What Gunpowder Plot Was

Three of these, Garnet, Greenway and Gerard, were in England while the plot was being devised, and were charged with complicity in it. Of the three, Garnet, the Provincial of England, was tried and executed; the other two escaped to the Continent. My own opinion is that Gerard was innocent of any knowledge of the plot,[264 - See History of England, 1603-1642, i. 238, 243.] and, as far as I am concerned, it is only the conduct of Garnet and Greenway that is under discussion. That they both had detailed knowledge of the plot is beyond doubt, as it stands on Garnet’s own admission that he had been informed of it by Greenway, and that Greenway had heard it in confession from Catesby.[265 - Garnet’s Declaration, March 9, 1606. —Hist. Rev. July, 1888, p. 513.] A great deal of ink has been spilled on the question whether Garnet ought to have revealed matters involving destruction of life which had come to his knowledge in confession; but on this I do not propose to touch. It is enough here to say that the law of England takes no note of the excuse of confession, and that no blame would have been due on this score either to the Government which ordered Garnet’s prosecution, or to the judges and the jury by whom he was condemned, even if there had not been evidence of his knowledge when no question of confession was involved.

In considering Garnet’s case the first point to be discussed is, whether the Government tampered with the evidence against the priests, either by omitting that which made in favour of the prisoner, or by forging evidence which made against him. An instance of omission is found in the mark ‘hucusque’ made by Coke in the margin of Fawkes’s examination of November 9, implying the rejection of his statement that, though he had received the communion at Gerard’s hands as a confirmation of his oath, Gerard had not known anything of the object which had led him to communicate.[266 - Father Gerard gives a facsimile, p. 199.] The practice of omitting inconvenient evidence was unfortunately common enough in those days, and all that can be said for Coke on this particular occasion is, that the examination contained many obvious falsehoods, and Coke may have thought that he was keeping back only one falsehood more. Coke, however, at Garnet’s trial did not content himself with omitting the important passage, but added the statement that ‘Gerard the Jesuit, being well acquainted with all designs and purposes, did give them the oath of secrecy and a mass, and they received the sacrament together at his hands.’[267 - Harl. MSS. 360, fol. 112 b.] Clearly, therefore, Coke is convicted, not merely of concealing evidence making in the favour of an accused, though absent, person, but of substituting for it his own conviction without producing evidence to support it. All that can be said is, in the first place, that Gerard was not on trial, and could not therefore be affected by anything that Coke might say; and that, in the second place, even if Coke’s words were – as they doubtless were – accepted by the jury, the position of the prisoners actually at the bar would be neither better nor worse.

Much more serious is Father Gerard’s argument that the confession of Bates, Catesby’s servant, to the effect that he had not only informed Greenway of the plot, but that Greenway had expressed approval of it, was either not genuine, or, at least, had been tampered with by the Government. As Father Gerard again italicises,[268 - See p. 128.] not a passage from the examination itself, but his own abstract of the passage, it is better to give in full so much of the assailed examination as bears upon the matter: —

“Examination of Thomas Bate,[269 - As in the case of the merchant who refused to pay the imposition on currants, ‘Bate’ and ‘Bates’ were considered interchangeable.] servant to Robert Catesby, the 4th of December, 1605, before the Lords Commissioners.

“He confesseth that about this time twelvemonth his master asked this said examinant whether he could procure him a lodging near the Parliament House. Whereupon he went to seek some such lodging and dealt with a baker that had a room joining to the Parliament House, but the baker answered that he could not spare it.

“After that some fortnight or thereabouts (as he thinketh) his master imagining, as it seemed, that this examinant suspected somewhat of that which the said Catesby went about, called him to him at Puddle Wharf in the house of one Powell (where Catesby had taken a lodging) and in the presence of Thomas Winter, asked him what he thought what business they were about, and this examinant answered that he thought they went about some dangerous business, whereupon they asked him again what he thought the business might be, and he answered that he thought they intended some dangerous matter about the Parliament House, because he had been sent to get a lodging near that House.

“Thereupon they made this examinant take an oath to be secret in the business, which being taken by him, they told him that it was true that they meant to do somewhat about the Parliament House, namely, to lay powder under it to blow it up.

