letter I caused many copies to be taken, and to be dropped about the

London streets very early in the morning. These were found and read by many persons, and a copy was shown to the King by one of the Lords of Council, who was no enemy either of mine or of my cause. The King, as I heard, was personally satisfied by this. Afterwards, however, when information was given them of Father Garnett’s hiding-place, and they conceived hopes of catching him, and of turning the whole charge on the Society, they thought it necessary to publish the names of some of ours as the principal contrivers of the Plot. So they put my name down, as well as those of the other two Fathers, of whom they had heard from a certain servant of Master Catesby. This man, however, before his death, repenting of this injury he had done them, confessed that he had been induced to say what he did of them against his conscience, by the fear of death on the one hand, and by the hope of pardon, and by the persuasions and suggestions of Secretary Cecil on the other. And it is possible that some persons at that time had a real suspicion that I was privy to the thing, because they knew that many of the gentlemen who had been taken were friends of mine, and were in the habit of visiting me at my London house. This, indeed, was acknowledged by one of them in his examination, though at the same time he affirmed that I knew nothing of their scheme. Nor did they ever get a single word against me from any of their examinations. Master Digby, indeed, who was known to be most intimate with me, and for that reason was most strictly examined about me, publicly protested in open court that he never dare mention a syllable of it to me, because I should never have permitted him to go on with it. When I heard of all this, and, besides, had learnt several particulars concerning Father Garnett, which proved that any knowledge he had was under seal of confession, and imparted to him by the only Priest of the Society who knew of it, and that also only in confession, it seemed to me that I was sufficiently cleared of the charge; and in order to bring this fact into notice, I prepared three letters to three Lords of the Council, a little before the death of the condemned conspirators, in which I showed more at full that I was completely ignorant of the whole matter, and pointed out how they might satisfy themselves of the same while those gentlemen were yet alive. Whether they did so or not, I do not know; but this much I know, that in the whole process of Father Garnett’s trial, in which after the receipt of these letters they tried their utmost to defame the whole Society, and in particular to charge this Plot on the English mission, they never once mentioned me. They spoke, indeed, of three Fathers as guilty, but they named those two who had heard of it in confession, and Father Ouldcorne, not as privy to the Plot beforehand, but as an accomplice _post factum_.

“Nevertheless, I took the greatest precaution to remain hidden; and I lay at a place in London known to no one. So by the protection of God I continued safe, and if it had seemed good I could have remained so still longer. I did not, therefore, leave England to avoid being taken, but as in that great disturbance it was no time for labouring, but rather for keeping quiet, I took a favourable opportunity that presented itself of passing over into these parts and reposing a little, that after so long a period of distracting work in all kinds of company, I might take breath and recover strength for future labours. Why, even at that very time when I was keeping so close, and when nearly all my friends were either in prison, or so upset that they could scarcely help themselves, much less me, though I had lost the house I had in London, through the fault of one who disclosed it, as I have said, and though strict watch was kept everywhere, and danger beset me on all sides; yet, before I had settled to leave England, I managed to hire another house in London very fit for my purpose, perhaps more so than the former. I managed also to furnish it with everything necessary, and made some good hiding-places in it; and there I remained in safety the whole of Lent before my departure. Besides this house I also hired another, finer and larger than this, which I intended should be in common between Father Antony Hoskins and me. This house after my departure was used by the Superior of the mission for a considerable time.

“The first of these last-mentioned houses I brought into some little danger, about the end of Lent, in order to rescue one of our Fathers from imminent danger. The thing happened in this wise. The good Father, by name Thomas Everett, had gone to a gentleman’s house in London, where there were some false brethren, or else some talkative ones; for the fact reached the ears of the Council. And as he is something of my height, and has black hair, Cecil thought it was I of whom notice was given him, and said to a private friend of his, ‘Now we shall have him,’ naming me. However, he had neither the one nor the other. For I, learning that the Father had gone to this place, where he could not possibly remain hidden, asked my friend, in whose house I had myself been concealed before I had procured and furnished my new abode, to fetch him and keep him close in his house for a time, which he did. Here he remained while the house he had just left was undergoing a strict search. Now it so happened that, after a few days, a search was also made in the very place to which he had been brought, on account of some books of Father Garnett’s which had been seen, and which this gentleman used to keep for him. After rifling the place well and finding no one, for Father Everett had betaken himself to a hiding-place, they carried off the master and mistress of the house, and threw them into prison. Now when I heard this, and knew there was no Catholic left in the house, fearing lest the Father should either perish with hunger, or come forth to be taken, I sent persons from my own house, to whom I described the position of his hiding-place. They went thither, and called to him, and knocked at the place, for him to open it; he, however, would neither open nor answer, though they said that I had sent them for him. For, as he did not know their voices, he was afraid that this was a trick of the searchers, who sometimes pretend to depart, and then after a time return, and assuming a friendly tone, go about the rooms, asking any who are hidden to come out, for that the searchers are all gone. The good Father suspected that this was the case now, and therefore made no answer. My messengers remained a long time trying to reassure him, and at last were obliged to return, but so late, that they fell into the hands of the watch. They were detained in custody that night, and got off with some difficulty the next day. One of them, however, was recognized as having formerly lived with a Catholic, and was therefore believed to be a Catholic himself, and as it was now known that he lived in the house that I had hired, this brought that house into suspicion, though it had been ostensibly hired by a schismatic, who was under no suspicion at all. The consequence was that some four days later the chief magistrate of London, who is called the mayor, came with a _posse_ of constables to search the house.

“In the meantime, hearing that Father Thomas would not answer, and knowing well that he was there, to prevent his perishing from starvation, I sent the next night another party with the man who had made the hiding-place and knew how to open it. The place was thus opened, and the good Father rescued from his perilous position. They brought him to my house, and there he remained. I myself, however, before he arrived, had gone to a friend’s house, a very secure place, for the purpose of staying there a little, as I had some fears that the apprehension of my servants a day or two back might bring the searchers to my house. My fears were well founded: for on Holy Thursday, while Father Everett was saying Mass, and had just finished the Offertory, there was a great tumult and noise at the garden gate; and the mayor used such violence, and made such quick work of it, as to have entered the garden, and the house, and to be now actually mounting the stairs, just as the Father, all vested as he was, and with all the altar furniture bundled up, had entered his hiding-place. So near a matter was it, that the mayor and his company smelt the smoke of the extinguished candles, so that they made sure a Priest had been there, and were the more eager in their search. But of the three hiding-places in the house they did not find one. So they departed, taking with them those men whom they found in the house, and who acknowledged themselves to be Catholics, and the schismatic also who passed for the house-holder. After this, having again released Father Everett from his hiding-hole and advised him to leave London, I determined not to use that house again for some time. And seeing that the times were such as called us rather to remain quiet, than to gird ourselves for work, I took the first opportunity of crossing the sea and coming into these parts.(127)

“I recommended my friends to different Fathers, asking them to have special care of them during my absence. As for my hostess,” Mrs. Vaux, “she was brought to London after that long search for me, and strictly examined about me by the Lords of the Council; but she answered to everything so discreetly as to escape all blame. At last they produced a letter of hers to a certain relative, asking for the release of Father Strange and another, of whom I spoke before. This relative of hers was the chief man in the county in which they had been taken, and she thought she could by her intercession with him prevail for their release. But the treacherous man, who had often enough, so far as words went, offered to serve her in any way, proved the truth of our Lord’s prophecy: ‘A man’s enemies shall be those of his own household;’ for he immediately sent up her letter to the Council. They showed her, therefore, her own letter, and said to her, ‘You see now that you are entirely at the King’s mercy for life or death; so if you consent to tell us where Father Gerard is, you shall have your life.’

“ ‘I do not know where he is,’ she answered; ‘and if I did know, I would not tell you.’

“Then rose one of the lords who had been a former friend of hers, to accompany her to the door out of courtesy, and on the way said to her persuasively, ‘Have pity on yourself and on your children, and say what is required of you, or otherwise you will certainly die.’

“To which she answered with a loud voice, ‘Then, my lord, I will die.’

“This was said when the door had been opened, so that her servants who were waiting for her heard what she said, and all burst into weeping. But the Council only said this to terrify her, for they did not commit her to prison, but sent her to the house of a certain gentleman in the city, and after being held here in custody for a time, she was released, but on condition of remaining in London. And one of the principal Lords of the Council acknowledged to a friend that he had nothing against her except that she was a stout Papist, going ahead of others, and, as it were, a leader in evil.

“Immediately she was released from custody, knowing that I was then in London, quite forgetful of herself, she set about taking care of me, and provided all the furniture and other things necessary for my new house. Moreover, she sent me whole sheets daily, recounting everything that occurred; and when she knew that I wished to cross the sea for a time, she bid me not spare expense, so that I secured a safe passage, for that she would pay everything, though it should cost five thousand florins; and, in fact, she sent me at once a thousand florins [100_l._] for my journey. I left her in the care of Father Percy, who had already, as my companion, lived a long time at her house. There he still remains, and does much good. I went straight to Rome, and being sent back thence to these parts, was fixed at Louvain.

“I have received two signal benefits on the 3rd of May, through the intercession, as I think, of blessed Father Garnett, who went to Heaven on that day. The first was as follows: When I had come to the port where, according to agreement, I was to embark with certain high personages, in order to pass unchallenged out of England, they, out of fear, excused themselves from performing their promise. And in this mind they continued till the hour of the day fixed for embarking. Now just at that time Father Garnett’s martyrdom was consummated in London, and he being received into Heaven remembered me upon earth; for the minds of those lords were so changed, that the Ambassadors themselves came to fetch me, and with their own hands helped to dress me in Spanish costume, so that I might be taken for one of their suite, and so pass free. All went well, and I do not doubt that I owed it to Father Garnett’s prayers.

“The other and greater benefit is that three years later, on the same 3rd of May, I was admitted into the body of the Society, by the four solemn vows,(128) though most unworthy. This I look upon as the greatest and most signal favour I have ever received, and it seems to me that God wished to show me that I owed this also to the prayers of Father Garnett, from an exact similarity in the circumstance of time between my profession and his martyrdom. For the day originally fixed for both had been the 1st of May, the Feast of the Holy Apostles SS. Philip and James, and in both cases unforeseen delays postponed the event till the 3rd of May.

“God grant that I may truly love and worthily carry the Cross of Jesus, that I may walk worthy of the vocation whereunto I am called. This one thing I have asked of our Lord, and this will I continue to ask, that I may dwell in the House of God all my days, until I begin to prove myself grateful for so great a favour, and that though hitherto unfruitful, yet by the fertility of the olive-tree in which I have been grafted, I may at length begin to bear some fruit!”

XXVII.

Here the Autobiography of Father Gerard ends. Though he survived his escape from England thirty-one years,(129) we have not much more to relate of the events of his life. We have, however, first a few notes to record on the concluding portion of the narrative.

First, with regard to the brave Elizabeth Vaux. She was re-arrested, long after the liberation of which Father Gerard has told us, for in a letter from Louvain to Father Aquaviva, the General of the Society, dated August 17, 1612, he gives the following account of her conduct, and that of her son, Lord Vaux, in prison. We translate from the Latin original.(130)

“Lord Vaux remains in prison under condemnation, but by no means cast down. He seems with invincible courage to trample on rather than to be deprived of the world, and not so much to have lost as to have contemned its goods. His praise certainly is in the mouths of all men. And his cause is so honourable to him, and to the Catholic religion, and so disgraceful to his enemies, that the King seemed to be ready to let the Baron go, and to restore him all his goods, when, God so disposing it, and preserving His servant for great things, some men making a more careful search than usual, found out that the mother of the Baron, who was herself under condemnation and in prison, but who retained all her fervour and devotion, had received a Priest into her cell on the very Feast of St. John Baptist. When the officers entered, they found a good Father who had just completed the Holy Sacrifice, and was in the act of distributing the most holy Body of Christ to those who were assisting. Mrs. Vaux herself, and two others, had communicated. The Priest turned back to the altar, and quietly received the remaining Hosts, lest they should fall into sacrilegious hands. The first man who entered the room, seeing the altar well appointed, and all of them kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, was astounded; and forgetting the fierceness with which, under similar circumstances, most people rush upon a Priest, only uttered these words: ‘Has not your ladyship suffered enough already for this sort of thing?’

“The wonder is of old standing on the part of those who do not understand how blessed is the life that God will give to those who never change their fidelity to Him, and who, fearing God more than the King, even though they have but just escaped death, still wish to bury the dead. So our good Father Cornforth was taken: a very holy man, whose life well deserves recording. He was carried off to the pseudo-Prelate of Canterbury, and as he could not conceal his Priesthood on account of those with whom he was taken, so neither would he for his own safety’s sake, hide his Religious state. So he was sent off to that prison from which they usually take their victims when they want an offering for the god of heresy. Canterbury then went to the King in all haste and fury, and putting fire to the cotton to raise a flame, so inflamed the King’s mind against the Baron, that he seems to have diverted him from his inclination to set him free to the very reverse. But notwithstanding all this, as the Baron has those counsellors for him who are most powerful with the King, we all hope that the King will soon be pacified, and that all will end well for our friend, especially if your Paternity and yours will help him with your holy prayers.”

In the Public Record Office we have various papers which add a little to what Father Gerard has here written. Letters(131) dated February 26 and October 22, 1612, say that Mrs. Vaux, Lord Vaux’s mother, was condemned to perpetual imprisonment for refusing to take the oath of allegiance, and that Lord Vaux was transferred to the custody of the Dean of Westminster. The Privy Councillor, who was their friend, was Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton. There are three letters(132) extant from him to Viscount Rochester in behalf of the Vauxes. In the first he says that Lord Vaux’s sister [Katherine, wife of Henry Nevill, Lord Abergavenny] has presented a petition that her brother and mother may, on account of the hot season, be removed from their keeper’s house in town to that in the country; but they being imprisoned for life on a _prœmunire_, the matter rests with the King. And this, in the third letter, he says the Archbishop and Council consented to, if they can still be under charge of their keeper. The second letter thanks Lord Rochester for his intercession in behalf of Lord Vaux and his mother, and adds that they expect but little mercy where the Metropolitan [Archbishop Abbot] is mediator. Lastly, we have the grant(133) to Lord Vaux of Harrowden of his lands, &c., at Harrowden and elsewhere, in the counties of Essex, Bedford, Nottingham, Lincoln, and Cambridge, which were forfeited to the King on his conviction in a _prœmunire_ for refusing the oath of allegiance. Later on, May 4, 1625, Charles I. granted him a special pardon(134) for “not repairing to the Protestant church and forbearing the same,” which is recited to be “a contempt of the King’s crown and dignity.”

The proclamation for the apprehension of the three Fathers gives a description of Father Gerard.(135) “John Gerard, _alias_ Brooke, of stature tall, and according thereunto well set; his complexion swart or blackish; his face large; his cheeks sticking out, and somewhat hollow underneath the cheeks; the hair of his head long if it be not cut off; his beard cut close, saving little mustachoes, and a little tuft under his lower lip; about forty years old.” To this we may add the description(136) of Father Gerard given by the ruffian Topcliffe, whose spelling is sufficiently “kewryoos” to be worth retaining. It is dated in the Calendar of the Record Office, 1583, but this is evidently erroneous, as Father Gerard escaped from the Tower in 1597.

“Jhon Gerrarde ye Jhezewt preest that escaip out of the Tower and Richard Blount a Seamry preest of estymacion, and a thirde preest intend to passe our rather after then wth the Lo Imbass at Dovr Rye or thirabowtts upon yt coast.

“They have provided for a Culler to passe wthout suspycion a Seale lyke a Seale of the Counsall table to bleare the Eyes of Seartchers and officers. Therefore it were not amysse That some order were lefte wth my Lorde Trasorr that he gyve order that the Lres do passe under such a Seale from yr Lls. But under & wth summe prevey mark upon the lres besides the seale. Then any passendgr that carryethe a lre wthowte suche a prevy mrk Is fytt to be stayed for a tyme Until hee bee knowen.

“Jhon Gerrarde, ye Jhezewt is about 30 years oulde Of a good stature sumwhat higher then Sr Tho Layton & upright in his paysse and countenance sum what stayring in his look or Eyes Currilde heire by Nature & blackyshe & not apt to have much heire of his bearde. I thincke his noase sum what wide and turninge Upp Blubarde Lipps turninge outwards Especially the over Lipps most Uppwards toword the Noase Kewryoos in speetche If he do now contynewe his custome ... And in his speetche he flourrethe & smyles much & a falteringe or Lispinge, or dooblinge of his Tonge in his speeche.

“Yor honors as you will comāde me.

“RIC TOPCLYFFE alias.

_Endorsed_—“Concerning Gerrard the Priest and others.”

What Sir Thomas Leighton’s height may have been we do not know, but in the copy of this description sent by Cecil to Anne, Lady Markham,(137) a pen has been passed through the words “Sir Thomas Leighton,” and the word “ordinary” is written in its stead. The proclamation was nearer the truth than Topcliffe as to Father Gerard’s age, which was then forty-two.

A correspondence between Cecil and Lady Markham betrays to us an offer made by her “to deliver the person of Gerard into the hands of the State.” Her object was to obtain the pardon and restoration of her husband, Sir Griffin Markham, who was in banishment for having taken part in Watson’s conspiracy. One of Cecil’s correspondents says,(138) of “certain lady of Nottinghamshire, called the Lady Markham,” “this more I know, that there is not the like pragmatical-headed lady in this part of England.”

Her letters(139) are interesting for the mention of her two servants, who had gone to live with Father Gerard, but still more for the testimony she bears to the general belief entertained by Catholics in Father Gerard’s sanctity, and to the improbability in the judgment of all who knew him of his being a party to the Plot.

“Right Honourable,—Your lordship may think me slack in performing that which I so freely made promise of, but the death of my father hath so much appalled me as I am not fit to do as I would. I did hear Mr. Gerard was taken, which something stayed me. Moreover, your lordship hath Mr. Ha. Hurlston in hold, who may direct you the best concerning him of any I know, as also I take it Sir Everard Digby came for Mr. Walley” [Father Garnett]; “but thus it is I cannot learn where Mrs. Vaux is, neither if I knew durst I visit her. And this is most strange to me, neither of those which were my servants comes to me, which makes me think they remove with Mr. Gerard, or are imprisoned, but I rather think they are shifted out of the way, because their attendance will make their master more acceptable, one of them being an exquisite painter and the other a perfect good embroiderer. The painter is a black man, and taller than the embroiderer, whose hair is yellowish, and was called Christopher Parker by his true name. The painter was called Brian Hunston. I am bold to inform you thus largely of them because I verily suppose they attend their wandering friend and master, but where, till I either see them or hear some directions, I cannot imagine; but I protest to your lordship, if I could learn I am resolved he should speak with you, if by any means I could procure it, for I fear this most vile and hateful Plot hath taken deep and dangerous root, because I meet with many that will as easily be persuaded there was no gunpowder laid as that holy good man was an actor in the Plot; and surely the generality did ever so much admire him, that they were happy or blessed in hearing him, and their roof sanctified by his appearance in their house. I am to go shortly into the country. If it would please your lordship to give me leave to send a man to my husband I should be much bound to you, for I cannot tell till I hear from him how to determine of those businesses occasioned by my father’s death. I humbly beseech you commiserate my affliction and grant me this poor request, if it stand with your liking, and I shall ever pray for your increase of honour and happiness. So I humbly take my leave this 18th of November, 1605.

“Your lordship’s most humble to command, “ANNE MARKHAM.”

_Endorsed_—“The Lady Markham to my Lord.”

“Right Honourable,—Afore I came out of London I sent to know your lordship’s pleasure, but mine uncle could not meet with Mr. Lewnus, and indeed I did think my credit was so decayed with the Padre that I could not do as I would, employ my best endeavours to perform thereby to express my great desire of your lordship’s good opinion. Now I find either necessity of their part or my two servants’ credits hath given me so much power as I shall shortly see Mr. Gerard, but for the day or certain time they are too crafty to appoint, but whensoever I will do my best to keep him within my kenning till I hear from your lordship, and then, my credit preserved, which is dearer to me than life, your command shall be as truly obeyed as if your most trusty servant were commanded. I do perceive there are great business in hand, and your lordship is, next to His Majesty, most shot at, but what the project is I dare not be very inquisitive of, because it is not ripe, as by circumstance I perceive; and I labour to make myself in good estimation with them, which would not be if I covet to know more than they like. This, I protest to God, is only to do service to your lordship. There had been some of them with me ere this, but great occasion hath drawn them to haste into other places, whither I know not. If the watch had continued but two days longer, Mr. Gerard had been pined out at Harrowden. I hear Ric. the butler is close in the Gatehouse, yet your lordship knows that prisons are places of such corruption as money will help letters to their friends to tell what they have been examined of, so they will guess shrewdly how to shift. I have none that I do trust about me with my resolution to do my best endeavours to preserve your lordship, therefore I am enforced to be brief. I beseech you pardon it in me, that writes in fear, but if it please your honour to send your note or directions to mine Uncle Harvey, I will expect till that he send them, and ever pray God to protect you from these most dangerous conspirators. For the true trial of my devotion in that prayer I will most sincerely labour your preservation, so I humbly take my leave this 3rd of January.

