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 LXVIII.

We now come to the second and latter part of Father Oldcorne’s Declaration to Humphrey Littleton, from the whole of which Declaration Littleton drew the conclusion that Oldcorne answered “the action was good, and seemed to approve of it.”[A]

[A] By thus disclaiming knowledge of “these”— that is, the object the plotters had in view in their nefarious Plot, and the means they purposed having recourse to, to attain their object— Oldcorne deliberately throws a veil over the full orb of truth. But Littleton might have discerned, had he taken the trouble so to do, that Oldcorne was equivocating under a sense of prior obligation; and the clue was afforded by the person of the speaker and the tenour of the answer itself. In the former part of the Declaration, by leaving Littleton in abstracto, he had thrown a veil over a portion of the full orb of truth. Just as the silvery moon, on some tempestuous night, may be first partially obscured, by a thick, dark, driving cloud, and then afterwards wholly obscured, from the view of the gazer.

“And thus I applied it to this fact of Mr. Catesbie’s; it is not to be approved or condemned by the event, but by the proper object or end, and means which was to be used in it; and because I know nothing of thes, I will neither approve it or condeme it, but leave it to god and ther owne consciences, and in this wary sort I spoke to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me; and that he should take noe advantage of the words whither he reported them to Catholics or Protestants.”[B]

[B] Oldcorne’s full answer to Littleton would be, “and because I know nothing of these [that I am at liberty to tell you, Humphrey Littleton”]: these last words being interiorly expressed, perhaps.

Now, in the first place, let it be remembered that these words were spoken not before but after Wednesday, the 6th of November, when, as Oldcorne himself has left on record, and which indeed we have seen already, Father Tesimond came from Coughton to Huddington, and from Huddington to Hindlip; and when “he said that there were certain gentlemen that meant to have blown up the Parliament House, and that their plot was discovered a day or two before.”[A]

[A] Father Oldcorne says that Tesimond reached Hindlip at two o’clock. Now, as Tesimond came from Huddington, where, already, he had had an interview with Catesby, the conspirators must have reached Huddington before two o’clock; probably they reached the mansion-house at twelve o’clock mid-day. Bates says that Tesimond was at Huddington half-an-hour; but Jardine says two hours. Query, what does “Greenway’s MS.” say?

Again; Fawkes, we are told by EudÆmon-Joannes,[169] explained at the Trial of the conspirators why the prisoners pleaded “‘Not guilty,’ which was that the Indictment contained ‘many other matters, which we neither can, nor ought to countenance by our assent or silence,’ though none of them meant to deny that which they had not only voluntarily confessed before, but which was quite notorious throughout the realm.”[170] (The italics are mine.)

Now, seeing that Oldcorne told Littleton that “he knew nothing” as to the “end or object” the plotters had in their Plot, nor “the means which was to be used in it,” when the whole of England, not to say Europe, had been ringing with a knowledge of not only the end or object, but also the means, for the last past few days, and perhaps weeks, at the very least, I draw this inevitable conclusion:—

That because Oldcorne was a man as morally good as he was intellectually clever, he must have met his questioner’s inquiry with this nescience, by reason of some antecedent, official, and professional duty; or, at least, semi-official and quasi-professional duty, which had been imposed upon him, ab extra, from the outside, prior in time to Humphrey Littleton’s coming to him to be resolved of his doubts as to the moral rightness or wrongness of the Gunpowder Plot.[171]

In other words, that Oldcorne felt instinctively that he could recognise in a private individual, like Humphrey Littleton, no valid right, title, claim, or demand to call forth an answer, which might discover or disclose to Littleton the secret of the repentant Christopher Wright.

Yea, neither in Justice, nor in Equity, nor in Honour could the grand Yorkshireman betray to Humphrey Littleton the secret of trust that in a semi-official, quasi-professional mode or fashion had come to be entrusted to him by another, as that other’s private property and exclusive possession.