“Then they told him that he was to receive the sacrament for the more assurance, and he thereupon went to confession to a priest named Greenway, and in his confession told Greenway that he was to conceal a very dangerous piece of work that his master Catesby and Thomas Winter had imparted unto him, and that he being fearful of it, asked the counsel of Greenway, telling the said Greenway (which he was not desirous to hear) their particular intent and purpose of blowing up the Parliament House, and Greenway the priest thereto said that he would take no notice thereof, but that he, the said examinant, should be secret in that which his master had imparted unto him, because that was for a good cause, and that he willed this examinant to tell no other priest of it; saying moreover that it was not dangerous unto him nor any offence to conceal it, and thereupon the said priest Greenway gave this examinant absolution, and he received the sacrament in the company of his master Robert Catesby and Mr. Thomas Winter.

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Indorsed: – “The exam. of Tho. Bate 4 Dec. 1605. Greenway, §.”[270 - G. P. B., No. 145. The words in italics are added in a different hand. Dunbar’s name does not occur in the list of Commissioners at p. 24.]

Out of this document arise two questions which ought to be kept carefully distinct: —

1. Did the Government invent or falsify the document here partially printed?

2. Did Bates, on the hypothesis that the document is genuine, tell the truth about Greenway?

1. In the first place, Father Gerard calls our attention to the fact that the document has only reached us in a copy. It is quite true; though, on the other hand, I must reiterate the argument, which I have already used in a similar case,[271 - See p. 41.] that a copy in which the names of the Commissioners appear, even though not under their own hands, falls not far short of an original. If this copy, being a forgery, were read in court, as Father Gerard says it was,[272 - Gerard, p. 179. I do not think his argument on this point conclusive, but obviously it would be useless to forge a document unless it was to be used in evidence.] some of the Commissioners would have felt aggrieved at their names being misused, unless, indeed, the whole seven concurred in authorising the forgery, which is so extravagant a supposition that we are bound to look narrowly into any evidence brought forward to support it.

Father Gerard’s main argument in favour of the conclusion at which he leads up to – one can hardly say he arrives at this or any other clearly announced conviction – is put in the following words: —

“If, however, this version were not genuine, but prepared for a purpose, it is clear that it could not have been produced while Bates was alive to contradict it, and there appears to be no doubt that it was not heard of till after his death.”

The meaning of this is, that the Government did not dare to produce the confession till after Bates’s death, lest he should contradict it. If this were true it would no doubt furnish a strong argument against the genuineness of the confession, though not a conclusive one, because at the trial of that batch of the prisoners among whom Bates stood, the Government may have wished to reserve the evidence to be used against Greenway, whom it chiefly concerned, if they still hoped to catch him. I do not, however, wish to insist on this suggestion, as I hope to be able to show that the evidence was produced at Bates’s trial, when he had the opportunity, if he pleased, of replying to it.

Father Gerard’s first argument is, that in a certain ‘manuscript account of the plot,[273 - Harl. MSS. 360, fol. 96.] written between the trial of the conspirators and that of Garnet, that is, within two months of the former,’ the author, though he argues that the priests must have been cognizant of the design, says nothing of the case of Bates’s evidence against Greenway, ‘but asserts him to have been guilty only because his Majesty’s proclamation so speaks it.’[274 - Gerard, p. 170.] To this it may be answered that, in the first place, the manuscript does not profess to be a history of the plot. It contains the story of the arrest of Garnet and other persons, and is followed by the story of the taking of Robert Winter and Stephen Littleton. In the second place, there is strong reason to suppose, not only from the subjects chosen by the writer, but also from his mode of treating them, that he was not only a Staffordshire man, or an inhabitant of some county near Wolverhampton, but that his narrative was drawn up at no great distance from Wolverhampton. It does not follow that because his Majesty’s proclamation had been heard of in Wolverhampton, a piece of evidence produced in court at Westminster would have reached so far.

Another argument used by Father Gerard in his own favour, appears to me to tell against him. In a copy of a minute of Salisbury’s to a certain Favat, who had been employed by the King to write to him, we find the following statement, which undoubtedly refers to Bates’s confession, it being written on December 4, the day on which it was taken: —

“You may tell his Majesty that if he please to read privately what this day we have drawn from a voluntary and penitent examination, the point I am persuaded (but I am no undertaker) shall be so well cleared, if he forebear to speak much of this but ten days, as he shall see all fall out to that end whereat his Majesty shooteth.”[275 - Salisbury’s Minute to Favat, Dec. 4, 1605. —Add. MSS. 6178, fol. 98.]

Father Gerard’s comment on this, that the confession of Bates, here referred to, ‘cannot be that afterwards given to the world; for it is spoken of as affording promise, but not yet satisfactory in its performance.’[276 - Gerard, p. 181.] Yes; but promise of what? The King, it may be presumed, had asked not merely to know what Greenway had done, but to know what had been the conduct of all the priests who had confessed the plotters. The early part of the minute is clear upon that. Salisbury writes that the King wanted

‘to learn the names of those priests which have been confessors and ministers of the sacrament to those conspirators, because it followeth indeed in consequence that they could not be ignorant of their purposes, seeing all men that doubt resort to them for satisfaction, and all men use confession to obtain absolution.’