“Your lordship’s at command, “ANNE MARKHAM.”

“To the Right Honourable my very good lord the Earl of Salisbury. Haste this.”

_Endorsed_—“3rd January, 1605[-6]. Lady Markham to my Lord.”

The following is Cecil’s answer.(140)

“Madam,—Although I do confess my great mislike of the daily resort and residence of the Priests, and especially the Jesuits, whose end can be no other than of pernicious consequence to this estate, yet, being in hope that warnings would make them retire from further tempting of law, I have used no extraordinary course for their apprehension, being, I confess, full of tenderness in matters of blood. But having now discovered, by many confessions of the late conspirators, that some of these Jesuits have passed so far as to be persuaders and actors in this barbarous conspiracy, which excludeth almost all offices of humanity from men that have softest hearts, I have thought good to take your offer for His Majesty’s service, to deliver the person of Gerard (who is one of those) into the hands of the State. For which purpose, although your letter doth not well express what you would have done, whereby both the service may be effected and your name covered; yet I have procured a warrant, here inclosed, which will be sufficient to authorize and command any man to whom you shall direct it, which I have left to your own choice to put in, because I know not who they are which dwell thereabouts in whom you dare repose trust. And unless you have the warrant presently, and in the instant to execute, I know the inconvenience of the protraction. You shall therefore do very well to observe how the warrant is made, and thereby shall you perceive that the party to whomsoever you shall direct it is authorized sufficiently, and will receive this warrant from anybody’s hands whom you shall send; so as if you will choose any of your own to carry it to any such gentleman as you shall like, that third party need not say he comes from you, but from some other, and yet he may bring the gentleman that you shall name upon the back of the warrant to execute all things according to your direction. Lastly, madam, this I say unto you, that either your religion is very foul, or you will make no difficulty to discover such a pernicious creature, as differs so far from the rest of the society (as I am persuaded); wherein I will add thus much further, that you shall be an instrument of reflecting His Majesty’s good opinion to your husband, and confirm the conceit I have of you, that you would not trouble yourself and me in this kind unless you meant sincerely. And so I commit you to God. From the Court at Whitehall, this 15th of January, 1605[-6].

“Your ladyship’s loving friend, “SALISBURY.”

“There are only three of your churchmen in this wicked predicament, Gerard, Father Walley, and Father Greeneway, so as it is indifferent to the State which of these be come by. This letter is sent according to your direction to Mr. Stringer, who shall receive it from the next post to him, and the packet to the post is signed by the postmaster’s hand, and not by mine, who knoweth not the contents nor anything of you, and yet his hand will make the less suspicion. I desire you to keep safe both this mine own letter and the warrant, because I may have both delivered again hereafter, if there be no cause continuing to use them hereafter, and I will do the like with your letter, which I reserve for you.”

_Endorsed_—“To the Lady Markham.”

The “certain high personages” with whom he crossed the Channel were the Ambassadors of Spain and Flanders.(141) The former was the Conde de Villa Mediana, the latter Don Pedro de Zuniga. It is remarkable that, though Topcliffe had said that Father Gerard intended “to pass over rather after than with the Lord Ambassador,” his conspicuous person should have been allowed to pass.

On reaching the Continent in safety, he went, as he tells us, straight to Rome, whence, we learn from Father More,(142) he was sent to Tivoli for awhile, for rest of mind and body. He was then appointed English Penitentiary in the Basilica of St. Peter,(143) and this was his field of work till the spring of 1611.(144)

We have a letter,(145) dated “this Simon and Jude’s daie, 1606,” from Father Andrew Whyte, afterwards the Apostle of Maryland, addressed, “To his especial good friende Mr. Garret geue these att Roome.” It was to ask him to speak to Father Persons to get Richard Green received into the Society, who had been sent to College by Father Gerard, and had been imprisoned “about the time of this late commotion.” Green “was received very kindly” by Father Walley [Garnett] “and provided for very charitably in a manner as one of the Society, with a promise that the year following he should be received without fail;” but now, as “few or none of Father Walley’s writings or determinations were found, and Richard Fulwood gone which should have given particular testimony,” Father Whyte begs that “he may either be sent to the Novitiates of other countries with the license of the General, or else may have a promise to be next that is received at Louvain.”

XXVIII.

To this Novitiate at Louvain we now turn, as it was thither that Father Gerard was next sent. It was the foundation of Donna Luisa de Carvajal, who by her will(146) dated Valladolid, Dec. 22, 1604, left 12,000 ducats for the establishment of an English Novitiate. The document is an admirable specimen of true Spanish devotion and humility. After commending her soul to God by the intercession of our Blessed Lady, she proceeds—“For the love of God I humbly pray the Superiors of the Society of Jesus and the Præpositus of the Professed House, as a favour, to grant me some little place in their church where my body may be buried, in consideration of the devotion I have ever entertained for their holy Religious Order: to which Order, in the manner that I have thought would be most to the glory of God, I offer, with the greatest affection, a gift which, though but small, is all that I have. And if a burial-place be refused me in that church, my executors will obtain for me a resting-place in some other church of the Society: and if they are unable to obtain this, let me be buried in some monastery in which, for the love of God, they may be willing to give burial to a poor person like myself; and let my funeral be conducted in accordance with this my poverty. As executors I name Father Richard Walpole, the Vice-Prefect of the English Mission, and the Confessor of the English College in this city, or their successors. After them (and I have named them first from respect to their priestly dignity) I name the Condessa de Miranda, Donna Maria de Zuniga, Donna Maria Gasca, Don Frances de Contreras, Melchior de Molina, and Don Luis de Carrillo e Toledo, Conde de Caracena. First of all I declare that many years ago, when I was with my uncle, I made a vow to God to dedicate all my goods to His glory and greatest service. Then His Divine Majesty gave me large desires and vehement attraction to spend myself above all things for the preservation and advancement of the English Fathers of the Society of Jesus, who sustain that kingdom like strong columns, defend it from an otherwise inevitable ruin, and supply efficacious means of salvation for thousands and thousands of souls. Wherefore I offer them to the most holy Virgin our Lady, I place them under her protection, and I name and leave her universal heir of all my goods.... And I give possession of them henceforward to the most glorious Virgin, and in her name and place to Father Robert Persons, or failing him, to the Father who shall succeed him as Superior of the Mission: but with this condition and obligation, that such goods shall be applied to the founding of a Novitiate of English Religious of the Society of Jesus, in whatever kingdom or part of the world shall seem to Father Persons to be to the greater glory of God. But in the case that England shall be brought back to the faith and obedience of the Roman Church, my will is that the said revenue be transferred into that kingdom, for the foundation of a Novitiate of the Society there, unless it shall seem better to Father Persons, for reasons concerning the Catholic religion, to leave the Novitiate beyond the kingdom.”

Time was not lost in carrying out the intentions of this pious benefactress.(147) In 1606, Father Persons obtained possession of a large house in Louvain, which had been inhabited by the Knights of Malta, and thus came to be called St. John’s, though the church attached to it was dedicated to St. Gregory the Apostle of England and other Saints. Father More, who lived there with Father Gerard, tells us that it was on high ground commanding the whole city; below was a walled garden, and on the slope of the hill pleasant walks amongst the vines which were ranged in terraces, and the whole, though within the city walls, as quiet and calm as befitted a house of prayer.

We do not know exactly the date of Father Gerard’s arrival at Louvain, or the office to which he was first appointed there. The letter of the 17th August, 1612, to the General, from which we have already given a large extract concerning Mrs. Vaux, is dated from Louvain. It proceeds with an account of a miraculous cure at the intercession of Father Thomas Garnett, the nephew of the Provincial, who was martyred at Tyburn on the 3rd of June, 1608. This father was the first Novice of St. John’s, Louvain. That Noviceship commenced in February, 1607, with six Priests, two Scholastics, and five Lay-brothers, Novices, under Father Thomas Talbot as their Novice Master. In 1614, St. John’s received students in philosophy and theology, as well as Novices, when a house in the garden was fitted up for the Novitiate and Father Henry Silisdon was installed in St. John’s as Rector of the new College. This arrangement did not last long, for at the end of the year the Novitiate was transferred to Liége. No less than fifteen letters have come down to us written by Father Gerard in the year 1614, addressed to the Prefect of the English Mission, Father Thomas Owen, Rector of the English College at Rome. They treat chiefly of the purchase of the new house at Liége, and the transfer of the Novitiate to that city. Some extracts relating to Father Gerard himself will be found interesting. Some of them are signed John Nelson and others John Tomson. In later years he seems to have been known only by the name of Tomson.

The choice of Liége as a residence seems to have been mainly owing to the disquiet caused to the Catholics in the Low Countries by the remonstrances of the English Government. We have some specimens of it in the following extracts, in which we find Father Gerard true to the natural fearlessness of his character. “Concerning(148) my wariness in avoiding the eyes of spies, I have been all this year more sparing in that kind than divers friends here did think needful, although some one or two did think it dangerous to go any journey, as doubting I might be killed by the way, but this was but according to their accustomed fears with which I have been long acquainted. But, indeed, Father, I am so far from desire to go many journeys, that it is a pain to me to think of going anywhither, and the reason why I never went to any of those places your Reverence mentioneth in this year past (but only the last Lent to Maclin for Mr. Rouse) was not that I thought it dangerous (being known so well to live here public that it cannot be unknown to any spies), nor for that I wanted leave, for I had the other Provincial’s particular and willing grant, without my own asking, to go to any place of these countries; but it was because I had rather be at home: and in the town of Lovaine itself, I go not abroad half so much as I think were needful for the contentment of others. I was not at the Teresians, where the Mother of the House (to whom I gave the Exercise four years ago) and Father Scott’s(149) sister do much desire my often coming, any more than once since the last Lent. At the Monastery of St. Monica’s, my cousin Shurley hath requested my coming thither for these three or four months, to bestow one afternoon upon her and some younger Nuns whom she hath charge of, that they may altogether ask me what spiritual questions they may like best, and I have never yet found a fit time for it; and, indeed, I doubt I am to blame for it. The gentlemen in the town(150) I doubt I visit not once in a quarter of a year, and I have some reason to think that either they think me careless of them, or afraid to be seen abroad, as though my case were very dangerous, which would also make them or any other that should come to town more fearful to come into my company, and consequently hinder the little good that I might do with them. But I hope I shall be as wary as your Reverence wisheth, and if this course go forwards of being Rector without the name of Rector, there will be less inconvenience, whosoever see me seeing me still as a private man.” In this he alludes to a plan of his own, that Father Blackfan should have the title of Rector, although he himself had been appointed to the Rectorship of the Novitiate.

The next letter is dated April 6, 1614.(151) “I have yours of the 15th March, and see in that, as in all of yours, your fatherly care of me, which, by the grace of God, I will labour to deserve. I am well satisfied with Father General’s order, and shall endeavour to get this building finished for the Novitiate as soon as I can, and then will settle to my book as much as my health and letters will permit.... Having writ thus far, I was called to go to Bruxels with Father Rector (by Father Blacfan’s and Father Percy his advice) to speak with the Duke’s(152) Secretary, who telling Father Percy the last week that the Agent did solicit against me, and that he could not well answer him, unless he delivered him some reasons in writing for my innocency, this writing was promised him by Father Percy; but I being loath to have any such writing sent, as thinking it the likeliest means to raise a new persecution against me, though for the Secretary’s satisfaction we drew and delivered him a brief note of four or five effectual proofs, yet both to the Secretary first, and afterwards to the Nuncio, I told this day that if any such writing were sent it would do me great harm, for Canterbury having such a writing would doubtless show it at the Council table, and then those lords who secretly do know me to be innocent, and wish me well, will be, as it were, forced to speak against me, lest they should seem to favour me, and so the King should be more incensed. The Nuncio did promise Father Rector and me that he would seriously deal both with the Secretary and the Prince himself in the cause.”

Writing under date April 18, 1614,(153) he shows that he thinks that too much importance had been given to the Agent’s interference. “I think your Reverence was made to believe by letters sent about Easter, that there was some new troubles against me here, out of England, and consequently that there was need of such information to the Nuncio and Father Provincial as had been given. But when I heard of it, I said it was nothing but Trumbol his own device, in hope to work upon the weakness of the Prince; and so now it proves, for I am going to the Secretary himself with our Father Rector, as I wrote from Bruxells, and giving him a paper of some few points for my innocency, with the request he would not deliver it, but show it if he would to the Agent. The Secretary answered he would advertise me if it were needful; but since the note was showed unto Trumbol, and he showed to be satisfied with it, and afterwards meeting the Secretary told him that he took it to be only matter of religion; but that being now made matter of State, he, being a servant employed in matter of State, could not but seek to concur with them that employed him, as it were granting that himself was satisfied, and yielding a reason why he had moved the matter. And this being understood both by the Prince and the Nuncio, they were very glad of it.... I write this from Maclin, whither Sir William [Stanley] was desirous to have me come for his comfort now and after the death and funeral of his lady.”

But such a man as Father Gerard was not likely to be left in peace in those intriguing times. In the August following, Father Silisdon writes to Father Owen.(154) “Even now I have advice that His Majesty of England hath made two complaints to the Prince, and that the first is against Father Gerard’s being in his dominions.” The consequence was that a transfer to another territory became desirable, and Father Gerard set his heart on migrating with his Novices to Liége. He writes from that city, under the signature of John Nelson, Sept. 19, 1614.(155) “There be many causes to be alleged why here, rather than in any place; as the commodity of dealing with our English in the summer, the opportunity of keeping our Novices unknown, the excellent seat far beyond Lovaine, and that bestowed on us, the present helps sent for this beginning, with great likelihood of much more; the great favour which is to be expected from this Prince and his family, and is to be strengthened by my two cousins, Sir William and Mr. Morton, and Sir William hath written to him that he doth much joy in his cousin who is there to be Rector.” The two cousins of whom Father Gerard here speaks were two very powerful friends. The one was Sir William Stanley, who showed himself a kind friend to Father Gerard and his charge by negotiating the purchase of the property at Liége in his own name, and advancing the purchase money—at least, that portion of it which had to be paid down(156)—probably (as Father Gerard speaks of the “seat being bestowed upon us”) regarding it as a gift. Whatever else was requisite for the purchase was provided by Brother William Browne, who, though(157) grandson, brother, and uncle of Viscounts Montague,—his grandfather was Queen Mary’s Ambassador to the Holy See—was himself content to spend his life in the humble duties of a Jesuit Lay-brother.

The “Mr. Morton” was Sir George Talbot of Grafton, afterwards ninth Earl of Shrewsbury. He was a scholar of some repute,(158) and an intimate friend of Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. As Ferdinand, the Prince-Bishop of Liége, was Maximilian’s brother, it was no little help to Father Gerard to be on “cousinly” terms with George Talbot. The Duke became a generous benefactor to the new House at Liége. In 1618 he sent Father Gerard, through Sir George Talbot, 5,000 florins for the Noviceship.(159) In a letter dated Jan. 25, 1620, the Duke writes to Father Gerard, who had promised to pray that he might have a son: “I bound myself once by vow to your Blessed Ignatius, that if he would obtain this favour for me, I would give my son the name of Ignatius, and would build and endow a College of the Society wherever Father General might judge it most useful. What if God should purpose thus to provide for you?”(160) In July of the same year he wrote: “We have sent you a contribution of 1,300 German florins by Father Mayer for a tabernacle for the Blessed Sacrament, and for a niche for an image of the Blessed Virgin.” Even after Father Gerard’s departure from the House, Duke Maximilian’s liberality to it did not fail. Father Silisdon, Father Gerard’s successor as Master of Novices, removed the Novitiate to Watten,(161) and not long after the Duke settled a permanent endowment upon the College of Liége, which was begun in the House that Father Gerard had established.

Father Gerard’s Socius or “Compagnion,” as he calls him, was Father Henry More, subsequently the historian of the Province. When discussing, before his appointment, those Fathers who were fitted for that office, after mentioning others, he says: “Father Nicholson is far short of either of them for my turn, for he is no good Latinist, I think little better than myself, though he be much better scholar; neither hath he any other language but Spanish, of which I shall have small use. Father Henry More hath French well, Dutch prettily, and Italian sufficiently, besides Spanish very well, and Latin as I would wish him.”(162)

As to his first Novices, he had twelve, which made what he styled “a pretty beginning.”(163) They were “the two that expect at Liége, the two that are come from Rome, and four out of Spain, with Mr. Lewkner and Mr. Whitmore, besides Grafton, when he comes, and a tailor now servant in this house, who by all judgments here is as fit to be received as Brother Silvester, the young tailor now in the Noviceship, is fit to be dismissed.”(164)

Of the two that “expected at Liége,” a previous letter had said, “Here be also Mr. Mansel and Mr. Owen Shelley, by the names of Mr. Griffin and Mr. Titchborn: both expect, the first with some loathness to stay long, the second is wholly resigned. The first is a pious man, and to those that know his fashion will be profitable for some uses in the Society, but the second will be practical and fit for anything, and in truth I think he will do very well.”(165) This Father Owen Shelley was afterwards Rector of the College of Liége, and justified Father Gerard’s judgment of his character.

Amongst the “four which are come out of Spain” were two that must have constantly served to remind their Rector at Liége of the Gunpowder Plot, as the remonstrances of King James’ Agent had managed to do at Louvain. “One of them,” he says, “is akin to Father Garnett, and of his name, though we call him Gilford, as he was called at St. Omers. William Ellis, but we call him John Williams, for he was page(166) to Sir Everard Digby, and taken with him, though he might have escaped, for his master offered him horse and money to shift for himself, but the youth said he would live and die with him; and so, being taken, was condemned at Stafford, and should have been executed. He was offered to have his life if he would go to their church, which he refused. In the end they saved him and some others. He never [yielded] in the least point. He hath good friends near Sir Everard Digby’s whom I know, and he is heir to 80_l._ a year, if his father do him right.”(167)

At the close of this short notice of Father Gerard’s Rectorship it will be but right to record an unfavourable judgment passed upon him, as it will help us to form a true appreciation of his character. It is the only instance that has come down to us of blame on the part of one of his own brethren. “I see a general fear in all ours, those of best judgment, of the success of Father Nelson’s government, and unless he hath a companion that may moderate him, his zeal will, I fear, carry him too far; and I fear it so much the more because I see him loath to have anybody with him who is likely to propose anything to him contrary to his own zealous desires.” This is in a confidential letter(168) from Father Silisdon to Father Owen, dated Oct. 31, 1614, so that, as it was written before the transfer to Liége, it was a misgiving lest he should be indiscreet as a Rector, rather than a judgment on his actual conduct as a Superior.

XXIX.

During his residence at Liége, amongst Father Gerard’s correspondents were two venerable servants of God, Robert Cardinal Bellarmine, and Father Luis de la Puente, better known by the Latinized form of his name, de Ponte. As by a man’s friends we can obtain an insight into his character, we have thought it desirable to give the few letters from these two holy men to Father Gerard that have come down to us. Cardinal Bellarmine’s autograph is preserved at Stonyhurst.(169) We translate the letter from the original Latin.

“Very Rev. and beloved Father in Christ,—I have received your Reverence’s letter dated from Liége the 23rd November, with the little presents inclosed in it, an English knife, a little case (either bone or ivory, I do not know which), and three small toothpicks. I do not know whether these were sent me for use, or as having some special meaning. Whichever it be they were welcome, as a proof of friendship and brotherhood.

“The memory of that excellent Mr. Oliver,(170) whose acquaintance I made very late, has brought me no little sadness, or rather grief, not on his account, who is translated from this world to the joys of Paradise, but for the sake of many whom without doubt he would have converted to a good life if Divine Providence had permitted him to live awhile longer. But the good pleasure of God must ever be fulfilled, and the very same, in order that it may be fulfilled, must ever be pleasing to us under all circumstances.

“I was pleased to read what your Reverence relates in your letter of your journeys; of your office of Master of Novices; of the building which you have bought at Liége; of the visitation of His Serene Highness Ferdinand, the Prince-Bishop of Liége, and of the promise that the Priory, at its next vacancy, shall be applied to the College. If my assistance in carrying this out can be of any use to you with the Pope, it shall not be wanting.

