In this Autobiography Father Gerard has laid before us his life in all the freedom and unreserve of a confidential communication with his Religious brethren and Superiors. It is not possible, we are convinced, for any impartial person to rise from its perusal without a deep conviction that Father Gerard was a gentleman and a Christian, a man of honour and religious principle; and in many cases this sense of his integrity will be accompanied with some of that personal regard and affection with which he inspired those who lived in intimacy with him. He bore too much for principle, and made too great sacrifices, for us to think that he would deliberately and perseveringly commit sin to free himself from blame. Yet this is the supposition that is involved in an attack upon his veracity in the compilation of his Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot.

It is quite true that he, and many others, considered themselves justified, when their own lives or those of innocent persons were at stake, in the use of assertions that were simple falsehoods in the ordinary sense of the terms employed. These they called equivocations; and we find no trace in the period of which we are writing of the modern sense of the word, that is, of a true expression which is really beside the point, though it is so employed that it is very unlikely to be seen to be so by the person to whom it is addressed, who thus is said rather to be suffered to deceive himself than to be deceived. Practically the distinction is hard to draw, and it has the disadvantage of seeming to make the morality of the expression depend on the quickness and readiness of the person in danger, who may be able to think of phrases containing a real ambiguity but which yet would throw the hearers off the right scent.

According to modern feeling, Father Gerard would have been quite justified in examining the trees and hedges in search of a falcon178 he had not lost, and inquiring of all he met whether they had heard the tinkling of the bird's bells, although it was to make them think that he had lost a falcon, in other words, to deceive [pg ccx] them; but by the same modern feeling he would be held to be guilty of a lie when he said that he was the servant of a lord in a neighbouring county, though he might, without guilt, have worn that lord's livery as a disguise if he could have obtained it, which would have been a more effectual deception than any words.

Again, according to modern judgment, John Lilly would be held guilty of a lie when he said179 of Gerard's books and manuscripts, “They are mine;” but quite guiltless when, with the same intention of making the magistrates believe him to be a Priest when he was not, he said, “I do not say I am a Priest, that is for you to prove.” Yet the latter expression was far more likely to deceive than the former. It was more like what a Priest, under the circumstances, would have said. Present feeling would condemn him of a lie for saying simply, that the books were his, when it would acquit him if he had thought of using far more deceptive expressions, such as “I am not bound to compromise myself by saying whose they are.”

The only difference between modern morality and that on which Father Gerard acted was that now-a-days men say, “Have recourse to evasions.” Then men said, “Say what you like, it is their fault if they think it true.” It is evident that of the two courses of proceeding, the plain-spoken old way is the least open to abuse. No one certainly would have recourse to it excepting from a well-weighed plea of a sorrowful necessity. Whereas, on the other hand, evasions are not startling, and the conscience may lay but little stress on the presence or absence of justifying circumstances. For it is most necessary to bear seriously in mind that all Catholic divines then held, and now hold, that to make use of equivocation excepting under those peculiar circumstances that make it lawful, is in itself a sin, and thus no escape from the sin of lying. So Father Garnett plainly said when on his trial,180 “As I say it is never lawful to equivocate in matters of faith, so also in matters of human conversation, it may not be used promiscually or at our pleasure, as in matters of contract, in matters of testimony, or before a competent judge, or [pg ccxi] to the prejudice of any third person: in which cases we judge it altogether unlawful.”

It is but fair that, in reading the narrative of times when many lives hung on successful disguise and concealment, we should remember that the modern sense of equivocation was then unknown. Protestant moralists have spoken out their minds plainly enough on this subject.

“Great English authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of very distinct schools of thought, distinctly say that under certain extreme circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Taylor says: ‘To tell a lie for charity, to save a man's life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men. Who would not save his father's life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants?’ Again, Milton says: ‘What man in his senses would deny that there are those whom we have the best ground for considering that we ought to deceive, as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, thieves? I would ask, by which of the Commandments is lying forbidden? You will say, by the ninth. If then my lie does not injure my neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden by this Commandment.’ Paley says: ‘There are falsehoods which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal.’ Johnson: ‘The general rule is, that truth should never be violated; there must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone.’ ”181

This language would not have been used by Catholics. With them the word “lie” signified a simple falsehood; and an “equivocation” was a false expression used under such circumstances that if they to whom it was addressed were deceived by it, [pg ccxii] it was their own fault. They had then no right to the truth, and even in some cases it would have been a sin to tell them the truth.