Bearing this in mind, and also that Salisbury goes on to say that ‘most of the conspirators have carefully forsworn that the priests knew anything particular, and obstinately refused to be accusers of them, yea what torture soever they be put to,’ I cannot see that anything short of the statement about Greenway ascribed to Bates would justify Salisbury’s satisfaction with what he had learnt, though he qualifies his pleasure with the thought that there is much more still to be learnt about Greenway himself, as well as about other priests. An autograph postscript to a letter written to Edmondes on March 8, 1606, shows Salisbury in exactly the spirit which I have here ascribed to him: —

“You may now confidently affirm that Whalley[277 - An alias for Garnet.] is guilty ex ore proprio. This day confessed of the Gunpowder Treason, but he saith he devised it not, only he concealed it when Father Greenway alias Tesmond did impart to him all particulars, and Catesby only the general. Thus do you see that Greenway is now by the superintendent as guilty as we have accused him. He confesseth also that Greenway told him that Father Owen was privy to all. More will now come after this.”[278 - Salisbury to Edmondes, March 8, 1606. —Stowe MSS. 168, fol. 366.]

The tone of the letter to Favat is more subdued than this, as befitted writing that was to come under the King’s eye; but the meaning is identical: – “I have got much, but I hope for more.”

We now come to Father Gerard’s argument that the charge against Greenway of approving the plot was not produced even at Garnet’s trial on March 28, 1606, Bates having been tried on January 27, and being executed on the 30th: —

“Still more explicit is the evidence furnished by another MS. containing a report of Father Garnet’s trial. In this the confession of Bates is cited, but precisely the significant passage of which we have spoken, as follows: ‘Catesby afterwards discovered the project unto him; shortly after which discovery, Bates went to mass to Tesimond [Greenway] and there was confessed and had absolution.’

“Here, again, it is impossible to suppose that the all-important point was the one omitted. It is clear, however, that the mention of a confession made to Greenway would primâ facie afford a presumption that this particular matter had been confessed, thus furnishing a foundation whereon to build; and knowing, as we do, how evidence was manipulated, it is quite conceivable that the copy now extant incorporates the improved version thus suggested.”

Father Gerard has quoted the sentence about Bates and Greenway correctly,[279 - Harl. MSS. 360, fol. 117.] but he has not observed that Coke, in his opening speech, is stated on the same authority to have expressed himself as follows: —

“In November following comes Bates to Greenway the Jesuit, and tells him all his master’s purpose; he hears his confession, absolves him, and encourageth him to go on, saying it is for the good of the Catholic cause, and therefore warrantable.”[280 - Ib. fol. 113.]

I acknowledge that Coke’s unsupported assertion is worth very little; but I submit that so practised an advocate would hardly have produced a confession which, if it contained no more than Father Gerard supposes, would have directly refuted his own statement. Father Gerard, I fancy, fails to take into account the difficulties of note-takers in days prior to the invention of shorthand. The report-taker had followed the early part of Bates’s examination fairly well. Then come the words quoted by Father Gerard at the very bottom of the page. May not the desire to get all that he had to say into that page have been too strong for the reporter, especially as, after what Coke had said earlier in the day, the statement that Bates ‘confessed’ might reasonably be supposed to cover the subject of confession? ‘Catesby … discovered the project unto him, shortly after which discovery’ he confessed. What can he be supposed to have confessed except the project discovered? and, if so, Greenway’s absolution implies approval.

Father Gerard, moreover, though he quotes from another manuscript Garnet’s objection that ‘Bates was a dead man,’ thereby meaning that Bates’s testimony was now worthless, entirely omits to notice that the preceding paragraph is destructive of his contention. A question had arisen as to whether Greenway had shown contrition.

“Nay,” replied Mr. Attorney, “I am sure that he had not, for to Bates he approved the fact, and said he had no obligation to reveal it to any other ghostly father, to which effect Bates his confession was produced, which verified as much as Mr. Attorney said, and then Mr. Attorney added that he had heard by men more learned than he, that if for defect of contrition it was not a sacrament, then it might lawfully be revealed.

“Mr. Garnet rejoined that Bates was a dead man, and therefore although he would not discredit him, yet he was bound to keep that secret which was spoken in confession as well as Greenway.”[281 - Add. MSS. 21203, fol. 38 b.]