“Of Dr. Singleton I have heard much, and have defended him to the best of my power, as long as I could, but the party opposed to him has prevailed. Nor do I see how I can help him at so great a distance, and especially as I should be suspected, because I am a Jesuit. The devil is envious of the harmony between the English at Douay and the Fathers of the Society, for which the good Cardinal Allen cared so much; but all means must be tried to re-establish a true and sincere friendship, and agreement in teaching; otherwise a kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation. For many reasons I say freely that nothing can be done by me in his behalf; first, as I was just saying, because I should be under suspicion, being a Jesuit. Then because I am an old man of seven-and-seventy years of age, and I daily expect the dissolution of my tabernacle. Thirdly, because I cannot think of any manner in which I could help him. The common way of helping men of this sort is to give them ecclesiastical benefices, but here in Rome the multitude of those who aspire to and seek after such benefits is so great that their number is almost infinite. Nor are they only Italians, but Spaniards also, Frenchmen, Germans, who look for nothing but benefices at Rome. I myself, who was thought to have some influence with the Pope, have laboured for more than ten years for a Spaniard, an excellent man and a great friend of mine, to obtain for him a good benefice falling vacant in his own country. I could say the same of Flemish and German friends of mine. What then would be the case with English people, in whose country there are no ecclesiastical benefices for Catholics? But, since these temporal things are nothing when compared to eternal benefices, our friend Dr. Singleton must not be cast down if our Lord treats him now, as of old He treated His Apostles, who He willed should enter into the Kingdom of Heaven through many tribulations. But I must not be too lengthy, for I know that both he and your Reverence stand in no need of my exhortations. I know that your Reverence will have hard work to read my bad writing, but Father Coffin(171) would have it that I should write to you with my own hand.

“With this I bid your Reverence farewell. Commend me to the prayers of Dr. Singleton, and of all your College; but your Reverence’s self especially, for our old friendship and brotherhood, must diligently commend me to the Lord our God.

“From Rome, on Christmas Day, December 25, 1618.(172)

“Your Reverence’s brother and servant in Christ,

“ROBERT CARD. BELLARMINE.”

“To the Very Rev. Father John Tomson, S.J., “Rector of the College of the English Novices at Liége.”

The two letters which have come down to us, addressed to Father Gerard by the venerable Father Luis de la Puente, were written just as his residence(173) at Liége was drawing to a close. We translate from Father Grene’s transcript of the originals.(174)

“I. H. S.

“P.C.

“When I received your Reverence’s letters, I was unable to answer them at once, for I was suffering from extreme weakness, which usually afflicts me every year all through the winter. Blessed be our great God, from Whose providence come health and sickness, life and death, and whatever prosperity and adversity there is in this world. The height of felicity in this life is to be superior to all these things, seeking only God’s good pleasure in all things, for life in His will, and health, honour, happiness, spiritual progress, and all sanctity consist in the fulfilment of the will of God: and so every day I would that at every breath I could say, May Thy most holy and most sweet will be done in me, concerning me, and by me and about me, in all things and by all things, now and always and for ever. Amen.(175) God always pours His spirit of prayer into those who so submit their will to His; wherefore the Psalmist says—‘Be subject unto the Lord and pray to Him,’ for when any one with prompt obedience and entire resignation humbly submits himself to God, God Himself, Who does the will of those that fear Him, in a certain way is made subject to him, so that He does whatever is asked, God becoming obedient to the voice of a man—not of any man soever, but of the man who obeys God. Oh, wonderful power of prayer and of obedience! Let us pray, my Father, that we may be perfectly obedient, and let us obey, that we may be able to pray, and to speak worthily with God.

“It will help wonderfully both one and the other, to meditate profoundly on these two things: to wit, Who God is in Himself, and what He is towards us, and then what we are of ourselves, and what towards God. For whilst I think of God, His Trinity and Unity, most beautiful, most wise, most holy, most full of love for me, immense and everywhere present, the fountain of all good things that are in me and beyond me, from Whom I myself depend, and all that is mine, and everything that I use and enjoy, how can I do otherwise than love Him with all my strength? How shall I not praise Him and thank Him constantly? How shall I not give my whole self to His service? And these affections become the more ardent as I ponder that I have nothing of myself; that I am nothing, and that I and all that is mine would be reduced to nothing unless I were preserved by Him. Now whilst, within this immensity of God, I consider what I have been and what I am towards Him, I am horrified and tremble as I ponder on my malice, my ingratitude, my slothfulness. Hence arise feelings of hatred of self, of humiliation and self-denial, and various acts and exercises of penance, which not only nourish humility by which a man, through a truthful knowledge of himself, becomes vile to himself, but they also arouse a most ardent charity by which he loves his Supreme Benefactor, Who has conferred and still confers so many and such great benefits on one who is ungrateful and unworthy. Thus the mind is elevated to perfect contemplation and union with God Himself, and, as it were forgetful of itself, is immersed in Him, or rather God hides it in the concealment of His countenance from all disturbance of men.

“Here is a short epitome of my mystical theology, which I have put out at rather greater length in my book; but why should I teach these things to a doctor of others and my own master? Surely I have become foolish, but your letters compelled me. Would that you would help me by your prayers, that what I write in my letters I may perform in deed. Forgive my humble and poor style, for I know not any more elegant; but I am sure that you do not care for words, but for the sense that is in the words. I value very highly the cross which you have sent me, and I will always bear it with me. I hope, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, who appeared in that tree,(176) and who confers such benefits on those who are there and those who visit her, that I may be a partaker of those benefits, for though I am absent in the body I am present in spirit.

“I humbly commend myself to the Holy Sacrifices of your Reverence.

“Your Reverence’s unworthy servant in Christ,

“[Cross] LUDOVICUS DE PONTE. [Cross]

“Valladolid, March 23, 1621.

_Postscript_—“By God’s help I have finished a great work. Its title is, _Expositio Moralis in Canticum Canticorum_, containing exhortations on all the mysteries and virtues of the Christian religion. It is divided into two volumes, and each volume into five books. The arrangement is new and singular, but not without foundation in the Sacred Text. The matter is grave in itself, and very copious, taken out of Holy Scripture and the holy Fathers. The style is humble, but clear and chaste, and not out of harmony with matter that is spiritual and sacred, and therefore elevated. It is printed at Paris, and will soon reach Germany and Belgium. Would that it may be to the glory of God, the edification of the Church, and of use to one’s neighbour.”

The other letter from the same Father was written in reply to one from Father Gerard announcing that he was about to leave Belgium.

“I. H. S.

“P.C.

“May the Almighty and most pitiful Lord accompany you in the journey that you begin, for with such a Guide and Companion you will be everywhere safe and cheerful, and making true progress. Let Him ever dwell in your memory, understanding, and will, for His most sweet providence especially protects those who make their journeys from obedience to Superiors, as Jacob did, who at his father’s bidding journeyed through the desert into Mesopotamia, where he heard the voice of the Lord, which said to him, ‘I will be thy Keeper whithersoever thou goest.’ Trusting to this hope, and protected by this guardianship, you will happily fulfil what you have begun.

“I commend myself to your Reverence’s Sacrifices and prayers, for my weakness oppresses me much; but may the will of God be done in me and about me in all things and by all things, to Whom concerning all things be glory for ever. Amen.

“[Cross] LUDOVICUS DE LA PUENTE. [Cross]

“Valladolid, Feb. 2, 1622.”

With these saintly words our materials for writing the life of Father John Gerard abruptly fail us. Beyond what has been recorded we only know that he was sent first to Spain, and then to Rome, which he reached Jan. 15, 1623.(177) He was Confessor to the English College till his death, July 27, 1637, at the ripe age of seventy-three, and upwards.

XXX.

In this Autobiography Father Gerard has laid before us his life in all the freedom and unreserve of a confidential communication with his Religious brethren and Superiors. It is not possible, we are convinced, for any impartial person to rise from its perusal without a deep conviction that Father Gerard was a gentleman and a Christian, a man of honour and religious principle; and in many cases this sense of his integrity will be accompanied with some of that personal regard and affection with which he inspired those who lived in intimacy with him. He bore too much for principle, and made too great sacrifices, for us to think that he would deliberately and perseveringly commit sin to free himself from blame. Yet this is the supposition that is involved in an attack upon his veracity in the compilation of his Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot.

It is quite true that he, and many others, considered themselves justified, when their own lives or those of innocent persons were at stake, in the use of assertions that were simple falsehoods in the ordinary sense of the terms employed. These they called equivocations; and we find no trace in the period of which we are writing of the modern sense of the word, that is, of a true expression which is really beside the point, though it is so employed that it is very unlikely to be seen to be so by the person to whom it is addressed, who thus is said rather to be suffered to deceive himself than to be deceived. Practically the distinction is hard to draw, and it has the disadvantage of seeming to make the morality of the expression depend on the quickness and readiness of the person in danger, who may be able to think of phrases containing a real ambiguity but which yet would throw the hearers off the right scent.

According to modern feeling, Father Gerard would have been quite justified in examining the trees and hedges in search of a falcon(178) he had not lost, and inquiring of all he met whether they had heard the tinkling of the bird’s bells, although it was to make them think that he had lost a falcon, in other words, to deceive them; but by the same modern feeling he would be held to be guilty of a lie when he said that he was the servant of a lord in a neighbouring county, though he might, without guilt, have worn that lord’s livery as a disguise if he could have obtained it, which would have been a more effectual deception than any words.

Again, according to modern judgment, John Lilly would be held guilty of a lie when he said(179) of Gerard’s books and manuscripts, “They are mine;” but quite guiltless when, with the same intention of making the magistrates believe him to be a Priest when he was not, he said, “I do not say I am a Priest, that is for you to prove.” Yet the latter expression was far more likely to deceive than the former. It was more like what a Priest, under the circumstances, would have said. Present feeling would condemn him of a lie for saying simply, that the books were his, when it would acquit him if he had thought of using far more deceptive expressions, such as “I am not bound to compromise myself by saying whose they are.”

The only difference between modern morality and that on which Father Gerard acted was that now-a-days men say, “Have recourse to evasions.” Then men said, “Say what you like, it is their fault if they think it true.” It is evident that of the two courses of proceeding, the plain-spoken old way is the least open to abuse. No one certainly would have recourse to it excepting from a well-weighed plea of a sorrowful necessity. Whereas, on the other hand, evasions are not startling, and the conscience may lay but little stress on the presence or absence of justifying circumstances. For it is most necessary to bear seriously in mind that all Catholic divines then held, and now hold, that to make use of equivocation excepting under those peculiar circumstances that make it lawful, is in itself a sin, and thus no escape from the sin of lying. So Father Garnett plainly said when on his trial,(180) “As I say it is never lawful to equivocate in matters of faith, so also in matters of human conversation, it may not be used promiscually or at our pleasure, as in matters of contract, in matters of testimony, or before a competent judge, or to the prejudice of any third person: in which cases we judge it altogether unlawful.”

It is but fair that, in reading the narrative of times when many lives hung on successful disguise and concealment, we should remember that the modern sense of equivocation was then unknown. Protestant moralists have spoken out their minds plainly enough on this subject.

“Great English authors, Jeremy Taylor, Milton, Paley, Johnson, men of very distinct schools of thought, distinctly say that under certain extreme circumstances it is allowable to tell a lie. Taylor says: ‘To tell a lie for charity, to save a man’s life, the life of a friend, of a husband, of a prince, of a useful and a public person, hath not only been done at all times, but commended by great and wise and good men. Who would not save his father’s life, at the charge of a harmless lie, from persecutors or tyrants?’ Again, Milton says: ‘What man in his senses would deny that there are those whom we have the best ground for considering that we ought to deceive, as boys, madmen, the sick, the intoxicated, enemies, men in error, thieves? I would ask, by which of the Commandments is lying forbidden? You will say, by the ninth. If then my lie does not injure my neighbour, certainly it is not forbidden by this Commandment.’ Paley says: ‘There are falsehoods which are not lies, that is, which are not criminal.’ Johnson: ‘The general rule is, that truth should never be violated; there must, however, be some exceptions. If, for instance, a murderer should ask you which way a man is gone.’ ”(181)

This _language_ would not have been used by Catholics. With them the word “lie” signified a simple falsehood; and an “equivocation” was a false expression used under such circumstances that if they to whom it was addressed were deceived by it, it was their own fault. They had then no right to the truth, and even in some cases it would have been a sin to tell them the truth.

In substance, however, though not in form, the doctrine of Gerard, Southwell, and Garnett, was the same as that of Taylor, Milton, and Johnson. But to confine ourselves to the practice of Father Gerard, this doctrine is not necessary for his defence, and if his conduct be fairly examined, he will be held, even from the modern point of view, to have done no wrong. Protestant moralists, as we have seen, permit men under certain circumstances to tell a lie with intent to deceive. And Catholic moralists permit under such circumstances assertions which would lead the hearers to deceive themselves by neglecting to advert to the limit of the speaker’s obligation to tell the truth. But with regard to Father Gerard’s legal interrogations, we may waive the question whether they are right or wrong in their morality, for we see clearly that he so expressed himself as to show that his words were not intended to be believed.

The real parallel to them, alleged by Gerard himself, as we shall shortly see, is the prisoner’s usual plea of “Not guilty.” This is the only form in which the _question_ is now put to a person accused. But in those days the question was put over and over again, and in every variety of form. To deny was really to plead “Not guilty,” and if this be lawful once, it was lawful whenever they were forced to repeat it. Not only was it a capital offence to be a Priest within the realm, but it was high treason to be reconciled to the Church, or absolved by a Priest, or to harbour or comfort one. Thus the interrogations addressed to prisoners were always intended to make them criminate themselves or others; that is, in the one case to cause them to plead guilty, so that they might be condemned to death on their own confessions; or, in the other case, to force them to become Queen’s evidence, and be accessory to the infliction upon others of the extremest penalties enacted by an unjust law.

The first instance that occurs in Father Gerard’s Life, is that when, after his apprehension, on being questioned he declared that he was quite unacquainted with the family of the Wisemans, and those who were examining him betrayed their informer by crying out, “What lies you tell! Did you not say so-and-so before such a lady as you read your servant’s letter?” Then he adds, “But I still denied it, _giving them good reasons however why, even if it had been true, I could and ought to have denied it_.”(182)

Another time(183) he was confronted with three servants of Lord Henry Seymour, who avouched that he had dined with their mistress and her sister, the Lady Mary Percy, that it was in Lent, and they told how their mistress ate meat, while Lady Mary and Father Gerard ate nothing but fish. “Young flung this charge in my teeth with an air of triumph, as though I could not help acknowledging it, and thereby disclosing some of my acquaintances. I answered that I did not know the men whom he had brought up.

“ ‘But we know you,’ said they, ‘to be the same that was at such a place on such a day.’

“ ‘You wrong your mistress,’ said I, ‘in saying so. I, however, will not so wrong her.’

“ ‘What a barefaced fellow you are!’ exclaimed Young.

“ ‘Doubtless,’ I answered, ‘were these men’s statements true. _As for me, I cannot in conscience speak positively in the matter, for reasons that I have often alleged; let them look to the truth and justice of what they say._’ ”

A third instance is the interview(184) between Father Gerard and the widow Wiseman, in the presence of the Dean of Westminster, Topcliffe, and others. “They wanted to see if she recognized me. So when I came into the room where they brought me, I found her already there. When she saw me coming in with the gaolers, she almost jumped for joy; but she controlled herself, and said to them: ‘Is that the person you spoke of? I do not know him; but he looks like a Priest.’

“Upon this she made me a very low reverence, and I bowed in return. Then they asked me if I did not recognize her?

“I answered: ‘I do not recognize her. _At the same time, you know this is my usual way of answering, and I will never mention any places, or give the names of any persons that are known to me_ (which this lady, however, is not); _because to do __ so, as I have told you before, would be contrary both to justice and charity_.’ ”

Lastly, when examined(185) by the Attorney General, after having received a letter from Father Garnett, warning him to prepare himself for death, and after having freely confessed that he was a Priest and a Jesuit, and that he had reconciled others to the Pope, and drawn them away from the faith and religious profession which was approved in England, “answers,” he says himself, “which furnished quite sufficient matter for my condemnation, according to their laws,” and after having denied that he had meddled in political matters; his examination proceeded as follows.

“Hereupon Mr. Attorney kept silence for a time, and then he began afresh to ask me what Catholics I knew; did I know such-and-such? I answered, ‘I do not know them.’ _And I added the usual reasons why I should still make the same answer even if I did know them._(186) Upon this, he digressed to the question of equivocation, and began to inveigh against Father Southwell, because on his trial he denied that he knew the woman who was brought forward to accuse him.(187) She swore that he had come to her father’s house and was received there as a Priest; this he positively denied, though he had been taken in that house and was found in a hiding-place, having been betrayed by this wretched woman. (A dutiful daughter truly, who thus betrayed to death both her spiritual and her natural father! Christ our Lord, however, came not to send peace, but a sword to divide between the good and the bad; and in this case he divided the bad daughter from the good parents.) Good Father Southwell, then, though he marvelled at the impudence of this miserable wench, yet denied what she asserted, and _gave good reasons for his denial_, well knowing and solidly proving that it was not lawful for him to do otherwise, lest he should add to the injury of those who were already suffering for the Faith, and for charity shown to him. Taking this occasion, therefore, he showed very learnedly that it was lawful in some cases, nay, even necessary perhaps, to use equivocation; which doctrine he established and confirmed by strong arguments and copious authorities, drawn as well from Holy Scripture as from the writings of the Doctors of the Church.

“The Attorney General inveighed much against this, and tried to make out that this was to foster lying, and so destroy all reliable communications between men, and, therefore, all bonds of society. I, on the other hand, maintained that this was not falsehood, nor supposed an intention of deceiving, which is necessary to constitute a lie, but merely a keeping back of the truth, and that where one is not bound to declare it: consequently there is no deception, because nothing is refused which the other has a right to claim. I showed, moreover, that our doctrine did no way involve a destruction of the bonds of society, because the use of equivocation is never allowed in making contracts, since all are bound to give their neighbour his due, and in making of contracts truth is due to the party contracting. It should be remarked also, I said, that it is not allowed to use equivocation in ordinary conversation to the detriment of plain truth and Christian simplicity, much less in matters properly falling under the cognizance of civil authority,(188) since it is not lawful to deny even a capital crime if the accused is questioned juridically. He asked me, therefore, what I considered a juridical questioning. I answered that the questioners must be really superiors and judges in the matter under examination; then, the matter itself must be some crime hurtful to the common weal, in order that it may come under their jurisdiction; for sins merely internal were reserved for God’s judgment. Again, there must be some trustworthy testimony brought against the accused; thus, it is the custom in England that all who are put on their trial, when first asked by the Judge if they are guilty or not, answer, ‘Not guilty,’ before any witness is brought against them, or any verdict found by the jury; and though they answer the same way, whether really guilty or not, yet no one accuses them of lying. Therefore I laid down this general principle, that no one is allowed to use equivocation except in the case when something is asked him, either actually or virtually, which the questioner has no right to ask, and the declaration of which will turn to his own hurt, if he answers according to the intention of the questioner. I showed that this had been our Lord’s practice, and that of the Saints. I showed that it was the practice of all prudent men, and would certainly be followed by my interrogators themselves in case they were asked about some secret sin, for example, or were asked by robbers where their money was hid.

“They asked me, therefore, when our Lord ever made use of equivocations; to which I replied, ‘When He told His Apostles that no one knew the Day of Judgment, not even the Son of Man; and again, when He said that He was not going up to the Festival at Jerusalem, and yet He went; yea, and He knew that He should go when He said He would not.’

“Wade here interrupted me, saying, ‘Christ really did not know the Day of Judgment, as Son of Man.’

“ ‘It cannot be,’ said I, ‘that the Word of God Incarnate, and with a human nature hypostatically united to God, should be subject to ignorance; nor that He Who was appointed Judge by God the Father should be ignorant of those facts which belonged necessarily to His office; nor that He should be of infinite wisdom, and yet not know what intimately concerned Himself.’ In fact, these heretics do not practically admit what the Apostle teaches (though they boast of following his doctrines), namely, that all the fulness of the Divinity resided corporally in Christ, and that in Him were all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. It did not, however, occur to me at the moment to adduce this passage of St. Paul.”

In every one of these instances words are carefully introduced to show that the denials in question were uttered not with the intent of deceiving the hearers (though even that, according to the grave Protestant authorities recently quoted, would have been lawful), nor of allowing them to deceive themselves if they did not choose to advert to the circumstances in which the denials were made (as Catholic divines would have permitted);(189) but avowedly in order that they might not be available as legal evidence against the speaker or his friends.

To Father Gerard’s defence of himself it may be as well to add that of Father Southwell,(190) who was assailed by Sir Edward Coke.

