Chapter 15

APPENDIX.

ROBERT CATESBY.

He was a descendant of another infamous Catesby, Sir John, the well-known Minister of Richard the Third, satirised in the distich--

"The _Cat_, the Bat, and Lovel the Dog, Govern all England under the Hog."

This gentleman fought with his master at Bosworth, and was beheaded three days after the battle. His son George, who died in 1495-6, was father of Sir Richard, who died in 1552, and who was succeeded by his grandson Sir William, then aged six years, having been born at Barcheston in 1546. He was perverted by Campion in 1580, and developed into a famous recusant; was cited before the Star Chamber in 1581, chiefly on the confession of Campion, for being a harbourer of Jesuits and a hearer of mass; married at Ashby, 9th June 1566, Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire; and died in 1598. The eldest of his children (four sons and two daughters) was Robert Catesby, the conspirator, born at Lapworth, Warwickshire, in 1573. At the age of thirteen--for boys went up to college then at a much earlier age than now--he matriculated, October 27th, 1586, at Gloucester Hall (now Worcester College), Oxford, a house "much suspected," many of its undergraduates being privately Roman Catholics. It was probably during his residence in Oxford that he became a Protestant; and his change of religion being evidently of no moral value, he also led a dissipated and extravagant life. In 1592 he married a Protestant wife, Katherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey, Warwickshire; she died before 1602. His talents were considerable, his will inflexible, and he possessed that singular power of attraction inherent in some persons. A portrait reputed to be his exists at Brockhall, near Ashby. "He was very wise," writes Gerard, "and of great judgment, though his utterance not so good. Besides, he was so liberal and apt to help all sorts, as it got him much love. He was of person above two yards high, and though slender, yet as well-proportioned to his height as any man one should see." Greenway adds that "his countenance was singularly noble and expressive, his power of influencing others very great."

In 1593, on the death of his grandmother, he came into possession of Chastleton, near Chipping Norton, county Oxford, where he resided until 1602, when, in consequence of foolishly joining (like many other Romanists) the insurrection of Lord Essex, he sold Chastleton for 4000 pounds to pay the fine of 3000 pounds imposed on him for treason. He had in 1598 returned to his original faith, in defence of which he was thenceforward very zealous. Nine days before the death of Queen Elizabeth, Catesby, undeterred by his past experiences, and "hunger-starved for innovations," joined Sir Edward Baynham and the Wrights in a second plot, for which he suffered imprisonment. The Gunpowder Plot was his third treasonable venture; and to him principally is due the inception of this fearful project, though John Wright, and afterwards Thomas Winter, joined him at a very early stage. Until Easter, 1605, Catesby himself "bore all the charge" of the mine. During the summer, he was very busy gathering volunteers, arms, and ammunition, in the country, ostensibly for the service of the Archduke Albrecht in Flanders, but in reality for the purpose of creating a general commotion at the time of the intended explosion. About September, 1605, he met Percy at Bath, when they agreed to take into the plot two or three moneyed men, as their own means were fast failing. These were Digby and Tresham; Robert Winter, Rookwood, and Grant followed a little later. Catesby, however, never ceased to regret the admission of Tresham. (See Tresham.) In London he had three lodgings: a chamber in Percy's house in Holborn; apartments in the house of William Patrick, tailor, at the "Herishe Boy" in the Strand; and also "in the house of one Powell, at Paddle Wharf."

On the 26th of October, Catesby dined at the "Mighter" in Bread Street, with Lord Mordaunt, Sir Josceline Percy, and others; the last-named was a brother of Lord Northumberland, and a frequent visitor of Catesby. After this he met his servant William Pettye, "in a field called the common garden in London, by druerye lane." The story of the flight to Holbeach is given in the tale, and embraces many little details not before in print. Catesby was only thirty-three years of age at death. He left two sons, William and Robert, the latter of whom was with his father in London when the plot was discovered; they were subsequently sent in Mrs Rookwood's coach, under charge of a lady not named, to their grandmother at Ashby. Robert alone lived to grow up, and married one of Percy's daughters; but he left _no_ issue. "His posterity was cut off; and in the generation following, their name was blotted out."

SIR EVERARD DIGBY.