Having thus shown that Father Gerard’s argument, that the statement about Greenway was not produced at Garnet’s trial, cannot be maintained; that his argument drawn from the account of the arrest of Garnet and others is irrelevant, and that Salisbury’s letter to Favat, so far from contradicting the received story, goes a long way to confirm it, I proceed to ask why we are not to accept the report of A true and perfect relation, where Coke is represented as giving the substance of the confession of Bates, beginning with Catesby’s revelation of the plot to him, followed by his full confession to Greenway and Greenway’s answer, somewhat amplified indeed, as Coke’s manner was, but obviously founded on Bates’s confession of December 4, 1605.

“Then they,” i. e. Catesby and Winter, “told him that he was to receive the sacrament for the more assurance, and thereupon he went to confession to the said Tesmond the Jesuit, and in his confession told him that he was to conceal a very dangerous piece of work, that his master Catesby and Thomas Winter had imparted unto him, and said he much feared the matter to be utterly unlawful, and therefore thereon desired the counsel of the Jesuit, and revealed unto him the whole intent and purpose of blowing up the Parliament House upon the first day of the assembly, at what time the King, the Queen, the Prince, the Lords spiritual and temporal, the judges, knights, citizens, burgesses should all have been there convented and met together. But the Jesuit being a confederate therein before, resolved and encouraged him in the action, and said that he should be secret in that which his master had imparted unto him, for that it was for a good cause, adding, moreover, that it was not dangerous unto him nor any offence to conceal it; and thereupon the Jesuit gave him absolution, and Bates received the sacrament of him, in the company of his master, Robert Catesby, and Thomas Winter.”[282 - A true and perfect relation. Sig. G., 2, verso.]

We have not, indeed, the evidence set forth, but we have a distinct intimation that amongst the confessions read was one from which ‘it appeared that Bates was resolved from what he understood concerning the powder treason, and being therein warranted by the Jesuits.’[283 - Ib., Sig. K., 3.]

2. Being now able to assume that the confession ascribed to Bates was genuine, the further question arises whether Bates told the truth or not. We have, in the first place, Greenway’s strong protestation that he had not heard of the plot from Bates. In the second place, Father Gerard adduces a retractation by Bates of a statement that he thought Greenway ‘knew of the business.’ Now, whatever inference we choose to draw, it is a curious fact that this has nothing to do with Bates’s confession of December 4 – the letter of Bates printed in the narrative of the Gerard who lived in the seventeenth century running as follows: —

“At my last being before them I told them I thought Greenway knew of this business, but I did not charge the others with it, but that I saw them all together with my master at my Lord Vaux’s, and that after I saw Mr. Whalley,” i. e. Garnet, “and Mr. Greenway at Coughton, and it is true. For I was sent thither with a letter, and Mr. Greenway rode with me to Mr. Winter’s to my master, and from thence he rode to Mr. Abington’s. This I told them, and no more. For which I am heartily sorry for, and I trust God will forgive me, for I did it not out of malice but in hope to gain my life by it, which I think now did me no good.”[284 - Morris’s Condition of Catholics, 210. A Latin translation of part of the letter was printed in 1610, by Eudæmon Joannes, Ad actionem proditoriam, &c., p. 6.]

This clearly refers not to the confession of December 4, but to that of January 13,[285 - G. P. B., No. 166.] in which these matters were spoken of, and it is to be noted that Bates does not acknowledge having spoken falsely, but of having told inconvenient truths.

Bates’s entire silence in this letter as to the confession of December 4 may receive one of two interpretations. Either Greenway was not mentioned in that confession at all – a solution which in the face of Salisbury’s letter to Favat seems to be an impossible one – or else Bates knew that he had at that time made disclosures to which he did not wish to refer. It is, perhaps, not so very unlikely that he compounded for what would in any case be regarded as a great fault by disclosing a smaller one.

Are we, then, shut up to the conclusion that Father Greenway sheltered himself by telling a deliberate lie? I do not see that it is absolutely necessary; though I suppose, under correction, that he might feel himself bound to aver that he had never heard what he had only heard in confession. Is it not, however, possible that Bates in confessing to Greenway did not go into the details of the plot, but merely spoke of some design against the Government with which his master had entrusted him, and that Greenway told him that it was his master’s secret, and he might be content to think that it was in a good cause?[286 - See the express words ascribed to Bates at p. 180.] As time went on Bates would easily read his own knowledge of the plot into the words he had used in confession, or may even have deliberately expanded his statement to please the examiners. Life was dear, and he may have hoped to gain pardon if he could throw the blame on a Jesuit. Besides, Greenway, as he probably knew, had not been arrested, and no harm would come if he painted him blacker than he was. This is but a conjecture, but if it is anywhere near the mark, it is easy to understand why Bates should not have been eager to call attention to the confession of December 4, when he wrote the letter which has been already quoted.[287 - See p. 190.] On the other hand Catesby seems to have had no doubt of Greenway’s adherence, as is shown by his exclaiming on the priest’s arrival at Coughton, that ‘here, at least, was a gentleman that would live and die with them.’

