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 LXX.

Father Edward Oldcorne was racked in the Tower of London, “five times, and once with the utmost severity for several hours,”[172] in order that, haply, information might be extracted from him that would prove him to be possessed of a guilty knowledge of the Plot. But this princely soul had nothing of that kind to tell, so that King James and his Counsellors wreaked their lawless severity in vain.[A]

[A] Torture, for the purpose of drawing evidence from a prisoner, was contrary to the Law of England. Brother Ralph Ashley, the servant of Father Oldcorne, who, I maintain, carried the warning Letters to Father Henry Garnet and Lord Mounteagle, was tortured, but without revealing anything apparently. Brother Nicholas Owen, the great maker of priests’ hiding-places and secret chambers in the castles, manor-houses, and halls of the old English Catholic gentry, was tortured with great severity; but he, too, seems to have revealed nothing. Owen “died in their hands,” but whether he was tortured to death or committed suicide in the Tower is a mystery to this day. One would like to see this mystery bottomed.

On the 7th day of April, 1606, at Redhill, one mile from the City of Worcester, on the London Road, “the silver cord was loosed, the golden bowl was broken, the pitcher was crushed at the fountain, the wheel was broken on the cistern.” For on that day, at that spot, the happy spirit of Edward Oldcorne mounted far, far beyond the fading things of time and space.[173]

It may be objected that Father John Gerard’s relation of the last dying speech and confession of the great Jesuit Priest and Martyr is hostile to the hypothesis that Oldcorne penned the great Letter, “LitterÆ FelicissimÆ.”

Gerard’s reported words are these; but, I contend, we have no absolute proof that they are the ipissima verba of Father Oldcorne, though he may have uttered some of these words, and something resembling them in the case of the others.— See Gerard’s “Narrative” p. 275.

“He declared unto the people that he came thither to die for the Catholic faith and the practice of his function, seeing that they neither had, nor could prove anything against him which, even by their own laws, was sufficient to condemn him, but that he was a Priest of the Society of Jesus, wherein he much rejoiced, and was ready and desirous to give his life for the profession of that faith which he had taught many years in that very country, and which it was necessary for everyone to embrace that would save their souls.[174] Then being asked again about the treason and taking part with the conspirators, he protested there again that he never had the least knowledge of the treason, and took it upon his death that he was as clear as the new-born child from the whole plot or any part thereof. Then commending his soul, with great devotion, humility, and confidence, into the hands of God and to the Blessed Virgin, St. Jerome, St. Winifred, and his good Angel, he was turned off the ladder, and hanging awhile, was cut down and quartered, and so his innocent and thrice-happy soul went to receive the reward of his many and great labours.” (The italics are mine.)

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