That other was Christopher Wright, the penitent revealing plotter, and whomsoever he had, explicitly or implicitly, willed should share a knowledge of the mighty secret. But to none other or others beside. And certainly not to men probably prompted by sinister motives and crooked aims.

For a knowledge of truth in action, truth in the result, truth in the event, truth in the external, and every other kind of truth in relation to the Gunpowder[A] Plot, integral or partial, was irrevocably held in trust by Edward Oldcorne, not for Humphrey Littleton, or the like of him, but for Christopher Wright and men that were true of heart.

[A] The end does not justify the means: neither can a man or a woman do evil that good may come. But Oldcorne would contend that, in perfect Reason, Truth may be concealed, subject to certain limitations and, regard being had to person, time, and circumstance, the clue-affording possibilities; and this whether partial truth or whole truth, in pursuance of a prior and superior moral obligation. And so would say all modern diplomatists and commanders in the field, however conscientious and upright they might be, unless they wished to court defeat, or to give away their Country, and (if justice be meted out to them) to be cashiered. Now, unity at all times and in all places must prevail. For all men are subject to the one Moral Law of Right Reason, and nowhere will you find men without souls, notwithstanding that certain members of the English middle classes sometimes seem to labour under a delusion to the contrary.

Equivocation cannot be had recourse to in matters of Contract, nor for pecuniary gain, nor sordid profit. Remember that, O all ye worshippers of Mammon! For, “a more glorious doctrine for knaves and a more disastrous doctrine for honest men,” it would be difficult, if not impossible, to conceive of than equivocation, if it were not held strictly and severely in check and under control by the dictates of Intellectual Reason and Moral Justice. Now, this highly scientific liberty, “equivocation,” is never morally lawful to the witnesses in a Court of Justice, where the judge has jurisdiction to try the parties and the cause, whether those witnesses be the parties themselves to the cause, or strangers “subpoenaed” to give testimony therein. Such persons would be justly punishable for perjury who professed that, when bearing insufficient or inadequate witness in a Court of Justice by not telling “the whole” truth, they were merely “equivocating.” Nor can equivocation be had recourse to for working hurt or injury to a fellow-creature, whether bond or free, white, black, or copper-coloured, contrary to the primary obligations of Justice, which bid man render unto all men their due. Nor with reference to Divine Truth can equivocation be used. (Hence the piteous absurdity of the Royal Declaration against Popery.)

By the mild and merciful Law of England, a criminally-accused person may equivocate, on the same moral principles as justify strategy in warfare, until his guilt has been brought home to him by sufficient proofs. Such a person equivocates by pleading “not guilty.”

Because I believe the ethical doctrine which justifies equivocation, when properly taught, to be true and not false, and because I furthermore believe that, in the interests of my Country and of Humanity at large, it is of practical consequence, as well as mentally salutary, that a knowledge of equivocation, its foundation principles, extents, and limitations, should be “understanded” by all those that have the guardianship of the People, whether in the senate, in the field, or at sea, therefore, I have requested one, who has a competent mastery of the subject, to explain the matter to my readers. This has been kindly done in a letter, which will be found in Supplementum VI. For “Melius petere fontes,” the jurist as well as the poet has it. “Better is it to have recourse to the fountain-head.”

The philosophical explanation of the fact that, under the pressure of necessity, certain combatants can and do exhibit in action at the theatre of war the highest strategetical skill, in spite of their knowing nothing of the scientific doctrine of equivocation, springs from the law of reason that, as a rule, doing is the condition precedent to knowing; experience to cognition. See Ferrier’s “Institutes of Metaphysic” (Blackwood), p.15.

This was an obligation, that flowed from the truth expressed by the luminous maxim, “Qui prior est tempore potior est jure.” “He who is first in time is the stronger in point of right.”

The Jesuit could never that trust, that confidence betray. If needs be, he must be “true till death.” For it was not necessary that he should live. But it was necessary that he should live undishonoured.

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