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.”

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.”

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.”

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 those who have lived in the past, for the reasons given above, we must relinquish historical studies once and for ever. Lastly, we ought not to extol one character at the expense of another. Father Garnet’s weak speech, if weak it was, to some extent excuses, or rather somewhat lessens, the guilt of Sir Everard Digby. We must try to put ourselves in Digby’s place as well as in Garnet’s; nor do I see that Sir Everard’s evidence need be discredited. It was not extorted under examination; on the contrary, it was deliberately written to his wife, and whatever his faults may have been, deceit and dishonesty do not appear to have been among them.

But let me say one word now as to the difficulties in which Father Garnet was placed. Familiar as we are with the means through which he came to know of the plot, I will take the liberty of reminding my readers of them.[179] Suspecting that Catesby was scheming some mischief, he had taxed him with it, and told him that, being against the Pope’s will, it would not prosper. Catesby had replied that, if the Pope knew what he intended to do, he would not hinder it. Then Father Garnet urged him to let the Pope know all about the whole affair. Catesby said he would not do so for the world, lest it should be discovered; but he offered to impart his project to Father Garnet. This Father Garnet refused to hear. Catesby, with all his double-dealing, seems to have become filled with remorse and anxiety, for he revealed the plot to Father Greenway in confession, giving him leave to reveal it in his turn to Father Garnet, in the same manner and under the same seal.

It is difficult for Protestants to realise the secresy of the confessional. Not only can the confessor say nothing of what he has heard in it to anyone else, but he may not even speak of it to the penitent himself, unless the penitent specially requests him to do so, except in confession; nor can he in any way act towards him, or concerning him, on the strength of it. On the other hand, the penitent, although sometimes bound in honour and honesty not to reveal what the priest may say to him confidentially, as man to man, is theologically free to repeat anything that the priest may have said to him in the confessional to the whole world if he so wills; he can also, if he pleases, set the priest at liberty to speak either to himself about it, outside the confessional, or to any other particular person or persons whom he may choose to name, or to everybody, if he likes; but, unless so liberated, if the confessor hears that his penitent is publicly or privately giving a wrong version of the advice given him in confession, he cannot set himself right by giving the true one.

Father Greenway, horrified at the disclosure, availed himself of Catesby’s permission to confide it to Father Garnet in confession. The latter[180] “was amazed,”and “said it was a most horrible thing, the like of which was never heard of, for many reasons unlawful, &c.,” and he proceeded to reprimand Father Greenway very severely for even giving ear to the matter.[181] By this, EndÆmon the Jesuit, who tells the story, probably means “for discussing”the matter, and not refusing to listen to any defence of it. A priest can hardly be blamed for “hearing”anything in confession; yet this is what EndÆmon says. Therefore it would appear that, whether Father Garnet acted imprudently or not, Father Greenway certainly did so—at any rate, in Father Garnet’s opinion.[182]

The position in which Catesby was placed with regard to the sacraments of confession and communion is delicate ground for a layman to approach; especially as nobody knows exactly what took place with regard to either. I am told, however, by those who ought to know, that this much may be said from my own point of view, without danger of theological error. Father Greenway, after telling Catesby in confession about the nature of the enormity he was meditating, must have refused him absolution and the sacraments if he persevered.[183] After so striking a sentence, what possible room is there for thinking that Catesby could have gone on without even a serious practical doubt as to the lawfulness of his object? Yet to have persevered with such a doubt would have put him at once into a state of mala fides. And if he became in a state of mala fides, as he was in the habit of going to the sacraments every week, he must have done one or other of two things. He must either have made sacrilegious communions, or he must have given up going to Holy Communion in order to commit the crime of proceeding with the Gunpowder Plot.

There is another point in connection with Catesby’s confession which is worthy of notice. When he first told the other conspirators that he had obtained the consent of a Jesuit to a case similar to the Gunpowder Plot, he could at least honestly say that no priest had at that time directly condemned the Gunpowder Plot itself as such; but, when Father Greenway had distinctly done so, he still seems to have left them under the impression that the Jesuit Fathers approved of the conspiracy “in general, though they knew not the particulars.”To do this was to act a lie! But it seems to have been after he had heard Greenway condemn the Plot in confession that he said something of the same kind to Sir Everard Digby for the first time, and in that case he told a lie! In short, if—mind, I say if—after hearing Greenway’s denunciation of the Plot, which, according to Father Pollen,[184] was in July, he gave Sir Everard Digby to understand, on first telling him of the plot, in the following September, that the scheme in general had the approval of the Jesuits, though they knew not the particulars, when he was well aware that he himself had told them the main particulars, and was certain that they did not approve of it, he obtained Sir Everard’s adherence to the plot by a direct fraud, and acted the part of an unscrupulous scoundrel.

Some devout people have endeavoured to find excuses for Catesby—not for his action with regard to the plot, of course, but for the condition of mind into which he fell preparatory to it—on the ground that he was a good Catholic. What is a good Catholic? I suppose a man who keeps God’s commandments and obeys his Church. One commandment is, “Thou shalt do no murder”; and one of the Pope’s orders, in Catesby’s time, was that the Catholics in England were not to rise against the Government. But then it is said that Catesby went to Holy Communion every week. Be it so! Another historical character, one Judas Iscariot, committed a still worse crime immediately after receiving his First Communion.