This weak and bigoted young man, who was only twenty-four at death, had really little part in the Gunpowder Plot. He was the son of Everard Digby, of Drystoke, county Rutland, and Mary, daughter and co-heir of Francis Nele, of Heythorpe, county Leicester. He was born in 1581, and lost his father, a Romanist, in 1592. His mother married again (to Sampson Erdeswick, of Landon, county Stafford, who was a Protestant), and young Digby was brought up in a Protestant atmosphere. Until his majority, he was much at Court, where he was noted for "graceful manners and rare parts," says Greenway and Gerard adds that "he was very little lower [in height] than Mr Catesby, but of stronger making... skilful in all things that belonged unto a gentleman, a good musician, and excelled in all gifts of mind." He is also described as "of goodly personage, and of a manly aspect." He was always strongly inclined to his father's religion, but did not openly profess it until he reached manhood. Sir Everard married, in 1596, Mary, daughter and heir of William Mulsho of Goathurst, county Buckingham, who survived him, and by whom he left a son, the famous Sir Kenelm Digby, who was little more than two years old at his father's death. If her piteous letter to Lord Salisbury may be believed, Lady Digby was treated with unnecessary harshness. She complains that the Sheriff has not left her "the worth of one peni belonging to the grounds, house, or within the walls; nor so much as great tables and standing chests that could not be removed without cutting and sawing apeses. He permitted the base people to ransack all, so much as my closet, and left me not any trifle in _it_... He will not let me have so much as a suit of apparel for Mr Digby [the little Kenelm], nor linens for my present wearing about my bodi." She implores to be allowed to retain Goathurst, her own inheritance, during the imprisonment of her husband, for whose life she would give hers or would beg during life. (_Burghley Papers_, Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 94.)

GUY FAWKES.

Guy Fawkes, whom his horrified contemporaries termed "the great devil of all" the conspirators, but who was simply a single-eyed fanatic, owes his reputation chiefly to the fact that he was the one selected to set file to the powder. His responsibility was in reality less than that of Catesby, Percy, or Thomas Winter. His father, Edward Fawkes,--in all probability a younger son of the old Yorkshire family of Fawkes of Farnley,--was a notary at York, and Registrar of the Consistory Court of the Minster. He could not of course have filled such as office, unless he had been a Protestant. Edward Fawkes died in 1578, and was buried January 17th in the Church of Saint Michael-le-Belfry, York. His widow, whose maiden name was Edith Jackson, is said by some to have subsequently married a zealous Roman Catholic, Mr Denis Bainbridge, of Scotton; but Sir W. Wade gives the name of her second husband as "one Foster, within three miles of York." She was living at the time of the plot. Guy, who was baptised in Saint Michael's Church, April 16th, 1570, and educated at the Free School in the Horse Fair, did not become a professed Papist until he was about sixteen years of age. He had a step-brother of whom no more is known than that he belonged to one of the Inns of Court in 1605. Guy was not eight years old when he lost his father, who left him no patrimony beyond a small farm worth about 30 pounds per annum; he soon ran through this, sold the estate, and at the age of twenty-three went abroad, living in Flanders for eight years, during which time he was present at the taking of Calais by the Archduke Albrecht. In 1601 he returned to England, with the reputation of one "ready for any enterprise to further the faith." He now entered, along with the Winters and the Wrights, into negotiations with Spain for a fresh invasion of England, which was put a stop to by Elizabeth's death, since the King of Spain declined to take up arms against his old ally, King James. Fawkes's own statements in his examinations have been proved to consist of such a mass of falsehood, that it is scarcely possible to sift out the truth: and all that can be done is to accept as fact such portions of his narrative as are either confirmed by other witnesses, or seem likely to be true from circumstantial evidence. His contradictions of his own previous assertions were perpetual, and where confirmation is accessible, it sometimes proves the original statement, but sometimes, and more frequently, the contradiction. This utter disregard for truth prepares us to discount considerably the description given of Fawkes by Greenway, as "a man of great piety, of exemplary temperance, of mild and cheerful demeanour, an enemy of broils and disputes, a faithful friend, and remarkable for his punctual attendance upon religious observances." So far as facts can be sifted from fiction, they seem to be that Thomas Winter, who had known Fawkes from childhood, came to him in Flanders to acquaint him with the plot, and subsequently introduced him to Catesby and Percy; that Fawkes was in the service of Anthony Browne, Lord Montague, about 1604; that in the summer of that year, when the mine was stopped on account of the prorogation of Parliament, he went to Flanders, returning about the 1st of September. During the progress of the mine, he served as sentinel, passing by the name of John Johnson, Mr Percy's man; and he was the only one of the conspirators allowed to be seen about the house, his face being unknown in London. He said that he "prayed every day that he might perform that which might be for the advancement of the Catholic faith, and the saving of his own soul." Fawkes provided the greater part of the gunpowder, and stowed it in the cellar, as is described in the story. His lodging when in London was at the house of Mrs Herbert, a widow, at the back of Saint Clement's Inn. Mrs Herbert disliked Fawkes, suspecting him to be a priest. On his return from Flanders, he took up his quarters in the house at Westminster, where the mine had been, and brought in the remainder of the gunpowder. At the end of October, he went to White Webbs, whence he was sent to Town on the 30th, to make sure of the safety of the cellar and its dangerous contents. He returned at night to report all safe, but came back to Town not later than the 3rd, when he was present at the last meeting of the conspirators: but as to the exact day he made three varying statements. The circumstances of his arrest are told in the story. It is difficult, however, to reconcile some of the details. According to Greenway, Fawkes was taken as he opened the door of the vault; according to the official report, he was "newly come out of the vault;" while according to Fawkes himself, when he heard the officers coming to apprehend him, he threw the match and touchwood "out of the window in his chamber, near the Parliament House, towards the water,"--which can only refer to the room in Percy's house. The one certainty is that he was not apprehended inside the vault. He said himself that if this had been the case, he would at once have fired the match, "and have blown up all." The lantern (now in the Bodleian Library) was found lighted behind the door; the watch which Percy had sent by Keyes was upon the prisoner. Fawkes originally assumed an appearance of rustic stupidity; for Sir W. Wade writes to Lord Salisbury a little later that he "appeareth to be of better understanding and discourse than, before, either of us conceived him to be." (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 56.) That Fawkes was tortured there can be no doubt, from the King's written command, and the tacit evidence of Fawkes's handwriting. Garnet says he was half-an-hour on the rack; Sir Edward Hoby, that he "was never on the rack, but only suspended by his arms upright." Nothing could induce him to betray his companions until he was satisfied that all was known: and with a base treachery and falsehood only too common in the statecraft of that day, he was deceived into believing them taken before they were discovered. Lying is wickedness in all circumstances; but the prisoner's falsehood was based on a worthier motive than the lies which were told to him. There was, indeed, in the fearless courage and unflinching fidelity of Guy Fawkes, the wreck of what might have been a noble man; and he certainly was far from being the vulgar ruffian whom he is commonly supposed to have been. In person he was tall and dark, with brown hair and auburn beard.