In substance, however, though not in form, the doctrine of Gerard, Southwell, and Garnett, was the same as that of Taylor, Milton, and Johnson. But to confine ourselves to the practice of Father Gerard, this doctrine is not necessary for his defence, and if his conduct be fairly examined, he will be held, even from the modern point of view, to have done no wrong. Protestant moralists, as we have seen, permit men under certain circumstances to tell a lie with intent to deceive. And Catholic moralists permit under such circumstances assertions which would lead the hearers to deceive themselves by neglecting to advert to the limit of the speaker's obligation to tell the truth. But with regard to Father Gerard's legal interrogations, we may waive the question whether they are right or wrong in their morality, for we see clearly that he so expressed himself as to show that his words were not intended to be believed.

The real parallel to them, alleged by Gerard himself, as we shall shortly see, is the prisoner's usual plea of “Not guilty.” This is the only form in which the question is now put to a person accused. But in those days the question was put over and over again, and in every variety of form. To deny was really to plead “Not guilty,” and if this be lawful once, it was lawful whenever they were forced to repeat it. Not only was it a capital offence to be a Priest within the realm, but it was high treason to be reconciled to the Church, or absolved by a Priest, or to harbour or comfort one. Thus the interrogations addressed to prisoners were always intended to make them criminate themselves or others; that is, in the one case to cause them to plead guilty, so that they might be condemned to death on their own confessions; or, in the other case, to force them to become Queen's evidence, and be accessory to the infliction upon others of the extremest penalties enacted by an unjust law.

The first instance that occurs in Father Gerard's Life, is that when, after his apprehension, on being questioned he declared that he was quite unacquainted with the family of the Wisemans, and those who were examining him betrayed their informer [pg ccxiii] by crying out, “What lies you tell! Did you not say so-and-so before such a lady as you read your servant's letter?” Then he adds, “But I still denied it, giving them good reasons however why, even if it had been true, I could and ought to have denied it.”182

Another time183 he was confronted with three servants of Lord Henry Seymour, who avouched that he had dined with their mistress and her sister, the Lady Mary Percy, that it was in Lent, and they told how their mistress ate meat, while Lady Mary and Father Gerard ate nothing but fish. “Young flung this charge in my teeth with an air of triumph, as though I could not help acknowledging it, and thereby disclosing some of my acquaintances. I answered that I did not know the men whom he had brought up.

“ ‘But we know you,’ said they, ‘to be the same that was at such a place on such a day.’

“ ‘You wrong your mistress,’ said I, ‘in saying so. I, however, will not so wrong her.’

“ ‘What a barefaced fellow you are!’ exclaimed Young.

“ ‘Doubtless,’ I answered, ‘were these men's statements true. As for me, I cannot in conscience speak positively in the matter, for reasons that I have often alleged; let them look to the truth and justice of what they say.’ ”

A third instance is the interview184 between Father Gerard and the widow Wiseman, in the presence of the Dean of Westminster, Topcliffe, and others. “They wanted to see if she recognized me. So when I came into the room where they brought me, I found her already there. When she saw me coming in with the gaolers, she almost jumped for joy; but she controlled herself, and said to them: ‘Is that the person you spoke of? I do not know him; but he looks like a Priest.’

“Upon this she made me a very low reverence, and I bowed in return. Then they asked me if I did not recognize her?

“I answered: ‘I do not recognize her. At the same time, you know this is my usual way of answering, and I will never mention any places, or give the names of any persons that are known to me (which this lady, however, is not); because to do [pg ccxiv] so, as I have told you before, would be contrary both to justice and charity.’ ”

Lastly, when examined185 by the Attorney General, after having received a letter from Father Garnett, warning him to prepare himself for death, and after having freely confessed that he was a Priest and a Jesuit, and that he had reconciled others to the Pope, and drawn them away from the faith and religious profession which was approved in England, “answers,” he says himself, “which furnished quite sufficient matter for my condemnation, according to their laws,” and after having denied that he had meddled in political matters; his examination proceeded as follows.

