John Gerard

“ It certainly appears that, at least, it would have been well before the eleventh hour to institute observations as to who might be coming and going about the cellar. On the other hand, can it be imagined that any minister in his right senses would have allowed the existence of a danger so appalling to continue so long, and have suffered a desperado like Faukes to have gone on knocking about with his flint and steel and lantern in a powder magazine beneath the House of Parliament? ”

“ CHAPTER III. THE OPINION OF CONTEMPORARIES AND HISTORIANS. We have now for so long a period been accustomed to accept the official story regarding the Gunpowder Plot, that most readers will be surprised to hear that at the time of its occurrence, and for more than a century afterwards, there were, to say the least, many intelligent men who took for granted that in some way or other the actual conspirators were but the dupes and instruments of more crafty men than themselves, and in their mad enterprise unwittingly played the game of ministers of State. ”

“ If the Lord Chamberlain,—and, we may add, Sir T. Knyvet,—could get into the cellar without the assistance of Faukes, to say nothing of the "other door" which makes its appearance in Cecil's first version, there is an end of the secret and hidden nature of the place, and some one else must have had a key. How, then, about the months during which the powder had been lying in it; during much of which time it had been, apparently, left to take care of itself? Did no man ever enter and inspect it before?
But questions far more fundamental inevitably suggest themselves. ”

“ All these promises every man sees broken, and to thrust them further in despair, most Catholics take note of a vehement book written by Mr. Attorney, whose drift (as I have heard) is to prove that the only being a Catholic is to be a traitor, which book coming forth, after the breach of so many promises, and before the ending of such a violent parliament, can work no less effect in men's minds than a belief that every Catholic will be brought within that compass before the King and State have done with them. ”

“ Sir, although in matter of religion well you know that there are many discords between us, yet sure in your duty and loyalty to my King and Country I find in you so good a concordance I cannot but much reverence and love you, and wish you all the happiness that a man of your sort upon the earth can desire. ”

“ It appears, on the contrary, that throughout the period when the government are supposed to have been living in a fool's paradise, and tranquilly assuming that all was well, they were in reality busily at work through their emissaries and informers, prying into all the doings of the recusant Catholics, receiving frequent intimation of all that was undertaken, or even projected, and, apparently, regulating the main features of a treasonable conspiracy, which can have been no other than the Powder Plot itself, determining, in particular, what individuals should be implicated therein. ”

“ Though I participate not in the follies of that fly who thought herself to raise the dust because she sat on the chariot-wheel, yet I am so far from disavowing my honest ambition of my master's favour, as I am desirous that the world should hold me, not so much his creature, by the undeserved honours I hold from his grace and power, as my desire to be the shadow of his mind, and to frame my judgment, knowledge, and affections according to his. ”

“ The evidence available to us appears to establish principally two points,—that the true history of the Gunpowder Plot is now known to no man, and that the history commonly received is certainly untrue. ”

“ That any such grounds are to be found historians of good repute utterly deny. Mr. Hallam roundly declares: [32] "To deny that there was such a plot, or, which is the same thing, to throw the whole on the contrivance and management of Cecil, as has sometimes been done, argues great effrontery in those who lead, and great stupidity in those who follow." Similarly, Mr. Gardiner, [33] while allowing that contemporaries accused Cecil of inventing the Plot, is content to dismiss such a charge as "absurd." ”

“ Of all the statesmen of the day, not one has left a more blameless character than the Earl of Dorset. Dorset took the opportunity of leaving upon record in his will, which would not be read till he had no longer injury or favour to expect in this world, the very high admiration in which his colleague was held by him. ”

“ It is quite impossible to believe that the government were not aware of the Plot long before they announced its discovery.
It is difficult to believe that the proceedings of the conspirators were actually such as they are related to have been.
It is unquestionable that the government consistently falsified the story and the evidence as presented to the world, and that the points upon which they most insisted prove upon examination to be the most doubtful. ”