HENRY GARNET.

If Catesby be regarded as the most responsible of the Gunpowder conspirators, and Fawkes as the most courageous, Garnet may fairly be considered the most astute. Like the majority of his companions, he was a pervert. His father, Brian Garnet, was a schoolmaster at Nottingham, and his mother's maiden name was Alice Jay. He was born in 1555, educated at Winchester College, in the Protestant faith, and was to have passed thence to New College, Oxford. This intention was never carried into effect: his Romish biographers say, because he had imbibed at Winchester a distaste to the Protestant religion; adding that "he obtained the rank of captain [of the school], and by his modesty and urbanity, his natural abilities and quickness in learning, so recommended himself to the superiors, that had he" entered at Oxford, "he might safely have calculated on attaining the highest academical honours. But he resolved, by the grace of God, upon embracing the Catholic faith, although his old Professors at Winchester, Stemp and Johnson, themselves Catholic in heart, together with another named Bilson, at first favourable, but afterwards hostile to Catholicity, made every exertion to persuade him to remain." Unhappily for this rosy narrative, the "other named Bilson," afterwards Bishop of Worcester and Winchester, has left on record his account of the matter: namely, that Garnet when at Winchester was a youth of such incorrigible wickedness, that the Warden dissuaded his going to the University, for the sake of the young men who might there be corrupted by his evil example. The reader can accept which version he may see good. On leaving school, Garnet proceeded to London, where for about two years he was employed as corrector of the press by the celebrated law-printer, Tottel. At the end of this time, he was received into the Church of Rome, and subsequently travelled abroad, first to Spain, and afterwards to Rome, where on 11th September, 1575, he entered the Society of Jesus. In the Jesuit College at Rome he studied diligently, under Bellarmine and others: and he was before long made Professor of Hebrew, and licenced to lecture on mathematics. In 1586, on the recommendation of Parsons, he was appointed to the Jesuit Mission to England, where he landed on July 7th. It is said that he was so remarkably amiable and gentle that Aquaviva, the General of the Jesuits, objected to his appointment on the ground that the post required a man of sterner and more unyielding character. Bellarmine records that his sanctity of life was incomparable; but Jesuits are apt to entertain peculiar notions of sanctity. As was then usual, Garnet on coming to his native country adopted a string of aliases--Walley, Darcy, Mease, Roberts, Parmer, and Phillips. Walley, however, was the name by which he was best known. Two years after he joined the Mission, he was promoted to be its Superior. For some years he lived in the neighbourhood of London, following various occupations to disguise his real calling, but chiefly that of a horse-dealer. That he was implicated in the intrigues with Spain before the death of Elizabeth, he never attempted to deny: but during the lull in the penal legislation which followed the accession of James, Garnet purchased a general pardon for all past political offences. He was frequently at Harrowden, the house of Lord Vaux, whose daughter Anne travelled everywhere with him, passing as his sister, Mrs Perkins. About 1599, as "Mr Mease, a Berkshire man," he took the house in Enfield Chase, named White Webbs, for the meetings of the Romanists, after which he was "seldom absent from it for a quarter of a year together." (Examination of James Johnson, servant in charge of White Webbs, _Gunpowder Plot Book_, article 188.) This house was ostensibly taken for Anne Vaux, and was maintained at her expense; her sister Eleanor, with her husband Mr Brooksby (whose alias was Jennings, and who is described as "of low stature, red beard, and bald head"), being often with her. Catesby was a frequent visitor. Anne Vaux had also a house at Wandsworth, where she and Garnet occasionally resided.