In any case, the general attitude of the priests is not difficult to imagine. Not even their warmest advocates can suppose that they received the news of a plot to blow up James I. and his Parliament with quite as much abhorrence as they would have manifested if they had heard of a plot to blow up the Pope and the College of Cardinals. They were men who had suffered much and were exposed at any moment to suffer more. They held that James had broken his promise without excuse. But they had their instructions from Rome to discountenance all disturbances; and we may do them the justice to add that both Garnet and Greenway were shocked when they were informed of the atrocious character of the plot itself; but, at all events, Sir Everard Digby was able to write from prison to his wife: —

“Before that I knew anything of the plot, I did ask Mr. Farmer,” i. e. Garnet, “what the meaning of the Pope’s Brief was; he told me that they were not (meaning priests) to undertake or procure stirs; but yet they would not hinder any, neither was it the Pope’s mind they should, that should be undertaken for the Catholic good. I did never utter thus much, nor would not but to you; and this answer with Mr. Catesby’s proceedings with him and me give me absolute belief that the matter in general was approved, though every particular was not known.”[288 - Sir E. Digby’s Papers, No. 9, published at the end of Bishop Barlow’s reprint of The Gunpowder Treason.]

Whatever may be thought of the value of this statement Garnet’s attitude towards the plot was, on his own showing, hardly one of unqualified abhorrence. Assuming that all that Greenway had informed him of on one particular occasion, when the whole design was poured into his ears, was told under the sanction of the confessional, and that not only the rule of his Church, but other more worldly considerations, prohibited the disclosure of anything so heard, there was all the more reason why he should take any opportunity that occurred to learn the secret out of confession, and so to do his utmost to prevent the atrocious design from being carried into execution. Let us see whether he did so or not, on his own showing.

On June 8 or 9, 1605,[289 - The Saturday or Sunday after the octave of Corpus Christi, i. e., June 8 or 9, old style, which seems to have been used, as the same day is described as being about the beginning of Trinity Term, which began on May 31.] Catesby asked Garnet the question whether it was lawful to kill innocent persons, together with nocents, on the pretence that his inquiry related to the siege of a town in war. At first Garnet treated the question as of no other import. “I … thought it at the first but as it were an idle question, till I saw him, when we had done, make solemn protestation that he would never be known to have asked me any such question so long as he lived.” On this Garnet began to muse within himself as to Catesby’s meaning.

“And,” he continues, “fearing lest he should intend the death of some great persons, and by seeking to draw them together enwrap not only innocents but friends and necessary persons for the Commonwealth, I thought I would take fit occasion to admonish him that upon my speech he should not run headlong to so great a mischief.”

Garnet accordingly talked to him when he met him next, towards the end of June, telling him that he wished him ‘to look what he did if he intended anything, that he must not have so little regard of innocents that he spare not friends and necessary persons to a Commonwealth, and told him what charge we had of all quietness, and to procure the like of others.’ It was certainly rather mild condemnation of a design which, as Garnet understood, would involve considerable loss of life.

Soon afterwards Garnet received a letter from the General of the Society, directing him, in the Pope’s name, to hinder all conspiracies, and this letter he showed to Catesby when next he saw him: —

“I showed him my letter from Rome,” wrote Garnet afterwards, “and admonished him of the Pope’s pleasure. I doubted he had some device in his head, whatsoever it was, being against the Pope’s will, it could not prosper. He said that what he meant to do, if the Pope knew, he would not hinder, for the general good of the country. But I being earnest with him, and inculcating the Pope’s prohibition did add this quia expresse hoc Papa non vult et prohibet, he told me he was not bound to take knowledge by me of the Pope’s will. I said indeed my own credit was but little, but our General, whose letter I had read to him, was a man everywhere respected for his wisdom and virtue, so I desired him that before he attempted anything he would acquaint the Pope. He said he would not for all the world make his particular project known to him, for fear of discovery. I wished him at the last in general to inform him how things stood here by some lay gentleman.”