“ In the case of some individuals obnoxious to the government, it seems evident that downright forgery was actually practised.
The question of Father Garnet's complicity, though usually considered as the one point in connection with the Plot requiring to be discussed, is not treated in the following pages. It is doubtless true that to prove the conspiracy to have been a trick of State, is not the same thing as proving that he was not entangled in it; but, at the same time, the first point, if it can be established, will deprive the other of almost all its interest. ”

“ On the threshold of our inquiry we are met by a most singular and startling fact. As to what passed on the trial of the conspirators, what evidence was produced against them, how it was supported,—nay, even how the tale of their enterprise was told—we have no information upon which any reliance can be placed. One version alone has come down to us of the proceedings upon this occasion—that published "by authority"—and of this we can be sure only that it is utterly untrustworthy. ”

“ Assuredly if it were judged that silence and oblivion should be the lot of the conspiracy, no stranger means were ever adopted to secure the desired object. A public thanksgiving was appointed to be held every year, on the anniversary of the "discovery;" a special service for that day was inserted in the Anglican liturgy, and Gunpowder Plot Sermons kept the memory of the Treason green in the mind not of one but of many generations. ”

“ Not to mention the fact that, while enjoying the entire confidence of Queen Elizabeth, Cecil was engaged in a secret correspondence with King James, which she would have regarded as treasonable—and which he so carefully concealed that for a century afterwards and more it was not suspected—there remains the other indubitable fact, that while similarly trusted by James, and while all affairs of State were entirely in his hands, he was in receipt of a secret pension from the King of [Pg 22] Spain, [40] the very monarch any communication with whom he treated as treason on the part of others. ”

“ When, on the other hand, we ask upon what testimony it rests, it is a surprise to find that for so prominent and striking an incident we are wholly dependent upon two documents, published by the government, a confession of Thomas Winter and another of Faukes, both of which present features rendering them in the highest degree suspicious. ”

“ The writers plainly contradict themselves. They begin by denouncing the Powder Plot as impious and abominable, and they do so most righteously, and they declare its authors to have been turbulent spirits and not religious, in which also they are right. But they go on to approve the design of murdering Cecil. What sense is there in this? If the one design be impious and detestable, with what [Pg 223] colour or conscience can the other be approved? There is no difference of principle, though in the one case many were to be murdered, in the other but a single man. ”

“ What has been said of Gerard and Greenway may serve also for Father Garnet, who in his various examinations and other utterances assumes the truth of the government story, for neither had he materials to go upon except those officially supplied.
It is obvious that the conclusion to be drawn from the above considerations is chiefly negative. That the conspirators embarked on a plot against the state, is, of course unquestionable. What was the precise nature of that plot is by no means clear, and still less what were the exact circumstances of its initiation and its collapse. ”

“ APPENDIX K. (p. 173) . The Use of Torture. There can be no doubt that torture was freely employed to extract evidence from the conspirators and others who fell into the hands of the government.
The Earl of Salisbury, in his letter to Favat, of December 4th, 1605, clearly intimates that this was the case, when he complains "most of the prisoners have wilfully forsworn that the priests knew anything in particular, and obstinately refuse to be accusers of them, yea, what torture soever they be put to." ”

“ In studying these we cannot fail to notice an evident effort to reconcile two conflicting interests. On the one hand, that the king and the nation should be properly impressed with a sense of their marvellous deliverance, it was essential to represent the catastrophe as having been imminent, which could not be unless the preparations for it had been altogether unsuspected; and it was likewise desirable to magnify the divine sagacity of the monarch, which had been the instrument of Providence to avert a disaster otherwise inevitable. ”

“ Whereof if you shall hear any judgment made, as if his Majesty or his council could harbour a thought of such a savage practice to be lodged in such a nobleman's breast, you shall do well to suppress it as a malicious discourse and invention, this being only done to satisfy the world that nothing be undone which belongs to policy of State, when the whole monarchy was proscribed to dissolution ”

“ Lord Castlemaine remarks that loose people may usually be drawn into a plot when statesmen lay gins, and that it was no hard thing for a Secretary of State, should he desire any such thing, to know of turbulent and ambitious spirits to be his unconscious instruments, [90] and it is obvious that no great perspicacity would have been required to fix upon those who had given such evidence of their disposition as had these men. ”