These details, gathered from the evidence of Anne Vaux herself, James Johnson, and others, do not, however, agree with some statements of Gerard. He asserts that Mrs Brooksby was a widow, and was the real mistress of the house; and he compares the two to the sisters of Lazarus, "the two women who received our Lord"! It is impossible to avoid seeing the tacit further comparison as to Garnet. When a Queen's messenger arrived, Gerard writes, "rosaries, etcetera, all signs of piety [!] are thrown into a cavern; the mistress is hidden away: on these occasions the younger sister, the unmarried one, passed for the mistress of the house." (Gerard to Aquaviva, quoted by Foley, _Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus_, volume 4, page 36.) All the evidence, apart from this, tends to show that Brooksby was alive, and that he and Eleanor were only visitors--though very constant ones--at White Webbs, where Anne was the real mistress. In 1603, Garnet was returned as living "with Mrs Brooksby, of Leicestershire, at Arundell House. He hath lodgings of his own in London." (_Domestic State Papers_, James the First, volume 8, article 50.) These lodgings were in Thames Street. A large house at Erith was also a frequent meeting-place of the recusants.

That Garnet was acquainted with the Gunpowder Plot from its very beginning is a moral certainty, notwithstanding his earnest efforts to show the contrary. He not only made assertions which he afterwards allowed to be false; but he set up at different times two lines of defence which were inconsistent. He had been told nothing: yet, he had tried to dissuade Catesby and his colleagues from the execution of the plot. If the first allegation were true, the other must have been false. But Garnet's distinctly avowed opinions on the question of equivocation make it impossible to accept any denial from him. He believed that while, "in the common intercourse of life, it is not lawful to use equivocation," yet "where it becomes necessary to an individual for his defence, or for avoiding any injustice or loss, or for obtaining any important advantage, without danger or mischief to any other person, there equivocation is lawful." He held, as some do at the present day, that "if the law be unjust, then is it, _ipso facto_, void and of no force:" so that "the laws against recusants--are to be esteemed as no laws by such as steadfastly believe these [Romish rites] to be necessary observances of the true religion... That is no treason at all which is made treason by an unjust law." In other words, the subject is to be the judge of the justice of the law, and if in his eyes it be unjust, he is released from the necessity of obeying it! This is simply to do away with all law at once; for probably no law was ever made which did not appear unjust to somebody: and it lays down the grand and ancient principle that every man shall do what is right in his own eyes. We have heard a good deal of this doctrine lately; it is of Jesuit origin, and a distinct contradiction of that Book which teaches that "the powers that be are ordained of God, and whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." Those who set up such claims, however they may disavow it, really hold that Christ's kingdom _is_ of this world, since they place it in rivalry to the secular authority. "If thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge." One great distinction of the Antichrist is that he is _ho anomos_, the Lawless One. Even further than this, Garnet was prepared to go, and did go at his last examination. "In all cases," he said, "where simple equivocation is allowable, it is lawful if necessary to confirm it by an oath. This I acknowledge to be according to my opinion, and the opinion of the Schoolmen; and our reason is, for that in cases of lawful equivocation, the speech by equivocation being saved from a lie, the same speech may be without perjury confirmed by oath, or by any other usual way, though it were by receiving the Sacrament, if just necessity so require." (_Domestic State Papers_, James the First,