“Hereupon Mr. Attorney kept silence for a time, and then he began afresh to ask me what Catholics I knew; did I know such-and-such? I answered, ‘I do not know them.’ And I added the usual reasons why I should still make the same answer even if I did know them.186 Upon this, he digressed to the question of equivocation, and began to inveigh against Father Southwell, because on his trial he denied that he knew the woman who was brought forward to accuse him.187 She swore that he had come to her father's house and was received there as a Priest; this he positively denied, though he had been taken in that house and was found in a hiding-place, having been betrayed by this wretched woman. (A dutiful daughter truly, who thus betrayed to death both her spiritual and her natural father! Christ our Lord, however, came not to send peace, but a sword to divide between the good and the bad; and in this case he divided the bad daughter from the good parents.) Good Father Southwell, then, though he marvelled at the impudence of this miserable wench, yet denied what she asserted, and gave good reasons for his denial, well knowing and solidly proving that it was not lawful for him [pg ccxv] to do otherwise, lest he should add to the injury of those who were already suffering for the Faith, and for charity shown to him. Taking this occasion, therefore, he showed very learnedly that it was lawful in some cases, nay, even necessary perhaps, to use equivocation; which doctrine he established and confirmed by strong arguments and copious authorities, drawn as well from Holy Scripture as from the writings of the Doctors of the Church.

“The Attorney General inveighed much against this, and tried to make out that this was to foster lying, and so destroy all reliable communications between men, and, therefore, all bonds of society. I, on the other hand, maintained that this was not falsehood, nor supposed an intention of deceiving, which is necessary to constitute a lie, but merely a keeping back of the truth, and that where one is not bound to declare it: consequently there is no deception, because nothing is refused which the other has a right to claim. I showed, moreover, that our doctrine did no way involve a destruction of the bonds of society, because the use of equivocation is never allowed in making contracts, since all are bound to give their neighbour his due, and in making of contracts truth is due to the party contracting. It should be remarked also, I said, that it is not allowed to use equivocation in ordinary conversation to the detriment of plain truth and Christian simplicity, much less in matters properly falling under the cognizance of civil authority,188 since it is not lawful to deny even a capital crime if the accused is questioned juridically. He asked me, therefore, what I considered a juridical questioning. I answered that the questioners must be really superiors and judges in the matter under examination; then, the matter itself must be some crime hurtful to the common weal, in order that it may come under their jurisdiction; for sins merely internal were reserved for God's judgment. Again, there must be some trustworthy testimony brought against the accused; thus, it is the custom in England that all who are put [pg ccxvi] on their trial, when first asked by the Judge if they are guilty or not, answer, ‘Not guilty,’ before any witness is brought against them, or any verdict found by the jury; and though they answer the same way, whether really guilty or not, yet no one accuses them of lying. Therefore I laid down this general principle, that no one is allowed to use equivocation except in the case when something is asked him, either actually or virtually, which the questioner has no right to ask, and the declaration of which will turn to his own hurt, if he answers according to the intention of the questioner. I showed that this had been our Lord's practice, and that of the Saints. I showed that it was the practice of all prudent men, and would certainly be followed by my interrogators themselves in case they were asked about some secret sin, for example, or were asked by robbers where their money was hid.

“They asked me, therefore, when our Lord ever made use of equivocations; to which I replied, ‘When He told His Apostles that no one knew the Day of Judgment, not even the Son of Man; and again, when He said that He was not going up to the Festival at Jerusalem, and yet He went; yea, and He knew that He should go when He said He would not.’

“Wade here interrupted me, saying, ‘Christ really did not know the Day of Judgment, as Son of Man.’

“ ‘It cannot be,’ said I, ‘that the Word of God Incarnate, and with a human nature hypostatically united to God, should be subject to ignorance; nor that He Who was appointed Judge by God the Father should be ignorant of those facts which belonged necessarily to His office; nor that He should be of infinite wisdom, and yet not know what intimately concerned Himself.’ In fact, these heretics do not practically admit what the Apostle teaches (though they boast of following his doctrines), namely, that all the fulness of the Divinity resided corporally in Christ, and that in Him were all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. It did not, however, occur to me at the moment to adduce this passage of St. Paul.”