“The Father would have spoken further on this point [obedience to the laws] had they not attacked him on another,” objecting to him a statement of Anne Bellamy’s, who deposed that Father Robert had instructed her, that if asked by searchers or persecutors if there was a Priest in the house, she could say “No,” though she knew there was one: nay, that if asked on oath, she could swear there was not. No sooner was this brought out than the Judges and officers of the court showed themselves highly scandalized, and were for stopping their ears:(191) as if, forsooth, the seeking for Catholic Priests to put them to a traitor’s death, or force them to apostatize, were a proceeding so clearly and so indubitably just, as to make it as clearly and indubitably unjust to hide them from such an ordeal, or to deny them to their pursuers: nor, indeed, would the harm be confined to the cruel execution of the Priest, but with him the whole of the family in whose house he was found would be liable to the same death of traitors. Coke, therefore, the Attorney General, made the most he could of this matter, insisting that such a pernicious doctrine tended to destroy all truth, and all reliance of men in each other’s veracity, and if allowed to prevail, would upset all good government. Topcliffe also inveighed against it so exorbitantly, that Judge Popham silenced him. Father Robert then, as soon as he was allowed to reply, explained briefly what he had said to the witness, whose statement was not altogether exact, and addressing the Judge, said:

“ ‘If you will have the patience to listen to me, I shall be able to prove to you from the Holy Scriptures, from the Fathers, from theologians, and from reason, that in case a demand is made against justice and with the view of doing grievous harm to an innocent person, to give an answer not according to the intent of the questioner is no offence against either the divine law or the natural law. Nay, I will prove that this doctrine in no wise threatens the good government of states and kingdoms: and that, where the other necessary conditions of an oath are present, there is nothing wrong in confirming such an answer in that manner. Now I ask you, Mr. Attorney, Supposing the King of France (which God forbid) were to invade this country successfully, and having obtained full possession of this city, were to make search for Her Majesty the Queen, whom you knew to be hidden in a secret apartment of the palace: supposing, moreover, that you were seized in the palace and brought before the King, and that he asked you where the Queen was, and would receive no profession of ignorance from you except on oath: what would you do? To palter or hesitate is to show that she is there: to refuse to swear is equivalent to a betrayal. What would you answer? I suppose, forsooth, you would point out the place! Yet who of all who now hear me would not cry out upon you for a traitor? You would then, if you had any sense, swear at once, either that you knew not where she was, or that you knew she was not in the palace, in order that your knowledge might not become instrumental to her harm. Of this kind, in fact, was the answer of Christ in the Gospel, when He said that concerning the Day of Judgment no one had any knowledge, neither the Angels in Heaven, nor the Son: that is, according to the interpretation of the Fathers, such knowledge that He could communicate to others. Now this is the condition of Catholics in England: they are in peril of their liberty, their fortunes, and their lives, if they should have a Priest in their houses. How can it be forbidden them to escape these evils by an equivocal answer, and to confirm this answer, if necessary, by an oath? For in such a case, three things must be remembered: first, that a wrong is done unless you swear; secondly, that no one is obliged to answer everybody’s questions about everything; thirdly, that an oath is always lawful, if made with truth, with judgment, and with justice, all which are found in this case.’(192)

“He went on to exemplify his position by supposed queries of robbers and highwaymen; but he was interrupted by abuse.”

Father Garnett has defended himself at sufficient length in his speech on his trial;(193) but as he there refers to his previous answers, we have thought it best to give insertion here to an autograph paper of his preserved in the Public Record Office.(194)

“Concerning equivocation, which I seemed to condemn in moral things, my meaning was in moral and human conversation, in which the virtue of verity is required among friends, for otherwise it were injurious to all humanity. Neither is equivocation at all to be justified, but in case of necessary defence from injustice or wrong, or the obtaining some good of great importance, when there is no danger of harm to others, as in the case of Coventry,(195) wherein I suppose it is a great advantage to me for to be admitted, and no harm can ensue to the city. For the city seeketh nothing but to be free from the sickness, and if it were possible that the city knew me to be free of certainty, they would admit me presently, which is confirmed by the custom of places beyond [sea], where, though they know a man to come from a place infected, yet after they have kept him in some several place, with convenient diet, for forty days, they admit him.

“As for Mr. Tresham’s equivocation, I am loath to judge; yet I think ignorance might excuse him, because he might think it lawful in that case to equivocate for the excuse of his friend, yet would I be loath to allow of it or practise it: he being not then urged, but voluntarily offering it himself, contrary to that which he had before set down, and especially being in case of manifest treason, as I will after explain. But in case a man be urged at the hour of his death, it is lawful for to equivocate, _with such due circumstances as are required in his life_. An example we may bring in another matter. For the divines hold that in some cases a man may be bound to conceal _something in his confession_, because of some great harm which may ensue of it. And as he may do so in his life, so may he at his death, if the danger of the harm continue still.

“The case being propounded, supposing that I knew Gerard acquainted with this treason, and having been often demanded thereof, I still denying it, by way of equivocation, whether at the hour of my death, either natural or by course of justice, I may by equivocation seek to clear him again.

“I answer, that in case I be not urged I may not, but I must leave the matter in case in which it stand; but if I be urged, then I may clear him by equivocation, whereas otherwise my silence would be accounted an accusation. But all this I understand when the case is such that I am bound to conceal Gerard’s treason, as if I had heard it in confession. For this is a general rule, that in cases of true and manifest treason,(196) a man is bound voluntarily in utter and very truth by no way to equivocate, if he know it not by way of confession, in which case also he is bound to seek all lawful ways to discover, _salvo sigillo_.

“HENRY GARNETT.

“29° Martii.

“All the Doctors that hold equivocation to be lawful do maintain that it is not lawful when the examinate is bound to tell the simple truth, that is, according to the civil law, when there is a competent judge, and the cause subject to his jurisdiction, and sufficient proofs. But in case of treason a man is bound to confess of another without any witness at all, yea, voluntarily to disclose it; not so of himself.

“And how far the common law bindeth in cases that are not treason a man to confess of himself, I know not. In the civil law, it is sufficient to have _semiplenam probationem_, that is, _unum testem omni exceptione majorem_, or _manifesta indicia_.

“Our law I take to be more mild, and that a man may put all to witnesses without confessing, except in cases of treason. For, according to our law, _non pervertitur judicium tacendo vel negando_, as in the civil law, where is required _reus confitens_. But generally, when a man is bound to confess, there is no place of equivocation. And when he is not bound to confess according to the laws of each country, then may he equivocate.”

In the last paper Father Garnett is not speaking of equivocation used in defence of an innocent person, but of what we may call the persistent plea of “Not guilty,” and he there draws an interesting distinction between the Roman civil law and our own, which he calls “more mild,” in that it professed to regard a prisoner as innocent till he is proved to be guilty. Happily this is our practice now, as well as our profession, and our quotations are needed to enable us to form judgments of conduct in times that have happily passed away.

But with regard to the trustworthiness of Father John Gerard’s evidence, as we have it before us in his Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, even if the lawfulness of his proceedings were not admitted, all that we are concerned to show is, that untrue statements, made by a man under circumstances which, rightly or wrongly, he considers to justify him in making them, furnish no presumption whatever that, under other circumstances, affording to his conscience no such justification, his word cannot be trusted. It is an evident instance of the maxim that the exception proves the rule. Restraining himself carefully within the limits of what he held to be lawful under circumstances of extreme difficulty and great personal danger, are we not rather to conclude that, under far less pressure, he will as carefully confine himself to the laws imposed by his conscience? Clearly there is nothing in Father Gerard’s practice under examination to cause us to hesitate in placing implicit trust in his word when he speaks as an historian; and, in addition, we are sure that no one will rise from the perusal of the exculpatory letters which we propose to subjoin, without a full conviction of his innocence and truthfulness.

XXXI.

But before we close this subject by producing these letters, we think it desirable to answer in detail two particular accusations that have been brought against Father Gerard’s veracity by a modern writer. Canon Tierney says:(197) “To show how very little reliance can be placed on the asseverations of Gerard when employed in his own vindication, it is only right to observe that, referring to this transaction” [the Communion of the conspirators after their oath of secresy] “in his manuscript narrative, he first boldly and very properly asserts, on the authority of Winter’s confession, that the Priest who administered the Sacrament was not privy to the designs of the conspirators; and then ignorant of Faukes’ declaration which had not been published, and supposing that his name had not transpired, as that of the Clergyman who had officiated upon the occasion, he returns at once to the artifice which I have elsewhere noticed, of substituting a third person as the narrator, and solemnly protests on his salvation that he knows not the Priest from whom Catesby and his associates received the Communion!”

Dr. Lingard also says simply that the Communion was received by the conspirators “from the hand of the Jesuit missionary Father Gerard,”(198) apparently unconscious that he had ever denied it.

We have little doubt that the house in which the oath of secrecy was taken and holy Communion received, was really Father Gerard’s house. The “house in the fields behind St. Clement’s Inn,” as Faulks calls it; “behind St. Clement’s,” as it appears in Winter’s confession, seems to be the house described by Father Gerard as that which he occupied up to the time of the Powder Plot, “nearer the principal street in London, called the Strand,”(199) in which street most of his friends lived. But he was not the only Priest who lived in that house. At least two other Priests(200) resided habitually with him. One was Father Strange, who was in the Tower when the Autobiography was written; the other, whose name he does not give, “was thrown into Bridewell, and was afterwards banished, together with other Priests.” Then there was also Thomas Laithwaite,(201) who afterwards became a Jesuit, who frequented the house if he did not live there. Father Gerard says, “There I should long have remained, free from all peril or even suspicion, if some friends of mine, while I was absent from London, had not availed themselves of the house rather rashly.” What meaning can this have but that Catholics were allowed, in Father Gerard’s absence, to come to the house too freely to receive the Sacraments, so that it became too widely known that it was his house?

Immediately after binding themselves by oath to secrecy, the minds of the conspirators must have been preoccupied with the thoughts of the tremendous undertaking to which they had just pledged themselves; and it is very unlikely that mention should be made, in subsequent conversation among them, of the name of the Priest, whom they had only seen at the altar, especially as he “was not acquainted with their purpose.”(202) The only two conspirators who mention Father Gerard’s name are Faulks and Thomas Winter. Faulks was a stranger, who had “spent most of his time in the wars of Flanders, which is the cause that he was less known here in England.”(203) We have no trace of any personal intercourse between Thomas Winter and Father Gerard. What can have been more natural than that they should have been told to meet at Father Gerard’s house, and that those who did not know him by sight should have concluded that it was Father Gerard’s Mass that they heard? It surely is more probable that they should have been mistaken in a name than that Father Gerard should have been guilty of perjury in contradicting, from a place of safety, that which was no accusation against him, but a harmless statement that, in ignorance of the oath taken, he had given Communion to certain Catholics.

Faulks’ confession was extorted by torture. King James had given orders, “The gentler tortours are to be first usid unto him, _et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur_, and so God speede your goode work.”(204) Faulks was under none of the “gentler tortures” when in a tremulous hand he wrote “Guido” on that declaration. “The prisoner is supposed to have fainted before completing”(205) the signature. Before the words exculpating Father Gerard from all knowledge of the conspirators’ purpose, the word _Hucusque_ appears in the handwriting of Sir Edward Coke, who has underlined the sentence in red. The ideas of justice of this great lawyer permitted him to publish the mention there made of Father Gerard’s name, and to suppress the statement of his innocence. There is also a red line drawn beneath the following words in Thomas Winter’s examination: “But Gerard knew not of the provision of the powder, to his knowledge.”(206)

The second accusation brought by the same writer,(207) is couched as follows: “Relying upon the fidelity of Gerard, who declares _upon his conscience_, that he has ‘set down Father Garnett’s words truly and sincerely as they lie in his letter,’ Dr. Lingard has printed what is given by that writer, and from it has argued, with Greenway, that Garnett on the 4th of October, the date assigned to it both by Gerard and Greenway, was still ignorant of the nature of the Plot. The truth, however, is, that although the _letter_ was written on the _fourth_, the _postcript_ was not added until the _twenty-first_ of October; that from this postscript the two Jesuit writers have selected a sentence, which they have transferred to the body of the letter; and then, concealing both the existence of the postscript and the date of the 21st, have represented the whole as written and dispatched on the 4th. The motive for this proceeding, especially on the part of Greenway, is obvious. That writer’s argument is, that the Parliament had been summoned to meet on the 3rd of October, that Garnett had not heard of the intention to prorogue it to the following month (this, to say the least, is very improbable); that, for anything he could have known to the contrary, the great blow had already been struck, at the very time when he was writing; and, consequently, that, had he been acquainted with the intentions of Catesby and his confederates, he would never, at such a moment, have thought of proceeding, as he says he was about to proceed, towards London, and thus exposing himself to the almost inevitable danger of falling into the hands of his enemies.... Now the whole of this reasoning is founded on the assumption that the letter bore only the single date of the 4th. On the 21st, the supposed danger of a journey to London no longer existed. At that period, too, Garnett, instead of proceeding towards the metropolis, had not only removed in the opposite direction, from Goathurst, in Buckinghamshire, to Harrowden, the seat of Lord Vaux, in Northamptonshire, but was also preparing to withdraw himself still further from the capital, and by the end of the month, was actually at Coughton, in the neighbourhood of Alcester. In fact, what was written on the 4th, he had practically contradicted on the 21st, and to have allowed any part of the letter, therefore, to carry this later date, would have been to supply the refutation of the very argument which it was intended to support. Hence the expedient to which this writer has had recourse. The postscript and its date are carefully suppressed; and we are told that, looking at the contents of the letter, Garnett, when he wrote it, could have known nothing of the designs of the conspirators: ‘Quando scrisse questa lettera, che fu alli quattro d’Ottobre, non sapeva niente del disegno di questi gentilhuomini, altro che il sospetto che prima havea havuto’ (Greenway’s MS., 51b). Without stopping to notice the falsehood contained in the concluding words of this sentence, and without intending to offer an opinion here, as to the principal question of Garnett’s conduct, I may still remark that even the friends of that Jesuit universally admit him to have received the details of the plot from Greenway about the 21st; and that this fact alone may be regarded as supplying another and a sufficient motive both to the latter and to Gerard, for the suppression of that date.”

This note by Canon Tierney produced its effect on Dr. Lingard, and that historian, in the edition of his work published in 1849, remarks upon the matter as follows.(208) “The object for which this letter was made up in the shape which it thus assumes in Gerard’s MS., is plain from the reasoning which both he and Greenway found upon it. They contend that, if Garnett had been privy to the conspiracy, he must have believed on the 4th that the explosion had already taken place on the 3rd, the day on which the Parliament had been summoned to meet; though no reason is assigned why he might not, as well as others, have been aware of the prorogation to the 5th of November, and they add that, under such belief, he would never have resolved to encounter the dangers of making, as he proposed to do, a journey to London, though in fact he made no such journey, but changed his route, and was actually, at the time in which he wrote, on his way to the meeting appointed at Dunchurch. Hence it became necessary to suppress the postscript, because it was irreconcileable with such statements. There was, moreover, this benefit in the suppression, that it kept the reader in ignorance (1) of the real date of the letter, the 21st of October, the very time when it is admitted that Greenway made to Garnett a full disclosure of the Plot; and (2) that Garnett took that opportunity of blotting out a most important passage in the letter written on the 4th, with a promise to forward the same passage later in an epistle apart; two facts which would furnish strong presumptions against the alleged innocence of the Provincial.”

One word in passing, in reply to the “two facts which would furnish strong presumptions against” Father Garnett’s innocence. 1. Dr. Lingard has forgotten that “the full disclosure of the Plot” was made in confession, and that Father Garnett could make no use of it in any way, until the conjuncture arose when the penitent gave him leave. 2. It is true that a passage, written to Father Persons on the 4th October, was erased by Father Garnett on the 21st; but what presumption does this furnish? The “promise to forward the same passage later in an epistle apart,” could not mean that he would write him word of the Powder Plot when it was safe to do so. Is it likely that a conspirator would have written to his friend, with all the chances of a letter being intercepted, that they were proposing to blow up the Houses of Parliament? What would he have gained even had he but risked a phrase as oracular as that of the letter to Lord Mounteagle? Such a supposition assumes that Father Garnett was not only guilty of the Plot, but that he had lost all common sense and ordinary caution; and that he was indebted to the accidental return of his letter to his hands, seventeen days after he had written it, for an opportunity of destroying proof under his own hand that he was guilty. If this consideration is not conclusive, we have but to refer to the context, as given from the original by Mr. Tierney himself,(209) and our sense of the ridiculous must settle the question. Father Garnett must have been the most erratic of letter-writers, if he could insert a reference to the Gunpowder Treason, or to any other treason, between two such subjects as the choice of Lay-brothers and his own want of money. The letter ends as follows.

“ ‘I pray you send word how many Coadjutors’ ” [Jesuit Lay-brothers] “ ‘you will have. I have one, a citizen of London, of very good experience, which may benefit us, in buying and selling without taxes. But he is fifty years old: and I think it not amiss to have, at the first, some ancient men for such. Send your will herein.’

“_A short but separate paragraph of three lines is here carefully obliterated._

“ ‘I am in wonderful distress, for want of the ordinary allowance from Joseph’ ” [Creswell, the Superior in Spain]. “ ‘I pray you write for all the arrearages, which, if it may all be gotten, I can spare you some. Thus, with humble remembrance to Claud’ ” [Aquaviva, the General], “ ‘Fabio, Perez, Duras, and the rest, I cease, 4o Octobris.’ ”

But let us address ourselves to the grave accusation made against Gerard and Greenway. That Dr. Lingard should have made such a statement at all is owing, first, to the fact that at the time when he was preparing the new edition of his History, he had no longer access to the manuscript of Father Gerard, of which he had had the use(210) when originally compiling his work. The reader, who has Gerard’s Narrative now beneath his eyes, can speedily convince himself of this fact. And, secondly, to a misunderstanding of Canon Tierney’s note, for which that writer’s expressions are to blame. If it had been true, as Dr. Lingard understood Mr. Tierney to say, that Gerard and Greenway drew the same argument from the date of Father Garnett’s letter, their conduct would have been entirely indefensible, and they would have deserved the blame brought against them.

The truth however is, and in this lies an ample defence for both of them, that this is not so. Father Gerard quotes Father Garnett’s letter only and solely to illustrate the state of the Catholics in England. For this purpose, the date of the letter he was quoting was entirely unimportant. Indeed, he originally quoted the letter without any date; and then he interlined the date of Oct. 4th, but laying no more stress upon it than he had laid on the dates of the other letters of July 24th and August 28th. For the same reason it would not occur to him to note that the passage respecting Ireland was taken from a postcript. It was enough for him that he gave Father Garnett’s very words, as he declared “upon his conscience” that he did; and that he had Father Garnett’s authority for the account that he was giving of the condition and state of feeling of Catholics. When he turned to the letter for a date, it was natural enough that he should take that which was endorsed upon it by Father Persons, who, having erased the date of the 21st which he had originally written upon it, had substituted the 4th, and “in another corner of the paper also, where it appears most likely to catch the eye, inscribed the same date thus, ‘4° 8bris.’ ”(211) As there is no ground for blaming Father Persons for thus endorsing a single date on a letter which continued to bear two, so neither is it reasonable to blame Father Gerard for quoting the letter under one date only. It is clear, therefore, that there is no accusation whatever against Father Gerard, and if Father Greenway had not drawn from the date of the letter the argument regarding Father Garnett, none would ever have been made. It is gravely to be regretted that Mr. Tierney should have said that there was “a sufficient motive both to the latter _and to Gerard_ for the suppression of that date.” This expression evidently misled Dr. Lingard, and led him erroneously to speak of “the reasoning which both he [Gerard] and Greenway found upon it.” Had Dr. Lingard not trusted to Mr. Tierney, but referred to Gerard’s Narrative, he would have said of the whole charge that which he has said(212) of the alterations of names in the first part of the letter. Of this his expression is, “Had his object been only to present the public with an account of the persecution to which the English Catholics were at that moment subjected, there would not have been great cause to complain.” This _was_ his only object,(213) and therefore there was, in Dr. Lingard’s judgment, no great cause to complain.

Father Greenway derived his information of the letter from Father Gerard’s Narrative, of which he was translator. Whether the argument he has founded on the date of the letter has any and what force is not here under discussion, but it is evident that he propounded it in good faith. The original letter was in existence to confute him. If he had seen it or noticed the postscript and its date, he would never have exposed himself to such a confutation. He was misled, innocently enough, but seriously, by the manner in which the letter appeared in Father Gerard’s pages which he was translating.

In a word, the accusation is this. Gerard and Greenway found an argument on the fact that a letter of Garnett’s was dated the 4th of October, when they knew that it was in his hands on the 21st. And the answer is this. Gerard may have known, but had no need to notice, the fact of the double date, as he founded no argument whatever upon it: Greenway, who did found an argument on it, had no reason for suspecting the existence of a later date on the letter.

XXXII.

