  After the body of the letter there is a post scriptum. Now, there are nine words in the post scriptum that suffice to clench the argument of this book. And why? Because, I respectfully submit, those nine words show that between the 4th day of October, 1605, and the 21st day of October, Garnet had received from somewhere intelligence to the effect that machinery was being put into motion whereby the Plot would be squashed. For the post scriptum to this letter of Father Garnet is as follows:— “21º Octobris. “This letter being returned unto me again, FOR REASON OF A FRIEND’S STAY IN THE WAY, I blotted out some words, purposing to write the same by the next opportunity, as I will do apart. “I have a letter from Field, the Journeyman in Ireland, who telleth me that of late, there was a very severe proclamation against all ecclesiastical persons, and a general command for going to the churches, with a solemn protestation that the King never promised nor meant to give toleration. “I pray you speak to Claude, and to grant them, or obtain for them all the faculties we have here; for so he earnestly desireth, and is scrupulous. I gave unto two of them, that passed by me, all we have; and I think it sufficient in law; for being here, they The letter and the post scriptum are alike unsigned. The letter and the post scriptum are still in existence, and, I believe, are preserved in London in the archives of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. I am indebted for my copy to the work entitled, “A True Account of the Gunpowder Plot,” by “Vindicator” (Dolman), 1851— taken from Tierney’s Edition of “Dodd’s Church History.” The Claude referred to in the post scriptum is Father Claude Aquaviva, the then General of the Jesuits, who lived in Rome. (Irish Catholics will not fail to notice the interest this afflicted, much-tried Englishman took in their case on the 21st October, 1605.) Father Gerard says in his “Narrative of the Plot,” p. 269: “Father Oldcorne his indictment was so framed that one might see they much desired to have withdrawn him within the compass of some participation in this late Treason; to which effect they first did seem to suppose it as likely that he should send letters up and down to prepare men’s minds for the insurrection.” Again; respecting Ralph Ashley, the Jesuit lay-brother and servant of Father Oldcorne, Gerard says, on p. 271: “Ralph was also indicted and condemned upon supposition that he had carried letters to and fro about this conspiracy.” Now, my deliberate conjectures are these: That Edward Oldcorne had indeed sent “Letters” which his servant Ralph Ashley had carried concerning “this conspiracy.” That one of those Letters was sent and carried to Henry On the 12th of March, 1605-6, Father Garnet, when a prisoner in the Tower of London, before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, Sir Edward Coke, Sir William Waade (Lieutenant of the Tower), and John Corbett, “confessed that Father Parsons wrote to him certain letters last summer [i.e., 1605] which he received about Michaelmas last, wherein he requested this examinat to advertise him what plotts the Catholiques of England had then in hand; whereunto for that this examinat was on his journey he made no answere.” Yea, indeed, this was a part of the truth, no doubt. But the remainder of the truth, I suggest, was that the Plot of Plots Garnet had learned, a few days after the aforesaid Michaelmas, was being assuredly squashed by Edward Oldcorne. Poor Henry Garnet, a sorry, pathetic figure in the history of his Country, surely. Yet, because much was lost, he knew that it did not therefore follow that all was lost. For this gifted, distraught, erring man still held “something sacred, something undefiled, some pledge and keepsake of his better nature.” That something was his point of honour as a Priest of the Catholic Church. |
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