Robert Catesby was one of those most dangerous men to his own cause, a Catholic on Protestant principles. He acted in direct opposition to the commands of the Divine Founder of his Church, as well as to the precepts of the representative of that Divine Founder upon earth. He preferred his own private opinion to that of either. He considered his own Decalogue and Beatitudes juster and more sublime than the Almighty’s, his own intentions for the welfare of the Church wiser than the Holy Father’s, his own moral theology more orthodox than that of the Jesuits; and then this Protestant in practice—for Protestantism is not exclusively restricted to protests against such matters as the supremacy of the Pope or transubstantiation—took it upon himself to pose as a prominent champion of the Catholic Church.

I am not denying that Catesby fancied he was doing right; but whether that fancy was arrived at by right means or wrong is another question. He seems to have argued to himself that Pope, Priests, and Jesuits were not equal to the occasion; that there were times, of which his own was one, at which papal, spiritual, and even biblical teaching must for the moment be set on one side whilst the secular arm struck a violent blow for the relief of God’s suffering people; that, ante factum, the ecclesiastical powers could not consent to such a measure, but that, post factum, they would not only tolerate it, but approve of and rejoice at it. It came, therefore, to this, that on a most important point of morals—faith and morals, be it remembered, are the two chief provinces over which the Catholic Church claims power—a private individual, and not the Church, was to decide what was best; in short, Catesby was to protest against the teaching of the Church. Luther protested in matters of faith; Catesby protested in matters of morals. Both men seem to have believed that the time would come when the Church would see that what they did was for its welfare.

It has been said that in Father Garnet we have one of the most remarkable instances in history of the secresy of the confessional. On this point I venture no opinion; but I am bold enough to say that in Robert Catesby we have one of the most remarkable instances in history of the abuse of the confessional. Perhaps no man ever did more to foster that superstitious horror of “auricular confession”which has so long prevailed, and still prevails in this country.

In passing, I may meet a possible inquiry as to how it came about that so much should be known concerning what Catesby had told Greenway in confession, and what Greenway had told Garnet under the same sacred seal. The explanation is simple. Catesby had not only given Father Greenway permission to inform Father Garnet of the plot, under seal of confession, but had[185] “arranged that neither should be bound by that seal when lawfully examined by their superiors.” Another question naturally presents itself, much more connected with the man whose life I am writing, which I confess I do not find it so easy to answer. It is the following:—When Father Garnet noticed the sudden and suspicious confidences which had arisen between Catesby and Sir Everard Digby,[186] after their ride from Harrowden to Gothurst, did he, though tongue-tied as to what he knew of Catesby’s designs under seal of confession, know enough out of the confessional to warn Sir Everard against consenting to, or joining in, any illicit schemes which Catesby might propose to him and had he an extra-confessional causa loquendi?

Let us suppose that he asked himself this question. Even if he answered it in the affirmative, he might have refrained from acting, through fear that, in his vehemence in warning Sir Everard, there might be a danger of his breaking the seal of the confessional; or that in vaguely putting Sir Everard on his guard, he might raise the suspicion that knowledge obtained in the confessional was the occasion, or the impelling cause of that warning. Or he might reflect that, if cross-questioned by Sir Everard, it would be difficult to remember, at a moment’s notice, exactly how much of his knowledge of Catesby’s schemes was sealed by confession, and how much unsealed.

Yet when he looked at his young host, and at his charming and excellent wife, still a mere girl, but with two little children beside her, in their beautiful and happy home, the model of what a Christian home ought to be, and a centre of Catholic society; and when he considered that hitherto Sir Everard Digby had been as upright in character as in stature, and as distinguished in virtue as in appearance, might he not have told himself that any effort was worth making to try to save him from a terrible crime and its terrible consequences?

He was the only man who could do so! He alone had “a general knowledge of Mr Catesby’s intention,”[187] untrammelled by the secresy of either oath or confessional, and he[188] “noticed the new intimacy that had sprung up between Catesby and Digby,”and surmised truly enough that Digby had been “drawn in.” Yet it is evident from Sir Everard’s letters from the Tower, that Father Garnet never lifted a finger nor uttered a word to hinder his host from joining, or proceeding in, the conspiracy which was to work his ruin. This is the more remarkable because Father Garnet might have been expected not only to wish to save Sir Everard from the guilt and the dangers of the Plot, but also to prevent a conspiracy which he so much dreaded from being strengthened by the support of a man of considerable wealth. The most probable origin of his inaction in this matter was the same weakness of character which had exhibited itself in his speech to Sir Everard about the Pope and the “stirrs,” and in his failure to reveal his “general knowledge, had of Mr Catesby out of confession,”whereby he said he offended God and the King. His silence and inaction were certainly not owing to any temporary revival of confidence in his mind. On the contrary, he wrote:—[189] “I remained in the greatest perplexity that ever I was in my life, and could not sleep a’ nights.”He added, “I did offer up all my devotions and masses that God of his mercy and infinite Providence would dispose of all for the best, and find means which were pleasing unto Him, to prevent so great a mischief”[as the Gunpowder Plot]. “I knew that this would be infinitely displeasing to my Superiors in Rome, in so much as at my second conference with Mr Greenway, I said, ‘Good Lord, if this matter go forward, the Pope will send me to the galleys, for he will assuredly think I was privy to it.’”