In every one of these instances words are carefully introduced to show that the denials in question were uttered not with the intent of deceiving the hearers (though even that, according to [pg ccxvii] the grave Protestant authorities recently quoted, would have been lawful), nor of allowing them to deceive themselves if they did not choose to advert to the circumstances in which the denials were made (as Catholic divines would have permitted);189 but avowedly in order that they might not be available as legal evidence against the speaker or his friends.

To Father Gerard's defence of himself it may be as well to add that of Father Southwell,190 who was assailed by Sir Edward Coke.

“The Father would have spoken further on this point [obedience to the laws] had they not attacked him on another,” [pg ccxviii] objecting to him a statement of Anne Bellamy's, who deposed that Father Robert had instructed her, that if asked by searchers or persecutors if there was a Priest in the house, she could say “No,” though she knew there was one: nay, that if asked on oath, she could swear there was not. No sooner was this brought out than the Judges and officers of the court showed themselves highly scandalized, and were for stopping their ears:191 as if, forsooth, the seeking for Catholic Priests to put them to a traitor's death, or force them to apostatize, were a proceeding so clearly and so indubitably just, as to make it as clearly and indubitably unjust to hide them from such an ordeal, or to deny them to their pursuers: nor, indeed, would the harm be confined to the cruel execution of the Priest, but with him the whole of the family in whose house he was found would be liable to the same death of traitors. Coke, therefore, the Attorney General, made the most he could of this matter, insisting that such a pernicious doctrine tended to destroy all truth, and all reliance of men in each other's veracity, and if allowed to prevail, would upset all good government. Topcliffe also inveighed against it so exorbitantly, that Judge Popham silenced him. Father Robert then, as soon as he was allowed to reply, explained briefly what he had said to the witness, whose statement was not altogether exact, and addressing the Judge, said:

“ ‘If you will have the patience to listen to me, I shall be able to prove to you from the Holy Scriptures, from the Fathers, from theologians, and from reason, that in case a demand is made against justice and with the view of doing grievous harm to an innocent person, to give an answer not according to the intent of the questioner is no offence against either the divine law or the natural law. Nay, I will prove that this doctrine in no wise threatens the good government of states and kingdoms: and that, where the other necessary conditions of an oath are present, there is nothing wrong in confirming such an answer in that manner. Now I ask you, Mr. Attorney, Supposing the [pg ccxix] King of France (which God forbid) were to invade this country successfully, and having obtained full possession of this city, were to make search for Her Majesty the Queen, whom you knew to be hidden in a secret apartment of the palace: supposing, moreover, that you were seized in the palace and brought before the King, and that he asked you where the Queen was, and would receive no profession of ignorance from you except on oath: what would you do? To palter or hesitate is to show that she is there: to refuse to swear is equivalent to a betrayal. What would you answer? I suppose, forsooth, you would point out the place! Yet who of all who now hear me would not cry out upon you for a traitor? You would then, if you had any sense, swear at once, either that you knew not where she was, or that you knew she was not in the palace, in order that your knowledge might not become instrumental to her harm. Of this kind, in fact, was the answer of Christ in the Gospel, when He said that concerning the Day of Judgment no one had any knowledge, neither the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son: that is, according to the interpretation of the Fathers, such knowledge that He could communicate to others. Now this is the condition of Catholics in England: they are in peril of their liberty, their fortunes, and their lives, if they should have a Priest in their houses. How can it be forbidden them to escape these evils by an equivocal answer, and to confirm this answer, if necessary, by an oath? For in such a case, three things must be remembered: first, that a wrong is done unless you swear; secondly, that no one is obliged to answer everybody's questions about everything; thirdly, that an oath is always lawful, if made with truth, with judgment, and with justice, all which are found in this case.’192

“He went on to exemplify his position by supposed queries of robbers and highwaymen; but he was interrupted by abuse.”