Having thus vindicated the fair fame of these Fathers from the unmerited imputations brought against them, it remains for us to produce the letters which were written expressly to prove Father Gerard’s innocence of all complicity with the conspiracy. We first take from the Public Record Office(214) his letter to the Duke of Lenox, enclosing letters to the Earl of Salisbury and Sir Everard Digby. These are the letters described by Father Gerard himself in the twelfth chapter of his Narrative.(215)

“Right Honourable,—Seeing all laws, both divine and human, do license the innocent to plead for himself, and the same laws do strictly require and highly commend an open ear in any of authority to give audience and equal trial to a plaintiff in such a case, my hope is that your Grace will excuse this my boldness in offering up by your hands my humble petition for trial of my innocence touching the late most impious treason, whereof I am wrongfully accused, by some lost companions, I assure me, who, to save themselves from deserved punishment, will not stick to accuse any innocent of any crime wherein their bare word may pass for proof. There is none so innocent but may be wrongfully accused, sith innocency itself in our Lord and Master was accused and condemned as an enemy to the State and no friend to Cæsar. The servant must not look to be more free from wrongs than his Master was. But happy is that man by whom the truth is tried in judgment and innocency cleared.

“I durst not presume, being branded with the odious name of traitor, to offer my petition to my Sovereign (to whom, as God is witness, I wish long life and all happiness as to my own soul). But if by your Grace’s means (of whose piety and worthy disposition I have heard so much good) the humble suit of a distressed suppliant (prostrate at His Majesty’s feet) may be offered up, I hope it shall be found not unfit for your Grace to offer, and most fit and reasonable for so wise and righteous a Prince to grant.

“My humble petition is only this. That, whereas I have protested before God and the world, I was not privy to that horrible Plot of destroying the King’s Majesty and his posterity, &c., by powder (wherewith I am now so publicly taxed in the proclamation), that full trial may be made, whether I be guilty therein or not. And if so it be proved, that then all shame and pain may light upon me; but if the truth appear on the contrary side, that then I may be cleared from this so grievous an infamation and punishment not deserved. Two kinds of proofs may be made in this cause, which I humbly beseech your Grace, for God’s cause, may be performed. One is, that all the principal conspirators (with whom I am said to have practised the foresaid Plot of Powder against the Parliament House) may be asked at their death, as they will answer at the dreadful tribunal unto which they are going, whether ever they did impart the matter to me, or I practise the same with them in the least degree, or whether they can but say of their knowledge that I did know of it. And I know it will then appear that no one of them will accuse me, if it be not apparent they do it in hope of life, but do give signs that they die in the fear of God and hope of their salvation.

“And as by this trial it will appear (in this time most fit for saying truth) that there is not sufficient witness against me, so I humbly desire also trial may be made by examining a witness, who can, if he will, fully clear me, and I hope he will not deny me that right, especially being(216) ... the place of right and justice himself. Sir Everard Digby can testify for me, how ignorant I was of any such matter but two days before that unnatural parricide should have been practised. I have, for full trial thereof, enclosed a letter unto him, which I humbly beseech may be delivered before your Grace and the other two lords, whose favour and equity I have likewise humbly entreated by these letters unto them. All which I am bold to direct unto your Grace’s hands, presuming upon your gracious furtherance, not having other means, in this my distressed case, to have them severally delivered. God of His goodness will reward, I hope, in full measure, this your Grace’s favour and pity showed to an innocent wrongly accused, who would rather suffer any death than not to be found ever faithful to God and his Sovereign,

“JOHN GERARD.

“This 23rd of January.”

_Addressed_—“To the Right Honourable the Duke of Lenox, these deliver.”

_Endorsed in Cecil’s hand_—“Gerard the Jesuit to the Duke of Lenox.”

“Right Honourable,—Although I can expect no other from one in your place, but that you should permit the course of justice to proceed against any that are proved guilty of treason to His Majesty and the State, especially in so foul and unnatural a treason as was lately discovered, yet I cannot but hope where there is so much wisdom, and so vigilant a care for the preservation of this State, your lordship will also be pleased to hear, and forward to make trial, who may be wrongfully accused, knowing right well that it is as necessary in any Government to protect the innocent as to punish the offenders.

“What proof there is of my accusation I know not, and therefore cannot answer it. But this I know: that none can truly produce the least proof that ever I was made privy to that treason of which I am accused, and much less a practiser with the principal conspirators in the same, as I am denounced to be. Therefore, sith I know not my accusers, God I hope will be judge between them and me, to Whom I refer my cause, and in Whom my trust is, and ever shall be, that He will right me.

“In the meantime my humble request is, that your lordship, who have been so often seen to be pitiful towards any in distress, and a potent helper to those who were oppressed (a special ornament in so eminent a person, and much commended and rewarded by God Himself), will show your accustomed commiseration in my case, and afford me therein such audience as may be sufficient to make trial of my innocency. Wherein your lordship shall imitate the just proceeding of the highest Lord, from Whom both yourself, and all that govern, have all your power. For God Himself, although He know all things before He call us to account, yet, to give us the form of just proceeding, is said in Holy Scripture to be ever careful in hearing what the accused can say for himself before He proceeds to give sentence. So we read that God said to Abraham, ‘Clamor Sodomorum etc., multiplicatus est, etc., descendam et videbo utrum clamorem qui venit ad me opere compleverint, an non est ita, ut sciam.’ So again in the Gospel when He heard a complaint against His steward, He would not proceed against him without full audience, but called him and said, ‘Quid hæc audio de te? redde rationem villicationis tuae.’ These most high and worthy examples I trust your lordship will follow in my case, as you have been known to do with others. And then I doubt not but that shall appear true which I have most sincerely protested before God and the world.

“My humble petition therefore is, that a witness may be asked his knowledge who is well able to clear me if he will, and I hope he will not be so unjust in this time of his own danger as to conceal so needful a proof being so demanded of him. Sir Everard Digby doth well know how far I was from knowledge of any such matter but two days before the treason was known to all men. I have therefore written a letter unto him, to require his testimony of that which passed between him and me at that time. Wherein, if I may have your lordship’s furtherance to have just trial made of the truth whilst yet he liveth, I shall ever esteem myself most deeply bound to pray for your lordship’s happiness both in this world and in the next. In which hope I will rest, your lordship’s prone and humble suppliant, never to be proved false to King and country,

“JOHN GERARD.

“This 23rd of January.”

_Addressed_—“To the Right Honourable the Earl of Salisbury, Principal Secretary to His Majesty, these.”

_Endorsed in Cecil’s hand_—“Gerard the Jesuit to my son.”

“Sir Everard Digby,—I presume so much of your sincerity both to God and man, that I cannot fear you will be loath to utter your knowledge for the clearing of one that is innocent from a most unjust accusation, importing both loss of life to him that is accused, and of his good name also, which he much more esteemeth.

“So it is that upon some false information (given, as I suppose, by some base fellows, desirous to save their lives by the loss of their honesty) there is come forth a proclamation against my Superior, and one other of the Society, and myself, as against three notorious practisers with divers of the principal conspirators in this late most odious treason of destroying the King’s Majesty and all in the Parliament House with powder. And myself am put in the first place, as the first or chiefest offender therein.

“Now God I call to witness, Who must be my Judge, that I did never know of it before the rumour of the country brought it to the place where I was, after the treason was publicly discovered. And if this protestation be not sincerely true, without any equivocation, and the words thereof so understood by me, as they sound to others, I neither desire nor expect any favour at God’s hand when I shall stand before His tribunal. But because this protestation doth only clear me in their opinion who are so persuaded of my conscience that they think I would not condemn my soul to save my body (which I hope by God’s grace shall never be my mind): therefore, to give more full proof of my innocency to those also may doubt the truth of my words, I take witness to yourself whether you, upon your certain knowledge, cannot clear me. I wrote a letter before Christmas which I hoped would be sufficient to have cleared me; wherein, beside a most serious protestation (such as no honest man can use if he were guilty, as for my part my conscience doth persuade me), I alleged some other reasons which did make it more than probable, in my opinion, that I was neither to be charged with this late treason, nor chargeable with former dealing in State matters. But I did of purpose forbear this proof (which now I allege), although I did assure myself it would clear me from all just suspicion of being privy to that last and greatest treason; and I did forbear to set it down, in regard I would not take knowledge of any personal acquaintance with you, especially at your own house, not knowing how far you were to be touched for your life, and therefore would not add unto your danger. But now that it appears by your confession and trial in the country that you stand at the King’s mercy for greater matters than your acquaintance with a Priest, I hope you will not be loath I should publish that which cannot hurt you, and may help myself in a matter of such importance. And as I know you could never like to stoop to so base and unworthy a humour as to flatter or dissemble with any man, so much less can I fear that now (being in the case you are in) you can ever think it fit to dissemble with God, or not to utter your every knowledge, being required as from Him, and in the behalf of truth. Therefore I desire you will bear witness of the truth which followeth (if it be true that I affirm of my demand to you, growing upon my ignorance in the matter then in hand) as you expect truth and mercy at God’s hand hereafter.

“First, I desire you to bear witness whether, coming to your house upon All Souls’ Day last, before dinner, with intention and hope to celebrate there, and finding all things hid out of the way and many of your household gone, you did not perceive me to be astonished at it, as a thing much contrary to my expectation. Whereupon I asked you what was become of them. And when you told me you had sent them into Warwickshire, and your hounds also, and yourself were going presently after, about a hunting match which you had made, though I seemed satisfied for the present because a stranger was there with you, yet whether I did not soon after (when I had compared many particulars together which seemed strange unto me) draw you into a chamber apart, and there urge you to tell me what was the reason both of that sudden alteration in your house and of divers other things which I had observed before, but did not until then reflect upon them so much, as, for example, the number of horses that you had not long before in your stable, the sums of money which I had been told you had made of your stock and grounds, which (said I) in one of your judgment and provident care of your estate, are not likely to be done without some great cause, and seemed to think you had something in hand for the Catholic cause. Your answer was, ‘No, there was nothing in hand that you knew of, or could tell me of.’ And when I replied that I had some fear of it by those signs, considering you would not hurt your estate so much in likelihood without some cause equivalent (for I knew very well you meant to pay the statute, and so stood not in fear of losing your stock), and therefore willed you to look well that you followed counsel in your proceedings, or else you might hurt both yourself and the cause, your answer was (which I have remembered often since), ‘That you respected the Catholic cause much more than your own commodity, as it should well appear whensoever you undertook anything.’ I asked you once again whether, then, there were anything to be done, and whether you expected any help by foreign power, whereunto you answered, holding up the end of your finger, that you would not adventure so much in hope thereof. Then I said, ‘I pray God you follow counsel in your doings. If there be any matter in hand, doth Mr. Walley know of it?’ You answered, ‘In truth, I think he doth not.’ Then I said further, ‘In truth, Sir Everard Digby, if there should be anything in hand, and that you retire yourself and company into Warwickshire, as into a place of most safety, I should think you did not perform the part of a friend to some of your neighbours not far off, and persons that, as you know, deserve every respect, and to whom you have professed much friendship, that they are left behind, and have not any warning to make so much provision for their own safety as were needful in such a time, but to defend themselves from rogues.’ Your answer was (as I will be sworn), ‘I warrant you it shall not need.’ And so you gave me assurance that, if there had been anything needful for them or me to know, you would assuredly have told me. So I rested satisfied and parted from you, and after that I never saw you nor any of the conspirators. These were my questions unto you. And thus clear I was from the knowledge of that Plot against the Parliament House, whereof, notwithstanding, I am accused and proclaimed to be a practiser with the principal conspirators. But I refer me to God and your conscience, who are able to clear me, and I challenge the conscience of any one that certainly expecteth death, and desireth to die in the fear of God and with hope of his salvation, to accuse me of it if he can. God, of His mercy, grant unto us all grace to see and do His will, and to live and die His servants, for they only are and shall be happy for ever.

“Your companion in tribulation though not in the cause,

“JOHN GERARD.”

_Postcript_—“I hope you will also witness with me that you have ever seen me much averted from such violent courses, and hopeful rather of help by favour than by force. And, indeed, if I had not now been satisfied by your assurance that there was nothing in hand, it should presently have appeared how much I had misliked any forcible attempts, the counsel of Christ and the commandment of our superiors requiring the contrary, and that in patience we should possess our souls.”

_Addressed_—“To Sir Everard Digby, prisoner in the Tower.”

_Endorsed in Cecil’s hand_—“Gerard the Priest to Sir Everard Digby.”

From Father Bartoli(217) we take a letter written from Rome, twenty-five years after the Powder Plot, addressed by Father Gerard to Dr. Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon, and Vicar Apostolic of England. The translation from Bartoli’s Italian version is a very old one; the date of the letter is September 1, 1630.

“My Lord,—Not long since I received information that a manuscript dissertation, with the title of _Brevis Inquisitio, &c._, had been circulated in your parts; in the course of which it is pretended that a certain person continues to glory, to the present day, that by working under ground in the mine of Mr. Catesby and other conspirators, by excavating and carrying out the soil with his own hands, he has often found his shirt wet through and dripping with sweat as copiously as if it had been dragged through a river; and that this person is no other than myself, according to the opinion expressed in the letter. I despised such an idle tale as undeserving of an answer, knowing it, as most others must know it, to be not only most false, but, moreover, most remote, from probability. I only begged of a good Priest, who was setting out for England, to make known to your lordship what I had heard concerning such a deed laid to my charge, so contrary to all truth and justice; and that I hoped you would not give credit to it, but rather on hearing it mentioned by any one, would show the falsehood as it is. But in the meantime, while the Priest is yet on his journey, I have learned from good authority that the book has been printed and published, curtailed indeed of that story, which is, however, circulated in manuscript through the hands of many, with every circumstance and embellishment; whence has arisen the general opinion that I am the person there spoken of, the testimony of a Priest being alleged, who says that he has heard me boast of it. Truly I cannot sufficiently express my astonishment on perceiving that there can be found a Catholic, and if a Priest so much the worse, who has so shameless a conscience as to dare assert what he must necessarily know to be false, and injurious to one who never did him any harm or injury whatever. This I can affirm of myself with respect to every Priest in England, to many of whom I have often afforded assistance, but, to my knowledge, have never offended one. Your lordship, moreover, must be aware how very improbable it is that I should boast of a crime so false, so horrible. Now, with all due reverence, I call God to witness that I had no more knowledge of the conspiracy than a new-born infant might have; that I never heard any one mention it; that I had not even a suspicion of the provision of gunpowder for the mine, excepting only when the Plot was detected, made public, and known to every one, and when the conspirators appeared openly in arms in the county of Warwick; then only did I hear of it for the first time, by a message brought to the place where I resided; and this place was so ill provided that of itself it proved I could have no knowledge of the conspiracy, either from the expressions of others or from my own suspicions; there being in that place neither men nor arms sufficient to defend us from the marauders, who on every occasion of similar commotions issue forth and unite in bodies for plunder. Neither did this happen for want of sufficient means to furnish and reinforce the house with men and arms, but solely because we had no suspicion of a commotion, much less any knowledge of a conspiracy. Besides this, the accomplices in the Plot were subjected to the most rigorous examination, and questioned concerning me; and although some of them under the torture named one or others of those who were privy to the conspiracy, nevertheless all constantly denied it of me. Sir Everard Digby, who of all the others, for many reasons, was most suspected of having possibly revealed the secret to me, protested in open court and declared that he had often been instigated to say I knew something of the Plot, but that he had always answered in the negative, alleging the reason why he had never dared to disclose it to me, because, he said, he feared lest I should dissuade him from it. Therefore the greater part of the Privy Councillors considered my innocence established, it being proved by the concurrent testimony of so many, and by a letter in which I defended and cleared myself from such a groundless suspicion. In that letter, besides the reasons therein produced in proof of my innocence, I protested before Heaven and earth that, so far from being engaged in the conspiracy, I was as ignorant of it as man could be. Being at that time in imminent danger of falling into the hands of the Privy Councillors, who with the most refined diligence sent in every direction in quest of me, I had thoughts of surrendering myself up to every torment imaginable, and what is more to be regarded, to the terrible and disgraceful charge of perjury, if having me in their power they could convict me, by legal proof, of being privy to the conspiracy. There was a time, when under Elizabeth they held me prisoner for something more than three years, during which period, many times and in as many ways as they chose, did they examine me, to discover in general if I had ever meddled in affairs of State. I challenged them to produce in proof a single character in my hand, a single word, or anything else sufficient to show it, and then to punish me when convicted with the most cruel death that could be inflicted. There never was brought forward the smallest trace or shadow of a proof. How much more improbable is it that I should consent to a Plot so inhuman, I who, from the natural disposition of my soul, independently of supernatural motives, hold in abhorrence everything that has the smallest appearance of cruelty. This I can affirm with truth, that from the time I first embraced the profession of life in which I am engaged, down to the present moment, I have never, by God’s mercy, desired the grievous harm, much less the death, of any man in the world, although he may have been my most inveterate enemy: how could I then have had any hand or part in the sudden, unexpected, and on that account tremendous death of so many personages of such high quality, for whom I have ever borne the greatest respect. A person was employed to scatter copies of my forementioned letter through various streets of London, and one in particular was delivered to the Earl of Northampton, and by him laid before the King, on whom my reasons so far prevailed to his satisfaction that he would have desisted from the rigorous search made after me, had not Cecil, for his own private ends, rendered him more violent than ever. For being persuaded that some of the conspirators had plotted against his life in particular, and knowing that most of them were my friends, he hoped if he could once lay hold of me, to find out from me how many and who were the conspirators. For this sole reason he never rested until he had again persuaded the King, as a thing evidently known to him and clearly demonstrated, that I was not only an accomplice but the ringleader in the Plot, and therefore to be the first named in the proclamation; which was so done. Perceiving from this that the persecution was not likely to abate, and that I might be discovered and arrested, I took the advice to withdraw myself for a time, and to ‘give place to wrath,’ and, after so many years of hard labour in England, with the Apostles ‘to come apart into a desert place and rest a little:’ nor was there any other principal motive of my leaving the kingdom. In fine, this is the simple naked truth; I was totally ignorant of the provision of gunpowder and of the mine; I was and I am as innocent of this and of every other conspiracy as your lordship or any other man living; and this I affirm and swear upon my soul, without any equivocation whatsoever; in such sort, that if the facts do not correspond truly to the meaning of the words, or if I had any information of the forementioned Plot before it was made public to the whole world, as I have before said, I own myself guilty of perjury before God and men; and as far as it is true that I had no knowledge of it, so far and no more do I ask mercy at the throne of God: and it is very probable that it will not be long before I must appear at the divine tribunal, considering my age and the present contagion in the neighbourhood; for if it should reach us it is hardly possible I can escape, on account of the assistance which it is my duty to render to this Community, whose souls are committed to my care.(218) Therefore I am induced to hope that your lordship will not consider me so careless and prodigal of my eternal salvation, after having spent so many years in no other employment than that of seeking to know and to accomplish the will of God, and of teaching the same to others, as to be now willing to burthen my conscience and risk the salvation of my soul by a protestation so solemn and spontaneous, if my conscience were not pure, my cause evident, and my words true in all sincerity. Now, as I doubt not that God, the Supreme Judge, Who sees and knows all things, will pass sentence on my cause according to its merits, so I hope that your lordship, now knowing me to be innocent, will not wish me to appear guilty, by permitting to stand against me without contradiction an accusation so false and of such enormous infamy. Since this accusation derives its greatest force from the authority of your lordship, who, it is publicly said, gives credit and support to it, I beseech you, by that love which you have for charity and justice, to oppose the falsity of the calumny by the truth of this my justification. With respect to the Priest, whoever he may be, by whose false allegation your lordship appears to have been deceived, I desire with all my heart he may meet with true repentance before he dies, so that we may all live together and love God in a blessed eternity.”