Far be it from me to presume to judge Father Garnet harshly; his opportunities may have been much less, his difficulties may have been much greater, than the evidence before us would seem to show; but, as a biographer of Sir Everard Digby, I feel bound to express my regret that it should appear as if Father Garnet might have saved him from the terrible troubles that followed and failed to do so.

I began this chapter with a reference to those who plead extenuating circumstances for Catesby. Let me end it by referring to somewhat similar-minded critics, who, while they condemn the Gunpowder Plot as a most dastardly outrage, regard it as the hot-blooded attempt of a small party of Catholics driven to desperation by their sufferings. Of the sufferings of the English Catholics there can be no sort of doubt or question; and none the less certain is it that, as a body, they bore them with patience and without any attempt at rebellion. Was, then, the small party of Catholics that conspired in the Gunpowder Plot composed of men so exceptionally exposed to sufferings for their faith as to be, more than any of their fellow-sufferers, “driven to desperation”? It is well worth while to inquire. We will consult a Catholic contemporary, most unlikely to represent their lot as too easy, namely, the oft-quoted Father Gerard.[190]

Let us begin with Catesby, the originator and leader of the enterprise. The losses of his father on account of his religion do not concern the objects of the plot, as they were incurred long before and during a different reign. Catesby himself had certainly lost money, and a great deal of money; but how?[191] “He spent much above his rate [income], and so wasted also good part of his living.”He was guilty of “excess of play and apparel.”He also had to pay “£3000 before he got out”of prison, where he had been put for joining in the ill-fated rising of Essex. Even after all these losses, he was able to live among men of wealth, if not in his own country-house at Lapworth, in Warwickshire.

Ambrose Rokeby was[192] “a gentleman of good worth in the county of Suffolk, and of a very ancient family, and himself the heir of the eldest house.”At the time of the plot he had a great many horses, and was evidently a rich man. John Grant was[193] “a man of sufficient estate.”Francis Tresham was[194] “a gentleman of Northamptonshire of great estate, esteemed then worth £3000 a year,”a sum, of course, equivalent to a very large income in these days. Robert Winter was[195] “a gentleman of good estate in Worcestershire.”Thomas Percy,[196] although not a rich landowner, held the lucrative post of agent and administrator to his cousin, the Earl of Northumberland. The “means were not great”of Robert Keyes, John and Christopher Wright, and Thomas Winter; but most of them seem to have been able to live in good society, and their want of money was for the most part owing to their being younger sons, being “very wild,”[197] or living “in good sort and of the best,”[198] when their circumstances did not justify their doing so. As for Sir Everard Digby, it is scarcely necessary to repeat that he had been a rich man to begin with, and had increased his wealth by marrying an heiress. These, then, are the men who, we are told, were driven to desperation by their sufferings, and conspired together to commit a most horrible and murderous crime, while thousands of Catholics who were literally ruined, by fines for their religion which they were unable to pay, bore their troubles in silence, and with Christian fortitude and resignation.

In connection with this matter, there is one more point to be considered. The sudden and unpremeditated assault of a man in despair is sometimes to be excused, and often to be regarded with comparative lenience. What looks like murder at first sight, at second may prove to be only man-slaughter, under such circumstances. Does any such excuse exist for the Gunpowder Plot? Was it a violent attempt made on the spur of the moment, or was it the result of lengthy, deliberate, and anxious forethought? Was it the work of an hour, a day, a week, or even a month. On the contrary, so far as can be ascertained, at least a year and a quarter, and more probably a year and a half, of careful scheming and calculation were devoted to it.[199]

It has been said, in excuse for the conspirators, that there are reasons for suspecting the idea of the Gunpowder Plot to have been conceived in the first instance by Cecil, who had it suggested to Catesby, through a third person—possibly Mounteagle—with the deliberate intention of bringing discredit upon the English Catholics, and thereby giving cause for the enactment of severer measures for their repression. This may remind some of my readers that, at the height of the agrarian crime in Ireland, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, many good Irish Catholics were persuaded, or persuaded themselves, that the outrages were invented, instigated, and encouraged, if not actually perpetrated, at the suggestion of the authorities at Dublin Castle, in order to throw discredit upon “the poor, oppressed Irish peasantry,”and to give an excuse for “persecuting” them with renewed vigour.

As to the question whether Cecil originated the Gunpowder Plot as a bait with which to entrap Catholic priests, Jesuits, and laymen, if there be any grounds for it, it certainly has great historic interests; but whether Cecil, or the Devil, or both, put the idea into the heads of the conspirators, little, if at all, affects their guilt.