[pg ccxx]

Father Garnett has defended himself at sufficient length in his speech on his trial;193 but as he there refers to his previous answers, we have thought it best to give insertion here to an autograph paper of his preserved in the Public Record Office.194

“Concerning equivocation, which I seemed to condemn in moral things, my meaning was in moral and human conversation, in which the virtue of verity is required among friends, for otherwise it were injurious to all humanity. Neither is equivocation at all to be justified, but in case of necessary defence from injustice or wrong, or the obtaining some good of great importance, when there is no danger of harm to others, as in the case of Coventry,195 wherein I suppose it is a great advantage to me for to be admitted, and no harm can ensue to the city. For the city seeketh nothing but to be free from the sickness, and if it were possible that the city knew me to be free of certainty, they would admit me presently, which is confirmed by the custom of places beyond [sea], where, though they know a man to come from a place infected, yet after they have kept him in some several place, with convenient diet, for forty days, they admit him.

“As for Mr. Tresham's equivocation, I am loath to judge; yet I think ignorance might excuse him, because he might think it lawful in that case to equivocate for the excuse of his friend, yet would I be loath to allow of it or practise it: he being not then urged, but voluntarily offering it himself, contrary to that which he had before set down, and especially being in case of manifest treason, as I will after explain. But in case a man be urged at the hour of his death, it is lawful for to equivocate, with such due circumstances as are required in his life. An example we may bring in another matter. For the divines hold that in some cases a man may be bound to conceal something in his confession, because of some great harm which may ensue of it. And as he may do so in his life, so may he at his death, if the danger of the harm continue still.

“The case being propounded, supposing that I knew Gerard [pg ccxxi] acquainted with this treason, and having been often demanded thereof, I still denying it, by way of equivocation, whether at the hour of my death, either natural or by course of justice, I may by equivocation seek to clear him again.

“I answer, that in case I be not urged I may not, but I must leave the matter in case in which it stand; but if I be urged, then I may clear him by equivocation, whereas otherwise my silence would be accounted an accusation. But all this I understand when the case is such that I am bound to conceal Gerard's treason, as if I had heard it in confession. For this is a general rule, that in cases of true and manifest treason,196 a man is bound voluntarily in utter and very truth by no way to equivocate, if he know it not by way of confession, in which case also he is bound to seek all lawful ways to discover, salvo sigillo.

“Henry Garnett.

“29° Martii.

“All the Doctors that hold equivocation to be lawful do maintain that it is not lawful when the examinate is bound to tell the simple truth, that is, according to the civil law, when there is a competent judge, and the cause subject to his jurisdiction, and sufficient proofs. But in case of treason a man is bound to confess of another without any witness at all, yea, voluntarily to disclose it; not so of himself.

[pg ccxxii]

“And how far the common law bindeth in cases that are not treason a man to confess of himself, I know not. In the civil law, it is sufficient to have semiplenam probationem, that is, unum testem omni exceptione majorem, or manifesta indicia.

“Our law I take to be more mild, and that a man may put all to witnesses without confessing, except in cases of treason. For, according to our law, non pervertitur judicium tacendo vel negando, as in the civil law, where is required reus confitens. But generally, when a man is bound to confess, there is no place of equivocation. And when he is not bound to confess according to the laws of each country, then may he equivocate.”

In the last paper Father Garnett is not speaking of equivocation used in defence of an innocent person, but of what we may call the persistent plea of “Not guilty,” and he there draws an interesting distinction between the Roman civil law and our own, which he calls “more mild,” in that it professed to regard a prisoner as innocent till he is proved to be guilty. Happily this is our practice now, as well as our profession, and our quotations are needed to enable us to form judgments of conduct in times that have happily passed away.

But with regard to the trustworthiness of Father John Gerard's evidence, as we have it before us in his Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, even if the lawfulness of his proceedings were not admitted, all that we are concerned to show is, that untrue statements, made by a man under circumstances which, rightly or wrongly, he considers to justify him in making them, furnish no presumption whatever that, under other circumstances, affording to his conscience no such justification, his word cannot be trusted. It is an evident instance of the maxim that the exception proves the rule. Restraining himself carefully within the limits of what he held to be lawful under circumstances of extreme difficulty and great personal danger, are we not rather to conclude that, under far less pressure, he will as carefully confine himself to the laws imposed by his conscience? Clearly there is nothing in Father Gerard's practice under examination to cause us to hesitate in placing implicit trust in his word when he speaks as an historian; and, in addition, we are sure that no one will rise [pg ccxxiii] from the perusal of the exculpatory letters which we propose to subjoin, without a full conviction of his innocence and truthfulness.