Next, we find, in Father Henry More’s _History of the English Province S.J._,(219) a letter from Father Thomas Fitzherbert, Rector of the English College at Rome, of which house Father Gerard was then Confessor. It is not necessary for us to translate it from his Latin version, as it exists in English amongst the Stonyhurst MSS.(220) It is dated some months later than the foregoing letter of Father Gerard, and was sent by Mutius Vitelleschi, General of the Society, to the Bishop of Chalcedon, by the hands of Fathers Henry Floyd and Thomas Bapthorpe, who were at the same time bearers of a second letter from Father Gerard to Bishop Smith, extracts from which we subjoin, translated from Bartoli.(221)

“Right Rev. and my honorable good Lord,—Having understood that one of our Society hath been of late traduced, _tacito nomine_, in a printed book as to have bragged that he had sweat in working in the Powder Plot, and that your lordship have named him, and as it seemeth, dost believe him to be Father John Gerard, I think myself obliged to represent to your lordship’s consideration some things concerning him, and that matter, as well in respect of the common bond of our religion and his great merits, as also for that he is at this present under my charge (albeit I acknowledge myself unworthy to have such a subject), and lastly for the knowledge I have had many years of his innocency in that point ever since that slanderous calumny was first raised by the heretics against him, at which time I myself and many other of his friends and kinsmen did very diligently and curiously inform ourselves of the truth thereof, and found that he was fully cleared of it even by the public and solemn testimony of the delinquents themselves, namely of Sir Everard Digby (with whom he was known to be most familiar and confident), who publicly protested at his arraignment that he did never acquaint him with their design, being assured that he would not like of it, but dissuade him from it; and of this I can show good testimony by letters from London written hither at the same time, bearing date the 29th of January, in the year 1606. Therefore, to the end that your lordship may the better believe it, I have thought good to shew the same to some very credible persons, who are shortly to depart from hence, and do mean to present themselves to your lordship, of whom you may (if it please you) understand the truth of it. Besides that for your better satisfaction, I have also by our right reverend Father General’s express order and commission commanded him in their presence upon obedience (which commandment we hold by our Rule and Institute to bind, under pain of mortal sin) to declare the truth whether he had any knowledge of that Powder Plot or no, and he hath in their presence protested upon his salvation, that he had never any knowledge of it, either by Sir Everard Digby, or any other, until it was discovered, and that he came to know it by common fame; besides that alleged many pregnant proofs of his innocency therein which I omit to write, because he himself doth represent them to your lordship by a letter of his own; and of this also the witnesses aforesaid may inform your lordship if you be not otherways satisfied. In the meantime, I have only thought it my part to give this my testimony of his solemn protestation and oath, and withal to send to your lordship the enclosed copies of two clauses of letters from England and Flanders touching this matter, not doubting but that your lordship’s charity will move you to admit the same as sufficient to clear him of that calumny, seeing there was never any proof produced against him, nor yet any ground of that slander but the malicious conceit and suspicion of heretics, by reason of his acquaintance with some of the delinquents, in which case a solemn protestation and oath, as he hath freely and voluntarily made, may suffice both in conscience and law for a canonical purgation to clear him from all suspicion as well of that fact as of all collusion or double dealing in this his protestation, especially seeing he hath always been not only _integerrimæ famæ_, but also of singular estimation in England for his many years’ most zealous and fruitful labours there, and his constant suffering of imprisonment and torments for the Catholic faith. Besides that, he hath been ever since a worthily esteemed and principal member of our Society, and given sufficient proof of a most religious and sincere conscience, to the edification of us all. This being considered, I cannot but hope that your lordship will rest satisfied of his innocency in this point, and out of your charity procure also to satisfy others who may have, by any speech of your lordship’s, conceived worse of him than he hath deserved; for so your lordship shall provide as well for the reparation of his fame as for the discharge of your own conscience, being bound both by justice and charity to restitution in this case, as I make no doubt but that your lordship would judge if it were another man’s case; yea, and exact also of others if the like wrong had been done either to yourself, or to any kinsman, dear friend, or subject of yours, all which he is to me; and, therefore, I am the bolder, I will not say to expect this at your lordship’s hands (because it doth not become me), but humbly to crave it of you as a thing which I shall take for a favour, no less to myself than to the Society; and so this to no other end, I humbly take my leave, wishing to your lordship all true felicity, this 15th of March, 1631.

“Your lordship’s humble servant,

“THOMAS FITZHERBERT.”

“Ex literis P. Ægidii Schondonchii Seminarii Audomarensis Rectoris 1 Martii 1606:

“ ‘Dum has scribo accepi literas recentissime datas a viro claro quibus significavit Dominum Everardum Digbæum, dum a Judicibus pronuntiaretur in eum mortis sententia, coram eisdem protestatum esse nullum penitus in Anglia Jesuitam hujus rei fuisse conscium, Nam, inquit, familiaris Patri Gerardo si quis alius, neque unquam ausus fui indicare tantillum, veritus ne conaretur frangere nostros conatus. Itaque sancte asseruit se id solo ex puro Catholicæ ac Romanæ Ecclesiæ zelo neque ullo alio humano respectu suscepisse.’

“Out of the letter of Father Michael Walpole written to Father Persons, the 29th of January, 1606:

“ ‘Touching Gerard’s letter which I have seen, I can only say this much, that it seemeth to me to be so effectual, as nothing can be more, so that I am fully persuaded that the King’s Majestie himself and the whole Council remain satisfied of him [in] their own hearts, and his Majesty is reported for certain to have declared so much in words upon the sight of his letter.’

“In the end, after his name, he writeth as followeth:

“ ‘This letter is confirmed since by Sir Everard Digby’s speech at his arraignment, in which he cleared all Jesuits and Priests (to his knowledge) upon his salvation. And in particular, that though he was particularly acquainted with Gerard, yet he never durst mention this matter, being fully assured that he would be wholly against it, to which my Lord of Salisbury replied, affirming the contrary, and that he knew him to be guilty.’ ”

The first extract of the letter enclosed from Father Gerard runs thus:

“It is known to all how those of any blood have loved and served King James. My father knew it to his cost, for he was twice imprisoned for attempting to set free the glorious Queen Mary, the King’s mother, and to secure the succession to her children: which intent of his own was so clear to the Ministers of State, that besides imprisonment, to purchase his life of them cost him some thousands of crowns, especially the first time when there were but three accused and he one of them, and of the other two, one lost his life. Of all which King James was mindful when he came from Scotland to be crowned King of England, and my brother at York offered him his service and that of all his house. ‘I am particularly bound,’ said he, ‘to love your blood, on account of the persecution that you have borne for me, and of that his love he there gave him the first pledge by making him a Knight.’ ”(222)

The remaining extract concludes our series of exculpatory letters:

“I send your lordship a copy of the three letters that I wrote to three Councillors of State, that you may see in them how I trusted to my innocence, when I offered to put it to the proof in the two ways which I there proposed to them. Further than this, though the conspirators had been put to death, and I saw that the course proposed by me to the Councillors was not accepted, while the matter was fresh, and I yet in London, I requested of our Fathers that I might present myself in person to the Council of State, which I would have done had they but given me leave; and if the Council would have proceeded against me, not on the score of religion, but for the conspiracy only, which alone was in question, and for which, if they had found me guilty of it, they might have done to me their very worst. This request I can swear that I made and renewed several times to our Fathers, and there are some yet alive who can bear witness to it; but it did not seem good to them to consent to it.”

The matter does not seem to have rested here, unless there is some mistake in a date, for Dr. Lingard(223) quotes from a MS. copy, dated April 17, 1631, an affidavit made by Anthony Smith, a Secular Priest, before the Bishop of Chalcedon, “that in his hearing, Gerard had said in the Novitiate at Liége, that he worked in the mine with the lay conspirators till his clothes were as wet with perspiration as if they had been dipped in water; and that the general condemnation of the Plot was chiefly owing to its bad success, as had often happened to the attempts of unfortunate generals in war.” It would seem as if this were a repetition of the original accusation, in answer to which the letters given above were written. Of the attack on Father Gerard, Dr. Lingard says, “For my own part, upon having read what he wrote in his own vindication, I cannot doubt his innocence, and suspect that Smith unintentionally attributed to him what he had heard him say of some other person.”(224)

XXXIV.

It remains for us only to give an account of the manuscripts that have been used as well in the Narrative of the Powder Plot as in the Autobiography of its author.

Father Christopher Grene, who was English Penitentiary at St. Peter’s, died in Rome in 1697.(225) This Father was a most diligent collector of all the documents that related to the history of the persecutions of Catholics in England.(226) He copied volumes of such documents, several of which are still extant. In one which is preserved at Stonyhurst, entitled by him, _Miscellanea de Martyribus et Persecutione in Anglia signanda lit._ M. ... _incept. anno 1690_, he informs us that there were various books called _Collectanea_ in the Archives of the English College at Rome, distinguished by the letters of the alphabet, of the contents of which he gives us an account. At folio 51 we have: “Ex libro Collectaneorum in folio signato lita _C_ in Archo Colli Angl. hoc die 24 Jan. 1689. A relation of ye Gunpowder Treason and of Father Garnett’s araignmt and martyrdome, &c., written by Father John Gerard: ’tis ye the original written soon after ye sayd martyrdome. It contains 85 sheetes of paper, and is an excellent work, and should be printed.” After a short analysis of the book, the pages quoted agreeing with the Stonyhurst MS. of the Narrative, we have, “A p. 176 in eod. libro Collectan. _C_ una relatione del P. Filippo Bemondo(227) della sua Missione in Inghilta,” &c. The last page of the Stonyhurst MS., bearing the endorsement, “A Relation of ye Gunpowder Treason, ye execution, &c. Also of F. Garnett’s arrayment,” is numbered 176. The first page bears in Father Grene’s handwriting the inscription, “Of the Gunpowder Treason, written by F. John Gerard, _alias_ Tomson, it is the originall.” We are thus enabled to recognize our manuscript as the commencement of Father Grene’s volume _C_. The subsequent history of the MS. is related in the two following letters, which Dr. Oliver appended to the copy that he made of the Narrative. It is only necessary to add that the Rev. Marmaduke Stone, to whom the second letter is addressed, transferred the Academy of Liége (as it was called after the suppression of the Society), of which he was made President in 1790, to Stonyhurst, in 1794. In 1803 he was appointed Provincial in England by the General of the Society in Russia. In all probability, therefore, the MS. was given by Father Thorpe to Father Stone, at Liége, and by him was brought to Stonyhurst, where it now is.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The following extract is taken from a letter addressed by the Rev. John Thorpe from Rome, August 12, 1789, to Henry, eighth Lord Arundell.

“The collection of ancient papers at the English College here consisted of two sorts. The first belonged to the Stuart family, and was deposited there only after the old Chevalier retired into Italy. Neither Rector nor any other person in the College knew anything of the contents, which were locked up in a strong chamber, of which the keys were kept in the Palace of SS. Apostoli, and everything was carefully removed to that palace several months before the oppression of the Society. The other collection related to ecclesiastical matters, from the time of Henry VIII. to the beginning of the present century; it had been a repository of all papers and letters of many indefatigable men in preserving a faithful remembrance of whatever was interesting to religion during that period. But different removals of these papers, which were very many, had thrown them into disorder. Father Booth can tell in what state he left them. I have before mentioned to your lordship a MS. relating to our British saints, written in the manner of a calendar, in which many curious passages of history frequently occurred. I do not think it had been seen either by Father Alford (who wrote the annals of our British Church up to the year 1180) or by Mr. Wilson, who digested the English Martyrology that was daily read at St. Omer. Other MSS. of this kind were also in the same place, while I lived in the College. Afterwards, when the storm began to blacken over us, divers attempts were made to put these papers into a place of security; but every means miscarried. They never belonged to the College, and among what are the College archives many very interesting papers remain belonging to the Jesuits. The papers above mentioned were finally destroyed by one accident or another, to prevent further fears of molestation in those days of arbitrary persecution. If anciently there had been any valuable MSS. in the old hospital, they were supposed to have been removed when it was converted to the purpose of a College, because scarce anything more than accounts of pilgrims, house expenses, and like articles, remained under that date, and even these in no regular order. Thus I apprehend that no material intelligence of remote historical facts can be gathered from hence.

“I will now venture to tell your lordship of a curious MS. that a very unforeseen accident brought into my hands, at a considerable distance of time from the oppression of the Society, and from the total removal of the Jesuits from the College. It is a long account of the Gunpowder Plot, from beginning to the end in the original handwriting of Father John Gerard. It is a folio volume of about 300 pages, composed with an extensive knowledge of the persons concerned, and of whom several curious anecdotes are recounted. Father John Gerard suffered much on occasion of that Plot, wherein the prosecutors tried every means to involve him in one manner or another. During the plundering and ransacking of the Houses at the oppression, such an account was reported to have been found in the Novitiate by the notorious Alfani, and it immediately was sought for by our countrymen, and instructions were said to have come from our Court at London for obtaining it at any price. But on further examination that account contained no more than relations of the religious lives and edifying death of those Jesuits who suffered on that occasion. I have never heard what became of those papers, but suppose them to have been destroyed, with very many others of no less edification. I must find some good place wherein to deposit the relation above mentioned; it is very curious, though it contains no new intelligence of the fact described in it. It is written with a singular candour that distinguishes the good religious man, and with a politeness that marks the gentleman. Your lordship may signify all this with my best respects to Mr. More” [the last English Provincial before the suppression], “desiring his counsel on the manner of disposing of this valuable MS., every line of which may be esteemed a relic for the eminent sanctity of the writer.”

Lastly, we have an extract from a letter written from Rome, March 26, 1791, by the Rev. John Thorpe to the Rev. Marmaduke Stone, President of the English Academy at Liége.

“Among other things with me is one very singular piece, which I look upon as a kind of property of your House, at least in the light wherein it stood twenty years ago. It is an original folio MS. all in the handwriting of venerable Father John Gerard, wherein he gives an ample relation of the Gunpowder Plot; and it is, I believe, the only relation extant that was written by a person accused of being in any manner acquainted of it. This article demands your secrecy, and it is earnestly recommended to it; but your counsel is also asked, where and how this rare _depositum_ should be placed. Religion has nothing to fear from it. A summary of its contents was sent some time ago to England, and was in the hands of Lord Arundell. At the time of the Society’s suppression here, a commission came hither from England (supposed to be given by the Court) for purchasing at any rate, if any such relation should be found among the Jesuits’ archives. A long Latin account of Father Garnett’s sufferings was triumphantly seized among the papers of the Novitiate, and occasioned the vulgar mistake of what was sought being really found; but the contents, when understood, notoriously demonstrated the contrary. This is written in English, in that easy devout style for which everything of the writer is remarkable. It is a valuable relic.”

Though we cannot exactly determine the date of the MS., we can approximate to it pretty nearly. First of all, it is clear from the mention of Sir Thomas Gerard’s knighthood at p. 27, that the book was written before the creation of baronets in 1611. At page 282, Father Southwell’s martyrdom is said to have happened eleven years before. As he died in 1595, and Father Gerard escaped from England in May, 1606, the Narrative would seem to have been written in the latter part of that year. We have, besides, Father Grene’s statement that it was “written soon after the martyrdom” of Father Garnett, and Father Gerard’s own assertion in his Autobiography: “I myself, when I came from England to Rome, was ordered to put in writing an account of the whole affair, and did so as well as I could.”

The original MS. of the Autobiography no longer exists. Father Grene had seen it; for an analysis of it, _transcript. ex autographo ipsius_, in his hand is in the second volume of the MSS. kept at Stonyhurst under the name of _Collectanea_, which we have quoted under the letter _P_. The MS. we have used,(228) which belongs to Stonyhurst, bears the title, “Narratio Patris Joannis Gerardi de rebus a se in Anglia gestis.” It purports to be a copy from an original at the Novitiate of St. Andrew, in the hands of Father Francis Sacchini, the historian. We have no means of knowing whether it is the same copy as that which existed, according to Father Grene,(229) in the volume of the _Collectanea_ called _D_, in the English College at Rome. He mentions it under the title of “Narratio P. Joannis Gerardi de tota vita sua. Copia.” The Autobiography was composed in 1609, as is plain from the mention of Robert Drury’s martyrdom, which our author says happened two years before the time when he was writing. This good Priest suffered at Tyburn, Feb. 26, 1607.

We now leave Father John Gerard in the hands of the reader, parting from him with sincere respect, and sharing good old Father Grene’s affection for him, who in some notes, written in preparation, apparently, for an English Menology, has set down as applicable to Father Gerard the phrases, “Non ipse martyrio, sed ipsi martyrium defuit,” and, again, the Church’s antiphon for St. Martin, “O beatum virum, qui totis visceribus diligebat Christum! O sanctissima anima, quam etsi gladius persecutoris non abstulit, palmam tamen martyrii non amisit.”

Additional Notes.

P. x. and p. 26.—Elizabeth, the mother of John Gerard, was the eldest of the three daughters and co-heiresses of Sir John Port, and at her father’s death, June 6, 1557, Etwall became the property of Sir Thomas Gerard. This is the “dwelling-house within two miles of” Tutbury “Castle where” Mary Queen of Scots “was kept,” where Father Gerard lived when a child for three years. Sir John’s second daughter, Dorothy, took Dale Abbey in Derbyshire to her husband, George Hastings fourth Earl of Huntingdon; and Margaret, the third daughter, by her marriage conveyed Cubley in the same county to Sir Thomas Stanhope, grandfather of the first Earl of Chesterfield.

Father Gerard had three sisters, Mary, wife of John Jenison; Dorothy, wife of Edmund Peckham; and Martha, wife of Michael Jenison. In the British Museum (Harl. MSS. 6998, f. 197) there is a report, dated June 16, 1595, from Edward Cokayne, evidently a Derbyshire magistrate, of assistance given by him to William Newall, “one of the messengers of Her Majesty’s Chamber,” in searches in that county. The following paragraph relates to one of Father Gerard’s sisters: “The first house that we searched according to his direction was the house of one Mr. Jenison, that married one of my Lady Gerard’s daughters, she being a great recusant, and not her husband: howsoever, it is reported that there is great resort of strangers, but what they be, we cannot learn, neither at this time did we find any there, but pictures in the chambers according to their profession. Only one West that was a messenger between the seminaries was fled six weeks before we came, and whither he is gone, as yet we cannot learn.”

P. xii.—It is not easy to reconcile the dates at this period of Father Gerard’s life. He could not have been nineteen when he went to France, for he lived at Rhemes three years, one at Clermont, and about a year in England before he was committed to the Marshalsea; he was a full year in that prison, and after his discharge his recognizances were renewed for perhaps another year before leaving England for Rome, and he was in the College about seventeen months before he was ordained Priest towards the close of 1587, when he yet wanted several months of the canonical age for the Priesthood, that is, twenty-five. From this we should gather that when he first went to Rhemes he was under seventeen, which would have been in 1580.

On the other hand, it is equally difficult to understand the date given in the Douay Diary, August or September, 1577, which would make him fourteen. Perhaps this was a visit to the continent before going to Oxford, which he says was when he was fifteen, spending a year there and two years afterwards with Mr. Leutner as a tutor. The Douay Diary has the following entry. “1577. Aug. 29 die, advenerunt ex Anglia Mr. Paschallus vir nobilis, et quidam Aldrigius mercator: eodem etiam tempore adventavit Mr. Gerrardus D. Tho. Gerrardi Equitis Aurati filius.”

P. xv.—The following is the entry respecting Father John Gerard in the _Liber Annalium_ of the English College at Rome: “Joannes Gerardus Anglus dioecesis Lichfeldiensis annum agens 23m, aptus ad theologiam positivam, receptus fuit in hoc Anglorum Collegium inter alumnos SSmi. D. N. Sixti V. a P. Gulielmo Holto hujus Collegii Rectore de mandato Illmi. Hippoliti Cardis. Aldobrandini Viceprotectoris sub die 5o Aprilis Anno Dni. 1587, cum fuisset antea Convictor per septem menses.

“Anno Dni. 1587 mense ... accepit ordines minores, et mense Augusto Subdiaconatum, et Diaconatum 9o mense die 16.”

His name appears in the Pilgrims’ Register of the English College, as having been there received Aug. 5, 1586 (Stonyhurst MSS., Father Grene’s _Miscell. de Coll. Angl._, p. 19).

P. xvi.—The Douay Diary gives us the dates of Father Gerard’s arrival at Rhemes and his departure thence, together with the names of his fellow-travellers. It is clear that if they left Rhemes on the 26th of September, and remained at Eu until they could receive an answer from Rome, they could not possibly have landed in England so soon as the end of October. “1588. Sept. 21 die, Roma ad nos venerunt D. Rodolphus Buckland, D. Joannes Gerard filius D. Thomæ Gerard Equitis Aurati, D. Arthurus Stratford” [whom Gifford, the spy, called Shefford], “D. Edouardus Oldcorn presbyteri. Die 26 Angliam ituri discesserunt D. Jo. Gerard, D. Rodolphus Buckland, D. Arthurus Stratford et D. Edouardus Oldcorn.”

P. xxx.—In the Public Record Office (_Domestic, Eliz._, vol. 244, n. 7) are two forms of indictment of Richard Jackson, Priest, for saying Mass, and of various members of the Wiseman family for being present at Mass, on the 25th August and the 8th September, 34 Eliz., 1592. The endorsement is “Masse-mongers.”

