Edward Oldcorne might have, perchance, saved his life had he told his lawful Sovereign that he had been (Deo juvante) a joint efficient cause of that Sovereign’s temporal salvation and the temporal salvation of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, Commons of England, Ambassadors, and Heaven only knows whom, and how many else beside. For King James, with all his faults, was averse from shedding the blood even of popish Priests and Jesuits. But Oldcorne did not do so. And I hold that he had two all-sufficient reasons for not so acting.

First, he may have thought there was a serious danger of his entangling Thomas Ward, in some way or another, as an accessory, at least, after the fact, in the meshes of the Law of that unscrupulous time: the time, be it remembered, of the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission.

And, secondly, although this great Priest and Jesuit, by virtue and as a result of the releasing act of his Penitent, Christopher Wright, had come, practically, to receive a knowledge of the tremendous secret as a Friend and as a Man, and not as a Priest, yet, because that Man and that Friend was a Priest; and because it was impossible for that Priest in practice, and in the eyes of men, to bisect himself, and make clear and manifest the different sides and aspects in which he had— subsequent to the Penitent’s release from the seal of the Confessional, sigillum confessionis— thought and acted in relation to the revealing plotter, therefore did Oldcorne, I opine, deliberately— because, according to his own principles, he was predominantly “a Priest,” and that “for ever”— therefore did he deliberately choose the more excellent way, aye! in the chamber of torture and upon the scaffold of death, the way of perfect self-sacrifice for the good of others.

For, by a Yorkshire Catholic mother, dwelling in a grey northern city— and who in January, 1598, is described as “old and lame”[A]— Edward Oldcorne had been taught long years ago “to adjust his compass at the Cross.”[177][178]

Brother Ralph Ashley, too, possibly might have saved his life, had he disclosed that, whatever other letter or letters he had carried to and fro, he had carried that great Letter, that Letter of Letters, which had proved the sheet-anchor, the lever, of his Country’s temporal salvation through the temporal salvation of its hereditary and elected rulers.

But Brother Ralph Ashley knew he had a duty to perform of strict fidelity to his master, a duty which, though unknown to man, would not escape the Eye of Him to advance Whose greater glory this humble Jesuit lay-brother was solemnly pledged.

Father Gerard says, as we have already seen, in his “Narrative,” that Ralph Ashley “was divers times put upon the torture but he revealed nothing.” Gerard furthermore says that Ralph Ashley “was indicted and condemned upon supposition that he had carried letters to and fro about this conspiracy.” “But,” says Gerard, “they neither did nor could allege any instance or proof against him.”— See “Narrative,” p. 271.