly secret from the Government of King James I. Cruel and clever as he was, he ruled those under him with a hand of iron, and never hesitated to commit an act of violence, or concoct a lie, in order to place his subordinates more completely under his sway. ”

“ Rookewood was drawn into the plot by Catesby, whom he 'loved and respected as his own life' and who overcame his scruples against 'taking away so much blood' by assuring him, so it seems, that the scheme had received the approbation of his confessor. In Rookewood's stable at Coldham Hall there was an especially fine stud of horses, and Catesby, who selected each conspirator for some particular reason likely to prove advantageous to his plans, had long coveted Rookewood's steeds.
That a man like Ambrose Rookewood should have been seduced into treason is to be deplored. ”

“ He was a restless, aggressive, inquisitive man, and led such a prominent public life that he was ill-fitted to play the part of a conspirator. To have refrained from receiving him as a member of the gang would, however, have been almost as dangerous as to admit him; for he would have racked his brains to find out what was going on, and his jealousy might have procured Catesby's arrest. ”

“ It seems extraordinary that astute men like these hunted Jesuits, who had for many years had to defend themselves against innumerable tricks and strategems laid for them by their enemies, should have fallen into so simple a trap. But they did, and relying on their janitor's word and fidelity, opened up a series of conversations by removing the stone in the wall, utterly unsuspecting that this same hollow wall concealed the persons of two agents of the Privy Council, who wrote down every word they heard of these conversations. ”

“ As for his going to Huddington merely to offer the Sacrament to the conspirators, he omits to state that he went thither with Garnet's leave, and at Catesby's express invitation. As to Greenway's oath that Bates lied, I can only say that I would sooner believe a humble serving-man, who had been seduced by his master into treason, than I would a prevaricator like Greenway, who was, with his Superior Garnet, an adept in all the arts of equivocation employed by their Society. ”