P. xxxviii.—Line 22, for “Worcestershire” read “Warwickshire.” See p. 282.

Pp. xlv., lxx.—In his examination Brother Emerson frankly acknowledged himself to be a Jesuit Lay-brother, and “sometime Campion’s boy.” A copy of his examination is in the British Museum (Harleian MSS., 6998, f. 65). It is dated April 17, 1593, and bears the marginal note “Ley Jesuite.” “Ralph Emerson of the bishopric of Durham, scholar, of the age of forty-two years or thereabouts, examined before Sir Owen Hopton, Knight, Mr. Doctor Goodman, Dean of Westminster, Mr. Dale, Mr. Fuller, and Mr. Young, who refuseth to be sworn, but saith first that he hath [been] in prison these nine years—namely, three years and a quarter in the Counter in the Poultry, and the rest of that time hath been in the Clink—committed by Mr. Young for bringing over of books, called my Lord of Leicester’s books as he saith, and hath been examined before Sir Francis Walsingham, and before Mr. Young, and before others divers times, and was never indicted to his knowledge.

“Item, he confesseth that he is a Lay Jesuit, and took that degree at Rome fourteen years since, and was sometime Campion’s boy, and sayeth when he took that Order he did vow chastity, poverty, and obedience to the Superior of their House, and if he sent him to the Turk he must go.

“Item, being urged to take the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty, refuseth the same, and saith he may not take any oath.

“Item, he saith he hath neither lands, goods, nor other living, but will not set down by whom he is maintained and now relieved.

“Item, he refuseth to be reformed, and to come to Church, affirming that he will live and die in his faith.

“Item, being demanded whether if the Pope should send an army into this realm, to establish that which he calleth the Catholic Romish religion, he would in the like case fight for the Queen’s Majesty on her side against the said army, or on the army’s side, saith that he will never fight against Her Majesty, nor against the religion which he professeth.

“Concordat cum originali.—H. Fermor.”

P. xlvi.—Father Tesimond, in the Italian narrative already mentioned (p. ccxlviii) as forming part of Father Grene’s volume _C_ (fol. 185), says that, when he came to England in 1597, Father Garnett was living in a house called Morecroftes, at Uxbridge, twelve or thirteen miles from London. There may have been a friendly house at Brentford, for this was their place of meeting on one occasion when they had suddenly to leave Uxbridge on account of a search.

P. liii.—Dominam ipsam domus in suo cubiculo cum puellis suis clauserunt (MS.) More probably “with her daughters” than “with her maids.” William and Jane Wiseman had three children, Jane, Dorothea, and Winifred. John who married Mary, daughter of Sir Rowland Rydgeley, had two daughters, Lucy and Elizabeth, and an only son, Aurelius Piercy Wiseman, who was killed in a duel in London in 1680. The following inscription on his grave, in Wimbish Church, is given by Wright (_History of Essex_, vol. ii., p. 134): “Here rest the sad remains of Aurelius Piercy Wiseman, of Broad Oak, in this parish, Esq., the last of the name of that place, and head and chief of that right worshipful and ancient family, who was unfortunately killed in the flower of his age, December 11, 1680.”

P. lvii.—From the _Life of Anne Countess of Arundel_, published in 1857 by the Duke of Norfolk (p. 308), we learn that, during the Earl’s imprisonment, “she hired a little house at Acton, Middlesex, six miles distant from London.”

P. cxl.—Father Tesimond relates a search some two years earlier than this, in which Father Joseph Pollen escaped capture (Stonyhurst MSS., C, fol. 184).

Pp. clxvi. and cciii.—Sir Oliver Manners wrote the following letter in Italian to Father Aquaviva, General of the Society, from Turin, April 17, 1612, shortly before his eldest brother’s death (Stonyhurst MSS., _Angl. A._, vol. vi.). “I cannot tell you what comfort I received from the letters of your Paternity. The troubles I then had will tell it better than I can, for, when I was seriously ill, my brother the Earl sent to say that I was to expect no more help from England, as the King has entrusted my houses and estates to him, and would not permit him to send me a penny. Precisely at that moment the letters of your Paternity reached me, and seemed to me sent by the Lord to make me touch with my hand how His Divine Majesty never abandons those who hope in Him and suffer for His love; and as at that time I had a great desire of suffering more and more, if so it should please our Lord, so my strength returned to me far more rapidly than I could have expected, and thus I assured myself that it was the Divine will that I should reach my intended goal, there to do something for His service, _sive per vitam sive per mortem_. And so I undertook my journey, and have already reached Turin. To-morrow I start for Lyons. In England I cannot expect anything better than that which has befallen the Baron” [Vaux], “my companion, who is in prison by the King’s express orders, and expects to lose all he has; for his mother is already condemned to the punishment called _præmunire_, that is, the loss of all temporalities and perpetual imprisonment, for refusing the oath of allegiance, as they call it. The grace I ask from God is so to bear myself that I may always show myself grateful for the many favours of your Paternity, as becomes a disciple of the Society, and for this intention with all humility I asked to be armed with your blessing, and I beg to be partaker of the Holy Sacrifices and prayers of your Paternity and of all the Society. In conclusion with all reverence I kiss your hand.”

P. clxxxiv.—The following is the confidential report made to the General respecting Father Gerard, previous to his profession. By a singular chance the paper in which it is contained is the only one of similar reports that has come to our hands. It is amongst the Stonyhurst MSS. (_Angl. A._, vol. vi.). Father Gerard’s name is the ninth on the paper. We translate from the Latin: “Father John Gerard, English, forty-five years old, nineteen in the Society, twenty-one on the English mission.” [The writer was not aware of the true date of his admission into the Society.] “He studied at Rome in the English College controversy and cases of conscience for four years.” [These four years must include his three years residence at Rhemes.] “He was admitted in England, where he made his noviceship. He is a very spiritual man; he is endowed with an admirable power of gaining souls; he has also more than middling talent for preaching; and he is held to be not unfit for government. If these talents can supply the defect of learning, taking also into account all that he has suffered for the Catholic faith, then he is proposed for the four vows. It would be a consolation both to himself and to the many Catholics of note, by whom he is held in high esteem. But if not, then he is proposed for profession of the three vows.”

P. cxc.—Among the papers of Sir Edward Phelips, preserved at Montacute House, Somersetshire, of which a copy has been deposited in the Public Record Office by the Historical MSS. Commission, we have the examinations of two of Mrs. Vaux’ servants, one of whom is the “Ric. the butler” of whom Lady Markham speaks.

“The examination of Francis Swetnam, servant to Mrs. Elizabeth Vaux, and served her in the bakehouse, taken the third of December, 1605. Saith that he hath been a recusant these two years, but will now come to the Church, for that he had rather adventure his own soul than loosen his five children, but cannot give any reason why he should adventure his soul by coming to Church. Saith that he was taken in his mistress’ house and brought up with her to London, but denieth that he was ever at any Mass, or that he knoweth any Priest, and cannot deliver any other material thing to be set down. The mark of Francis Swetnam, Jul. Cæsar, Rog.r Wilbraham, E. Phelipps, Jo. Croke, George More, Walter Cope, Fr. Bacon, John Doddridge” (f. 25).

“The examination of Richard Richardson, butler to Mrs. Vaux. He saith he hath served his mistress about six years, and hath not come to Church since he was eleven year old. Saith that since Midsummer last Catesby was at Harwardds [Harrowden] only one time, which was about St. Luke’s Day; and Sir Everard Digby was there only twice, the former time about the 6th of August and the later time about St. Luke’s Day; and that Francis Tresham was not there this twelvemonth; Mr. Rookwood these three years; and that Winter, Grant, Percy, Morgan, were never there during his service. And for matter of faith or revealing of Priests or Masses, he desireth to be spared, because it concerneth his soul. Richard Richardson, Jul. Cæsar, Rog.r Wilbraham, Jo. Croke, John Doddridge, Walter Cope, George More, Fr. Bacon.” _Endorsed_—“6° December, 1605” (f. 32).

These papers (f. 58 et seq.) likewise contain Serjeant Phelips’ Brief for the prosecution of Sir John Yorke for complicity with the Powder Plot, about 1612. The first three of “five general heads” of accusation are: “1. That Gerard was received by Sir John Yorke both before and after the Powder Treason. 2. That secret passages and places were made for Gerard at Golthwaite. 3. That a private diet was provided for him.” A few specimens of the evidence will show that, whoever it was who frequented Sir John Yorke’s house, at all events it was not Father Gerard, who never set foot in England after May, 1606. Francis Brown: “He hath seen Gerard the Jesuit at Sir John Yorke’s house called Golthwaite both before and after the Powder Treason. He hath seen Gerard the Jesuit within this seven years at least twenty times. The last time was at Audebroughe in Christmas last [1610], when Gerard lay secret in the house all the Christmas. And once he went up into the chamber where Gerard was sitting by the fire. And resteth assured that Sir John Yorke knows where Gerard is. That there was no half year passed since the Powder Treason but he saw him at one of Sir John Yorke’s houses, and mentioneth four particular times.” The marginal note is, “The servants to Sir John Yorke all deny the conveying of Gerard or the knowledge of him, whereof Johnson was put to torture and denied it.” William Browne the elder “names the place where he met him in North Wales, soon after the Powder Treason and before the Proclamation.” William Browne the younger: “On Martinmas Day was two years, in a Close called Burnings, near Sir John Yorke’s house, near a ford, he met Johnson on foot, and a man like to the person described by the Proclamation to be Gerard on a mare of Sir John Yorke’s called White Friar.” Robert Joye: “As he was working in the hall at Golthwaite in the summer before the Powder Treason, about the later Lady Day in harvest, Marmaduke Lupton, the steward to Sir John Yorke, came to him and told him it was my lady’s pleasure he should remove out of the hall and work in the buttery. Whereupon he removed into the buttery, and Lupton put the door to. Whereat he marvelling pulled open the door a little, and saw Lupton bring in a reasonable broad man. And the Lady Yorke came out of the parlour and met him in the entry that goeth to the kitchen, and up the stairs to the garret she said, ’Welcome, Mr. Gerard,’ which this examinate perfectly heard, for there was but an inch board between. Mr. Gerard was carried up to the garret chamber, and remained there a month, not coming openly down. Heard Lupton, Grange, and Almond many times severally ask the cook secretly whether Mr. Gerard’s meat were ready.” Sampson Baines: “The Lady Yorke did use to appoint what meat he should dress for dinner, and what for the chamber, which was commonly two dishes and no more.” The margin here has, Margaret Almond: “She carried no meat at any time to any strangers, saving such as were her master’s and lady’s friends. She made shift to carry up meat, though she go with a crutch and have but one leg.”

P. cxciii.—From the following letter it appears plain that the names of the Ambassadors are wrongly given. And a witness named Parsons, examined Dec. 12, 1605, says that a “Priest named Tempest went over with the Spanish Ambassador about Bartholomew-tide last” (Montacute Papers, f. 46). So the Conde de Villa Mediana left England in the latter part of August, 1605.

Father Baldwin from Brussels to Father Persons at Rome, May 20, 1606. “Since my last, five days ago, arrived at —5 (St. Omers), 469 (Father Gerard), where also is one” [Richard Fulwood] “whom 456 (H. Garnett) was wont to use in all his chief business of passage, receiving and retaining of all things. I take it he be 229 (Jesuit) also. They are yet 627 (secret), and so it is requisite for a time, especially in that the 194 225 (Marquis Ambassador) brought them, and by his dexterous and courteous manner had great care of them. The Marquis of St. Germain came hither two days ago, and both he and D. Blasco de Arragon came as well informed of our English matters as I could wish. They have made relation accordingly to the Nuncio, and this morning to me, who have been with them a long while. They praise the courage and constancy of Catholics marvellously, and have an apprehension of the daily increase of them, as also that the better sort in England are inclined Catholicly and such in profession. They speak much of the zeal of the Lady of Shrewsbury and of the indignation of the King, who, hearing of the manner of Father Ouldcorne’s death and requesting all Catholics to pray for him and say _De profundis_, there were found so many to say that aloud, as they were esteemed a great part of the number, and so many by signs and voices to have given show of Catholic profession, as all were amazed. Thus they report; and also that Father Garnett was to be executed the day which they came away, in Paul’s Churchyard, although another writing from St. Omers says that it was deferred the day following, for that the day first appointed was May Day, and Father Garnett, being advertised of his death, should answer, ‘What then, will you make a May-game of me?’ Howsoever, it is held for certain that he is dead, and that Marquis told the Nuncio that therefore he departed the sooner, as unwilling to be present at such a tragedy.... I think Father Gerard may live in these countries after that Mr. Owen is delivered (of whom the Archduke mindeth to have great care), yet he who is said to have had correspondence with him, one Philips the decipherer, is now committed to the Tower. And it were very necessary one of ours remain in Paris, for which place Father Keynes might serve for a time, at least in that he is not a man noted, and hath the French tongue, as having lived there. Father Schondonch is of my opinion, and Father Gerard will do well in his place after some month or two, if things alter not much, for he can hardly be in any other place in regard of his indisposition, if it be as I have heard. I shall soon know more thereof. Father Lee were good in England in my opinion, for the consolation of many of ours, and Father Gerard’s friends, all which I remit to your consideration.”

The same to the same, July 3, 1606. “I have not as yet received from England from any of our Fathers; only John Powell, the interpreter of the Spanish Ambassador, relateth what passed at the execution of Father Garnett, upon the 13th May Stylo Novo and the 3rd Stylo Vetere. He hath given exceeding satisfaction to all sorts, and much confounded our enemies of the one sort and other. He was drawn according to the usual manner to Paul’s Churchyard upon a hurdle and straw; his arms were not bound neither when he was executed. Such concourse of people as hath not been seen.... The Spanish Ambassador would not remain in London that day; he hath got his shirt, and some of his blood is sent to Spain, which I have seen here, also his apparel is gotten, as I hear. Here now is Richard Fulwood, who telleth me that Father Gerard is very sick at St. Omers; that said you would have him come to Rome. I fear me that journey will kill him.”

Father Gerard quickly rallied from his sickness, for in less than a fortnight after this he wrote from Brussels to Father Persons, under the pseudonym of Fr. Harrison. The letter is so characteristic of the man that, though long, we give it in full, from the original at Stonyhurst (_Angl. A._, vol. vi).

“July 15, 1606.

“Jesus. Maria.

“Pax C.ti.

“Most dear and respected Father,

“I have received your letters of the —— last, wherein you show your fatherly care and undeserved love unto me, as were sufficient to bind unto you any grateful heart, although he were not tied with former obligations. But I am so much and so many ways bound unto you before by favours of the highest kind, that these do only tie me unto you with new knots, though I was before so wholly yours and so firmly tied that sincerely I had rather not to be than be untied. I beseech you, sir, that you will be pleased to present my humble duty unto Father General, in whose favour though your good word do procure me that place which I can no ways deserve, yet this I hope you may promise for me, that I will now begin to do my best endeavours, that I may be framed in all things as is fit for a child of that most holy family whereof he hath the care, that both by my voice and hands he may acknowledge me for his child, the better to deserve the blessing of so great and good a father. I would now acknowledge my duty by letters, but that I am ashamed of my Latin, and loath to trouble with so rude lines, unless there were further occasion or that you thought it needful. But I hope to come and do my duty in person so soon that it will not be necessary to signify it by letters. I will stay as you appoint until I have your letters for my coming forward, and in the meantime will not be solicitous one whit, having no desire in the world whereof I would not most willingly leave the whole care unto you, and indeed desiring to have no other desires but yours so far as I may be able to discern them, after that I have expressed my reasons as I know you would have me to do, and after that you know me better and my many great wants, which, that they may be more exactly known unto you, makes me so desirous to be with you for some time, howsoever it may please you to dispose of me afterwards. And if the chief cause why you think it best for me to stay awhile in these parts be for that you would have me secret as yet, and especially not to be seen with you there whilst the appellants are negotiating their uncharitable accusations of their brethren, then I suppose you will think I may be fully as secret there as here, if I be first wary in my coming into the town and then be your prisoner for some time (which I most desire), and then go to St. Andrew’s, without visiting any holy places and being seen in the town until you think it convenient. And because, in my second and third letters, I expressed my earnest desire of this private course at my first coming, I suppose I shall hear from you in your next letter or the next but one, that you think best I come forward, unless you wish my stay for some other reasons than the desire of my being secret. I grant I might perform my desire of some time of recollection either in Louvain or in the new House if it go forwards, under Father Talbot; but I have many reasons why I desire first to be with you for some time, which I think you would allow of if you knew them. And I would be glad also if it might be to begin in St. Andrew’s, to draw there some lively water out of the chiefest fountain, and this rather in the winter than to come the next spring, because I much fear my health if I be there in the heats. But after I have been there for some time, for so long time as you shall think it convenient that I stay in that school, I shall be glad to be Father Talbot’s Minister here, or to have some office of action under him, if my health do require any exercise of body. I hear there is one prepared for Minister that is very fit, but I could have care of the Church, and then perhaps should get some stuff to furnish it from some friends of mine in England; or I could have care of the garden, for I am excellent at that (if you will permit me to praise myself), for that was much of my recreation in England, and I hope my brother will witness with me that he hath seen a good many plants of my setting and tasted the fruit of some of them. But indeed, dear Father, if it may stand with your liking, I would be very glad to see you and be with you for some days before I settle anywhere, how private soever my abode there be, either at the first or for the whole time of my stay, as yourself shall see it best. As for the settling of any with my friends, I have done it before my departure, leaving my old companion and dear friend, Father Percy, in the place where I was, who is so much esteemed and desired by them as none can be likely to be more profitable. Most of my other special friends I commended partly to Father Antony [Hoskins], and partly to him, both which are most grateful to all my friends and acquaintance, and indeed I know not any two there that, in my simple opinion, better deserve it. As concerning Father Roger Lee’s going into England, if you please that I write justly that I think, there be divers reasons for which I think it, at this time, very inconvenient. First, in that he is so profitable where he is, that it will not be easy to find another will do so much good in that place; and, in one word to express my opinion, for ought I see, the most good of the House, both for external discipline and for progress in spirit, dependeth upon his care and effectual industry, wherein I should think it more needful to provide him more helpers of like desires and practical endeavours (who would conspire with him and have talents to effect both with the good Rector and with the scholars, that which they should together find to be most expedient). The Fathers which be there do very well, but all are not of like apprehensions and proceedings, and I suppose if yourself did see all particulars, you would think Father Roger to be a strong helper to the good of that House, and that it would nourish much if it had some others of his like. I know not where to name one upon the sudden, unless it be Father Henry Flud [Floyd], whose zeal and practical proceedings I think would be very profitable for that House, if he may be spared, and truly in my opinion upon the good of that House dependeth much the good and quiet of the other Colleges, besides much edification to many, both friends and enemies, unto whom this is a continual spectacle.

“But besides this reason (which alone I take to be sufficient) I wish Father Roger’s stay for the good he may hereafter do in England, which I do hope will be great, and therefore great pity it should now be lost before the fruit of so likely a tree can come to ripeness. For, sir, yourself can better judge that none can be much profitable in England until he have gotten acquaintance there, and until his acquaintance by their trial of him have gotten a great opinion and estimation of him, which then they will spread from one to another, and every one will bring his friend, who upon hearing will be desirous to try, but after trial will say unto the friend that brought him, ‘_Jam non propter sermonem tuum credimus sed ipsi_,’ &c. By this means one shall have, after some continuance, more acquaintances and devoted friends than he can satisfy, and more business in that kind than he can turn his hands unto; but this is supposing he may at the first go up and down to get this acquaintance, and to be so known unto many; and until he have means so to do, if he have never so good talents, yet he shall not do so much good as a meaner person that is better acquainted. Now in this time I do verily think, if the laws be put in execution, there will be no means at all to get acquaintance, but the best acquainted shall have difficulty to help his known friends, and to be helped by them with safe places of abode as [I have declared at] large in my last letters, and they must lie much still and private and do [good part of] their [work by means of le]tters. Therefore, although I know Father Roger would be as much esteemed of my special friends as any that could be sent (unless my brother [probably Sir Oliver Manners] “had served his apprenticeship and were made a journeyman, for of his skill and workmanship in framing the best wedding garment there is great and general hope conceived) yet, things staying as they do in England, and Father Roger so well acquainted now with the place where he is, and thereby also more profitable there than a stranger could be, although as fit for the place as himself (which truly I think will be hard to find) my friends also being already furnished in England: these reasons move me to think it neither needful nor best that Father Roger go thither as yet: which yet in a more quiet time I shall be bold to beg for, if I see the College where he is so furnished that without great loss it might want him. I find Father Roger desirous of England if it were thought best, but wholly desirous to do that which yourself do think most convenient, but when I urge him to speak his very thoughts whether he do not think the College would be at want, he cannot deny but that the College hath need rather of more than less help, and surely I think if it were another’s case of whom he might with humility acknowledge how profitable he is, I do think he would absolutely do his best to hinder it as I do.”

