The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document / Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy Fawkes

CHAPTER LX.

But it may be objected that instead of assuming that Father Oldcorne was a man not only of mental keenness but also of moral uprightness, and proceeding forthwith to build an argument on such an assumption, the writer ought in truth and justice to have proved, by evidence or reason, the latter part of the proposition. And this the rather, seeing that so many of the co-religionists both in our own day as well as in the days of Father Oldcorne have regarded that society, whereof Oldcorne was a distinguished English member, with not merely unfeigned suspicion but with sincere dislike, and even with genuine loathing.[A]

[A] The most formidable adversaries of the Jesuits far and away have been Roman Catholics of a particular type of mind. Blaise Pascal, that colossal genius, has been probably their most successful enemy.

Now, the unbiased historical philosopher is content not only to let the dead bury their dead but also to let theologian deal with theologian. To the historical philosopher, a Jesuit is a man and nothing more: nothing more, that is, so far as his being entitled to receive at the former’s hands the benefit of all those natural rights which belong to all members of the human species. For all men (including Jesuits) are, in the mind of the philosopher, “born free and equal.”

Hence it follows that when, amid the chances and changes of this mortal life, the historical philosopher is thrown across the path of a Jesuit, he looks at him, as a matter of duty, straight in the face, just as he looks at any other rational creature; and then seeks to ascertain, by dint of normal touchstones and tests, what manner of man the person is whom that philosopher, by the ordinances of fate, has then and there confronted.

Now, in the case of Edward Oldcorne, the Text of this Inquiry, and also the Notes thereunto, supply abundant proof that Oldcorne came of a good, wholesome, Yorkshire stock— hard-working, honest, and honourable; that his own mental nature was broad, rich and full, high-minded, just, and generous.[A]

[A] Father Henry Garnet, S.J., landed in England in 1586 along with the gifted Robert Southwell, whose prose and poetical works belong to English literature. Father Weston was then the Jesuit Superior. Father John Gerard landed, along with Father Edward Oldcorne, off the coast of Norfolk, in August, 1588, shortly after the decisive fight with the Spanish Armada, off Gravelines. As illustrating the conscientiousness and courage of this Yorkshire Elizabethan Jesuit, the following quotation from Foley, vol. iv., p. 210, may be of interest: “Father Oldcorne was employed sometime in London by Father Garnet, diligently labouring in the quest and salvation of souls. He was ever of a most ready wit, and endeavoured as far as possible to adapt himself to the manner of those with whom he lived. There were exceptions, however, in which, consumed with an ardent zeal of asserting and defending the Divine honour, he could not refrain from correcting those whom he heard uttering obscene and injurious language either towards God or their superiors. When in London, in the house of a Catholic gentleman, he struck with his fist and broke into pieces a pane of stained or painted glass representing an indecent picture of Venus and Mars, which he considered wholly unfit for the eyes of a virtuous family.”

[The curious philosopher wonders whether this Elizabethan Catholic gentleman, having been deprived of his “Venus and Mars” in such a high-handed fashion, afterwards became anti-Jesuitical.]

Therefore is it, alike by evidence and reason, borne in upon the mind of the philosopher that, on grounds of probability so high as to afford practical certitude, he may proceed to build his argument upon the assumption that Edward Oldcorne was a man not only of intellectual acumen but also of moral integrity, as has been already predicated of him.

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