“For the answer to your questions, though in my last long letters I did in part answer to most of them before I received yours, yet now I will briefly again set down my opinion to the several points, Father Baldwin having written of them in his last, I being at St. Omers; but now I am come to him, being advised by the physician there to go to the Spa for the drying up of my rheum, which here I shall take further counsel of, how far it is needful, and whether the great rains have not made the waters of less force. I am here private, and more private than I could be at St. Omers whilst the banished Priests are passing by. I think I shall hear within two or three posts your further pleasure; if not, I will return and then begin to talk with the youths there, or do any service I can as you appointed in your last. In the meantime, with many humble thanks for your many undeserved favours, I rest this 15th of July.

“Your Rev. son and servant wholly to command,

“FR. HARRISON.”

Address—“Al molto Rev. in Christo Padre, il Padre Roberto Parsonio, Rettore del Collegio delli Inglesi, Roma.”

To these we must add an extract from a letter of Father Persons dated December 29, 1606, and evidently written while Father Gerard was at Tivoli (Stonyhurst MSS., _P._, vol. ii., f. 447). “The man you name, to wit, Ger[ard] passed this way some months gone, but made little or no abode, lest offence might be taken thereat, only I can say that during the few days which he remained he gave great edification for his behaviour and sundry great testimonies of his rare virtue, but most of all of his innocency concerning that crime whereof he was imputed in the proclamation, about which himself procured that his General should judicially examine in presence of divers witnesses, commanding him _in virtute sanctæ obedientiæ_ to utter the truth therein to his Superior, whereupon he swore and protested that he was wholly innocent therein, which the rest of his behaviour doth easily make probable. I shall cause him to be advertised by the first commodity of the note you write about his friends.”

P. ccviii.—As Father Gerard certainly left Belgium in 1622, and therefore could not have been in the Tertianship at Ghent in 1624, there must be a mistake in the name of the Father who reconciled to the Church James, Lord Maltravers, in the July of that year, as related in the _Life of Anne Countess of Arundel_ (p. 232). It is there said that “before his death he was so fortunate as to be visited by Father John Gerard, a Priest of the Society, who, together with others, lived there” [at Ghent] “in the house which his grandmother a little before had erected.... By that Father he was in fine reconciled to the Holy Church.”

P. 240.—James Garney, servant to Sir Everard Digby, “confesseth the journey to St. Winifred’s Well and the particular places where they lay, and that Darcy [Father Garnett] and Fisher [Father Percy] were with them, and the whole company thirty horse” (Montacute Papers, f. 52).

Pp. 240 and 254.—Father Ouldcorne in his letter to the Privy Council (P. R. O., _Gunpowder Plot Book_, n. 214) says respecting the verse of the hymn of All Saints: “Also he [Father Garnett] told me they charged him with a prayer that he should pen or make against the beginning of this Parliament: but he said that he denied that ever he penned or made any such. ‘Perhaps’ (said he), ‘they have heard that sometimes this summer I have wished Catholics to pray, for that we had cause to fear there would be more severe laws made against us this Parliament than had been as yet. Or else they have heard how sometimes upon occasions I have told how Cardinal Allen had got an indulgence of Gregory XIII. for all those that did devoutly for the conversion of England say that verse which is in the hymn of All-Hallow Day, _Gentem auferte perfidam_, &c., and the Psalm lxxviii., _Deus venerunt gentes_.’ ”

P. 306.—Father Garnett to Anne Vaux from the Tower (P. R. O., _Gunpowder Plot Book_, n. 245). “Mr. Hall [Father Ouldcorne] dreamed that Father General would have him and me professed. He said that I was professed already. ‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘but I will have him professed of ten or eleven vows more.’ And there were provided two fair tabernacles or seats for us. And so he awaked, and falling asleep again, had the same dream.” Anne Vaux to Father Garnett (_ibid._, n. 246). “Mr. Hall his dream had been a great comfort, if at the foot of the throne there had been a place for me. God and you know my unworthiness. I beseech you help me with your prayers.”

A NARRATIVE OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.

Jesus Maria. The Preface.

The blessed Apostle, Master, and Teacher of us Gentiles, instructing the Romans in the cause and means of their salvation, affirmeth, that God hath ordained we must be conformed to the image of His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus, “Et quos præscivit (saith he) et prædestinavit conformes fieri imaginis filii sui.”(230) Upon which place St. Jerome and other Doctors do teach that it is the will of God, both in this life and in the next, to frame and fashion us both in grace and glory unto that most perfect pattern.

So that if we will reign with Christ, we must expect to suffer with Him in the way unto His Kingdom, “si compatimur et conglorificabimur: si commortui sumus et convivemus; si sustinebimus et conregnabimus.”(231) Yea, with that condition we are accepted, and in that measure we must look to be rewarded, ut “sicut socii passionum sumus, sic simus et consolationis.”(232)

This, therefore, hath been the course and manner of proceeding of Almighty God with His elected servants; even from the beginning, and will continue unto the end of the world. So when there were but two men born upon the earth, and those brethren, yet one did persecute the other, the wicked did kill the innocent. The Patriarchs had all their several probations, and lived but as pilgrims in the world; the Prophets sustained many persecutions, and sundry of them were put to cruel deaths for avouching the truth. The best and chosen part of God’s servants towards the end of the Old Testament were proved and purged with many tribulations, they were diversely tormented and slaughtered in such manner as that saying of the Prophet David was justly applied unto them, “Carnes sanctorum tuorum et sanguinem ipsorum effuderunt in circuitu Jerusalem, et non erat qui sepeliret.”(233) And St. Paul doth reckon up in few words the many pressures both of those and other Saints of the Old Testament, saying, “Lapidati sunt, secti sunt, in occisione gladii mortui sunt, circuierunt in melotis,” etc.(234)

So that this being the case and condition of the servants and Saints of God even before the law of grace, much more may we expect, and it will be expected at our hands, that seeing now our King and Captain, Christ Jesus, doth go before us with a Cross, we should all, and each of us in particular, both willingly and joyfully take up our crosses and follow Him: seeing Truth Himself came down from Heaven to lead us by Himself this way unto life everlasting, good reason we should follow Him in the same path, “quia nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per eum.”(235) If Christ did confirm it by many scriptures, “quod oportebat Christum pati, et sic intrare in gloriam suam,”(236) much more must we contend to enter in at the same gate, although it be narrow and strait, especially seeing we enter not into our own but into His glory. And it were a monstrous thing that the head should go in at one door, and the parts of the body in at another; neither can it be so, unless the parts be divided from the head, and consequently not quickened with the same spirit that giveth life to the body, than which nothing in this world should be so dreadful.

This made the Apostles willingly to accept of that portion which Christ did leave them, as it were, for an inheritance in this world, when he said, “In mundo pressuram habebitis,” and again, “plorabitis et flebitis vos, mundus autem gaudebit, vos autem contristabimini;”(237) that knowing well, that His promise was most assured, and that their sorrow should be turned in gladness, “et hoc gaudium nemo tolleret ab eis.”(238)

The same lesson have all the Saints of God learned and in all ages have practised. The vineyard of Christ was watered for 300 years together with continual showers of blood running abundantly out of the holy veins of slaughtered martyrs, from whence, although there did rise a plentiful harvest of famous conversions and gain of souls, and at the last succeeded the peace and propagation of the Church, in so much that crowns and sceptres of Kings and Emperors were submitted unto it, yet did not Peter’s ship sail long with a prosperous gale, though Christ were in the ship, Who would not suffer it to sink; for He did sleep again, and suffer the bark to be tossed with many furious storms by Arians and other succeeding heretics who rising in several ages did impugn the verity of our Christian faith, as before the heathens had fought against the divinity of the Father, so then the Arians against the divinity and equality of the Son, and others in their times and turns against the several articles of the Creed, until the Grecians raised war also against the third principal part thereof, denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son; and lastly, now, towards the end of the world, the heretics of our age, Luther and his progeny, do perfect that imperfect work, and fight against God’s truth in the last articles of the Creed with all their force. Wherein, although the fury of their raging waves do beat in vain against the ship of Christ, against which “nec portæ inferi prævalebunt,”(239) yet is the ship in the meantime in the midst of the storm, “motus autem magnus factus est in mari et navicula operitur fluctibus.”(240) And this much more in our afflicted country of England for the present than in any other, which now may justly be said to be that “stagnum in quod descendit procella venti ita ut compleatur navis nostra fluctibus et periclitamur.”(241) So that no marvel though His disciples be there troubled, though yet we should not be terrified, having Him ever present with us, “qui imperat ventis et mari et obediunt ei,” and of Whom it is truly said, “Ego dormio, et cor meum vigilat.”(242) For although He seem to wink for the time, and to dissemble the injuries that are done unto His servants, yet is His Heart awake, and His will doth both watch to defend and ward us from evil in the meantime, and He will in time, when He seeth it fit and best for us, impose silence to our adversaries, and give peace to His tried servants.

This is then the state of this present age, and this the course which God hath ever continued from the first, to purge and perfect His Church by oppositions, by tribulations and afflictions; that He may hew the stones here hard by the quarry, which must afterwards be placed in their due order and ranks in His heavenly temple, where no blows with the hatchet must once be given, no sound of the hammer must be heard, that may hinder the happiness or disturb the harmony of that heavenly city. Here in this vale of misery all are beforehand fitted and prepared (as the Church doth sing in a holy hymn speaking of the like matter)—

Tunsionibus, pressuris, Expoliti lapides, Suis coaptantur locis Per manus artificis, Disponuntur permansuri Sacris ædificiis.(243)

And this being so, and so much to the advantage of those who are so exercised and perfected by the same, so prepared by crosses to receive crowns of everlasting glory, we may gather thereby both what mind they should be of, that are in the battle, and what their thoughts and actions that are lookers-on.

For the first, no doubt but remembering Whose cause it is we do sustain, Whom we have for our King and Captain in the combat, and Who it is that hath promised to assist us in our sufferings, and to reward and crown us for our labours sustained and victories obtained in this spiritual battle. [As(244) before hath been touched,] there(245) is no doubt but we should think it most just and requisite to sustain all difficulties in the cause of so great and good a Lord, most honourable to follow such a Captain, and most comfortable and commodious to serve and suffer for such a [Master](246) and so true and liberal a [rewarder]; and therefore grant that we are bound by many titles with ready will and earnest desire, yea, with true contentment and assured confidence to bear the poise of this persecution.

But it is no less apparent what in the meantime should be conceived of our case, and what should be performed by those that are not in the present labours which we poor men are forced to sustain, nor under the [scourge](247) which God for the time doth suffer to be laid upon us. No doubt but they also should humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, considering that their time of temptation and trial may also come (as it is an easy matter when one house is on fire for the next neighbours’ houses to [take the same fire](248)), and withal that they are to conceive worthily and honourably of their brethren, whom they now see to be tried and purified in the furnace of many tribulations by the heavenly goldsmith, thereby the better to beat and fashion the metal of their eternal crowns; with whom in the meantime they should concur and cooperate by their charitable assistance in prayers and other helps.

This may well be thought to be their part, and so they may expect to be partakers with us also in the retribution, which we expect at the hands of God. So doth the Apostle counsel the Corinthians, touching corporal assistance to their absent and afflicted brethren. Having praised the Macedonians for the like, he saith, “Non enim ut aliis sit remissio, vobis autem tribulatio, sed ex æqualitate. In præsenti tempore vestra abundantia illorum inopiam suppleat, ut et illorum abundantia vestræ inopiæ sit supplementum,” etc.(249) In like manner may we desire and expect help from our neighbours, that they out of the abundance of their present peace and power to do us good, will help in what they can, every one in that wherein he most aboundeth: Princes with their power and authority, in being mediators for us to our King for some mitigation of our afflictions; courtiers, in often soliciting for this help at their Princes’ hands; the Clergy, by often offering the Divine Sacrifice, and holding up their hands with Moses unto God for us, that we may not faint in the battle; preachers, by often commending our case unto the people; the Religious, by applying their prayers and merit for the continuance and increase of our constancy; and secular persons, in such several manners as they are best able to perform; the wise, in commending and justifying our cause; the rich, in opening their purse unto our present needs, and maintaining of such scholars as are preparing in our seminaries to be workmen for the harvest. Yea, the poorest and meanest sort of our Christian Catholic brethren [abroad] may assist us much by their good wishes and good words when occasion is offered; and all by their daily prayers both to God and His Saints for us, “ut possimus accipere armaturam Dei, et resistere in die malo, et in omnibus perfecti stare,” etc.(250) And so by this means assisting us about our tents and provision, either in furnishing or in guarding the same, although they be not present with us in the battle, yet will our just David give them their share and part in our victory and spoils, every one according to the measure of his aid and assistance.

But here, if any do seem to complain of our want of constancy and patience in suffering—and some perhaps be rather ready to blame than to pity us, in regard of a late attempt of some Catholic [gentlemen](251) in our country, most worthy indeed to be blamed and misliked [for the rashness and temerity thereof]—we expect notwithstanding more equity and charity at their hands than to condemn the whole number for the error of a few, or to deem that action the effect of all our desires, or fruit of our endeavours; [whereas](252) the contrary is most true, and so testified by the chief of the [conspirators themselves](253), and proved by the process of all examinations and proceedings in law against the [said] delinquents, as shall after appear.

(M1) Yea, the [dealers](254) in that tragical device had so little hope of help from other Catholics, either spiritual or temporal, towards their designments in that plot, that they neither did nor durst impart the same even to their nearest and dearest friends, in whom otherwise they had all confidence and trial both for secrecy and fidelity in other matters, as the chiefest and wisest amongst them all did testify at the bar in public audience. Neither did any Priest once dream of the matter, or so much as know of it by way of confession [or otherwise] until the [whole plot was](255) contrived, and had been [by all likelihood] put in execution if the Parliament had gone forward on the first or second days in which it was appointed. But when the said session was prorogued the third time, and some of the conspirators in long delays, [besides the general light which they presumed to have drawn by certain obscure questions which to that end they had proposed, though their purpose was not understood by them that gave the answers,] were desirous to have some [more particular] advice of some one or two of the most learned and virtuous they could find, they opened the matter in confession unto one of the Society, and by him in like manner unto his Superior, with most strict charge unto both of all secrecy, according to the privilege and seal of that holy Sacrament. At which time the Superior did not only charge the other to dissuade and forbid that unlawful and inhuman action, but did likewise by all lawful means himself seek to hinder it, as shall appear in the sequel of [the ensuing narration](256).

If then they had neither help nor heartening, neither counsel nor encouragement from any Catholic [man and much less Priests, but rather to the contrary from](257) those few that by chance, and in that most secret manner, came to know of it much against their will, how can it then be laid unto the rest? How can others be blamed for it where all were ignorant of the matter [except only the said](258) two persons, and those did seek to hinder it with all their power? Doth equity or charity permit to lay the fault on those that were not guilty? or to attribute part of the blame to those that were noways partakers in the crime? Yea, doth not charity rather move the minds of just men to take pity and compassion of those few that were offenders [rather than] to be stirred with indignation against them, and for their sakes against others that are innocent? “Vera justitia (saith St. Gregory) compassionem habet, falsa verò dedignationem.”(259) And doth not St. Bernard counsel us to excuse the fact if we can; if not (as in this present matter where it is so apparent to be evil), yet to excuse the intention; and in the hardest and plainest case that may be, at least to search out what motives and incentives they might have urging them to such an error.

Truly, if we [may](260) judge of their minds by the words that came from them even when they had no hope of life, or by all the signs that were to be seen either in those that died in the field, or those that were put to public justice, [at the very last instant of their lives,] we should rather be moved to think that [not so much](261) impatience [as] zeal (although “non secundum scientiam”) did stir them up to that strange and [violent](262) attempt, for so they all deeply and seriously protested at their death. Assuming belike the Machabees for their example, who seeing numbers of their brethren to suffer patiently the unjust oppressions of their adversaries, answering only in words unto them and saying, “Moriamur omnes in simplicitate nostra et testes erunt super nos cœlum et terra quod injuste perditis nos.”(263) They would not follow the example of their [said] brethren therein; [but being of more intolerant heat and fervour than the rest, said one to another](264), “Si omnes fecerimus sicut fratres nostri fecerunt et non pugnaverimus pro animabus nostris et justificationibus nostris, nunc citius disperdent nos a terra.” This, [I say, seemed to have been in their minds and apprehensions](265) if we may judge of them by their carriage in their greatest extremities, with which also they opened unto the world other motives [both at their arraignment and death], which they thought to be of no small moment; as the many and great calamities they had long endured; the promises of toleration received from the King, now contradicted both in word and action; all hopes cut off of help from other Princes either by force or favour, seeing many of them would not so much as believe the persecution to be great, but rather give credit to their persecutors’ tales, seeking by all subtle means and many instruments sent abroad for the purpose to have the contrary believed in foreign countries; which, with the general peace concluded [with all Catholic Princes round about], and no peace granted to Catholics, but their penalties increased, and like so to continue by the likelihood of continuance of that flourishing issue with which God hath blessed our King (which they thought did alter the state of their sufferings very much from that it was in Queen Elizabeth’s time). These things did seem to move them much, and as they thought necessarily to seek a remedy, if not for themselves, yet for the relief of others, which they being but a few, and out of hope of any help from the most and best of the Catholics of England, could not possibly effect, [as erroneously they conceived,] but by some such stratagem, wherein the chiefest strength should be resolution and secrecy, both which in the chosen number of so few persons they thought abundantly provided for. They took not indeed the course of the Machabees, which they deemed in their case to be merely impossible. But they affirmed their end to be same, and their cause and reasons much more important. So Catesby protested at his death in the field, and Digby at the bar, that not for themselves but for the cause of Christ; not for their wives and children, but for the Church, the Spouse of Christ, and saving so many thousand souls, the children of God, from eternal flames, they attempted with fire to cut off the chiefest heads and only causes of that greater ruin. “Yea,” said Digby [ready now to die], “in respect of this cause, I little regard, or rather I could be well content, both to offer my life and fortune and also to have my posterity rooted out for ever.” So that if we shall judge of these men by their zeal, or their zeal by all the signs by which men’s minds are judged (especially in cases of extremity where human respects give little cause to move dissimulation), we may the better follow St. Bernard’s rule and interpret charitably [with compassion] their [final] intention, although [their immediate motives were unlawful, and therefore] the action for many and great respects neither was nor is to be allowed.

And if St. Bernard did think this manner of interpretation of others’ actions to be requisite in the lovers of charity, I hope then I may much more require that at least others will support with patience that act of impatience in that small number of our brethren and [not impute it to the whole number of Catholics; no, nor beyond the rule of charity to condemn the delinquents themselves by extreme exclamations and maledictions, as some do, but rather according to the Apostle’s rule in lenity of spirit to have pity of them, and reproving their fact, esteem of their persons and other parts, as otherwise they depend, of whom myself and many others can testify that, setting aside this unfortunate evil action, by all good men deplored, they were known and held, before they fell into the same, to have been as wise, temperate, circumspect, and devout gentlemen as commonly England had, and such as would not have committed a voluntary injury against any man for a world](266).

Thus we disclaim from all participation of this [fact] intended by a few in their deceived zeal. Yet we follow not the example of those that will not follow the rule of charity in their judgments. And much more we do and may stand upon the justice of our cause, and prove that it is altogether against the rules of reason, justice, and charity, to lay the fault of a few upon the whole number of Catholics in that country; who neither did nor would have concurred, nor were partakers either by work or will in so barbarous a cruelty intended: no, nor so much as imagined there could enter such a thought into the hearts of any of their company.

The verity whereof with the innocency of all Catholics in that respect will plainly appear by the narration following of the whole matter how it passed, which at the earnest request of some principal friends on that side the sea I am moved to set down. And although I know myself much less able than they imagine to pen it in such manner as the greatness of the matter and rareness of such an event deserveth, yet I hope to satisfy their desire for the matter itself, if not their expectation for the manner of handling, promising to [set down] the story truly as it passed, without partiality to the one or other side; and to conceal no circumstance (whereof I could have sufficient information) which may truly explain the intentions, actions, and events of the whole matter, wherein I had perhaps more helps to know both many and true particulars than others could easily procure.

The whole I intend and offer to God’s glory and the good of souls: desiring only this of the pious reader, that as I will perform my part in truth and fidelity in the whole narration, so he will not be wanting of his part to perform the rules of equity and charity both towards me and the matter I write of; especially towards those that in so honourable a manner do daily and hourly sustain the cause and quarrel of Christ, not only “in(267) sole et pulvere,” but “in sanguine,” also “et vulneribus multis.” And so “alter alterius onera portantes adimplebimus legem Christi.”(268)

Or thus it may end:—

And so we suffering for the cause and they assisting in the cause “alter alterius onera portantes” (according to the counsel of the Apostle) “adimplebimus legem Christi.” And being with charity joined in the works of grace we shall by the author of charity be conjoined in the rewards of glory, “quæ præparavit Deus diligentibus se.”