What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence

CHAPTER V.

THE GOVERNMENT INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT

Having followed the history of the plotters and their doings, to the point when everything was ready for action, we have now to inquire what, in the meantime, those were about for whose destruction such notable preparations were making, and whether in truth they were, as we are assured, wrapped in a sense of false security, and altogether unconscious of the signs and tokens that should have awakened their suspicion and alarm.

When, by the aid of such evidence as remains to us, we turn to examine the facts of the case, we discover in them, it must be confessed, no symptoms whatever of supineness or lethargy. It appears, on the contrary, that throughout the period when the government are supposed to have been living in a fool's paradise, and tranquilly assuming that all was well, they were in reality busily at work through their emissaries and informers, prying into all the doings of the recusant Catholics, receiving frequent intimation of all that was undertaken, or even projected, and, apparently, regulating the main features of a treasonable conspiracy, which can have been no other than the Powder Plot itself, determining, in particular, what individuals should be implicated therein.

In April, 1604, at the very time when we hear of the Plot as being hatched, a letter was addressed to Sir Thomas Challoner, an official frequently mixed up with business of this kind, by one Henry Wright,200 reporting the proceedings of a subordinate agent, by name Davies, whom he styles a "discoverer,"201 then engaged in working a Catholic treason, with the special object of incriminating priests. Davies has offered to "set," or mark down,202 over threescore of these, but Wright has told him that so many are not required, and that he will satisfy his employers if he implicate twenty, provided they be "most principal Jesuits and seminary priests," and therewithal has given him thirteen or fourteen names that will serve the required purpose. Davies replies, "that by God's grace he will absolutely do it ere long."203

That the treason in question was none other than the Gunpowder Plot there can be no question, unless indeed we are to say that the authorities were engaged in fabricating a bogus conspiracy for which there was no foundation whatever in fact. It was not the way of statesmen of the period, when on the track of sedition, to relinquish the pursuit till they had sifted it to the bottom, and at this juncture, especially, every shred of evidence regarding Catholics and their conduct was threshed out to the uttermost. In consequence, we are able to say with certainty, that besides the enterprise of Catesby and his associates, there was no other conspiracy of any kind on foot. We have, moreover, already seen that the very same point thus by anticipation represented as all important, is that which after the "discovery" every nerve was strained to establish, namely, the complicity of the Catholic clergy. If we had no more than this internal evidence, it would abundantly suffice to assure us that the conspiracy thus sedulously watched was the same as that miraculously "discovered" a year and a half later.

But we are not left to such inferences alone. In March, 1606, we find Wright applying to the minister for a reward on account of his services "in discovering villainous practices," thus indicating that by this time those which he had been tracking had been brought to light. More explicit still is a memorial presented to the king, at a later date, on his behalf. This is entitled – "Touching Wright and his services performed in the damnable plot of the Powder treason." King James is reminded that Chief Justice Popham and Sir Thomas Challoner had a hand in the discovery of the Powder, and this by means of information supplied by Wright, "for two years space almost" before his Majesty interpreted the famous letter to Lord Monteagle, "like an angel of God." This information Popham and Challoner had from time to time communicated to his Majesty, "whose hand Wright hath in testimony of his services in the matter."204

In the same month of April, 1604, was supplied another piece of information, singularly interesting and important,205 in which were detailed the particulars of a design amongst the Catholics at home and abroad. Much, in fact the bulk, of the information given, is seen, in the light of our present knowledge, to be purely fictitious, affording a good example of the "sophistications" which, as Cecil himself complained, his agents were wont to mingle with their intelligence. The design in question was represented as being of the most serious and secret nature, the papists thinking that it "must now be so handled and carried as the great cause may lose no reputation, or if any suspicion should grow in the state, or any come in question therefore, the main point might never come to light;" the said "main point" being of course the complicity of the Catholic clergy.

What invests this document with singular importance is the fact that we hear of it again. In April, 1606, it was quoted for the benefit of Parliament by the Attorney General, Sir E. Coke, and explicitly as having reference to the Gunpowder Plot, forming part of the evidence adduced by him to secure the attainder of persons accused of being partakers in that treason.206 It thus affords a proof, on the authority of the government itself, that eighteen months before the conspiracy was "discovered," intelligence regarding it had been received and was being attended to.

This is, however, by no means the only information of which we find traces. Amongst the Cecil papers at Hatfield is a letter dated December 20th, 1605, addressed to the Earl of Salisbury by one Thomas Coe, who claims to have previously forwarded to his Majesty "the primary intelligence of these late dangerous treasons," upon which communication the historian Lodge observes,207 "It should seem then that the famous letter transmitted to James by Lord Monteagle, for the right construction of which that Prince's penetration hath been so highly extolled by some historians, was not the only previous intelligence communicated to him of the Gunpowder Treason."

Meanwhile the officers of the government, in all parts, appear to have been no less alert than was their wont. On the 9th of January, 1604-5, for instance, Sir Thomas Parry writes from Paris,208 inclosing a note from an informer at Dieppe, concerning an English Catholic returning from Italy and Spain with letters for Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne, and a cipher of three lines for a lawyer at Douay, and although the messenger has contrived to give him the slip, he is able to send particulars concerning his personal appearance, and the locality in London where he is likely to be found. On the 25th of the same month, Cecil replies to Parry209 concerning priests and their doings, and makes the valuable admission that their proceedings are always known to him by means of false brethren, though, he adds, these informers always add to their intelligence "sophistications" of their own, a fact which must not be lost sight of in studying the reports of such folk. We hear particularly of informations supplied by the priests Bagshawe and Cecil, by Captain Turner, Charles Paget, and sundry others.

At the beginning of October, 1605, we make the acquaintance of another notable informer. On the first of the month, William Willaston, then engaged on a commission in France in connection with a proposed commercial treaty, writes to Cecil from Paris210 concerning a Catholic design attributed chiefly to priests and Jesuits, who have assurance that their friends in England, who are many and of good sort, intend "to kindle a fire in many corners of our land, and a rebellion in Ireland," and that these matters be almost grown to a head, "some of their fingers itching to be set to work." Willaston adds, "there is a particular irreconcilable desperate malice against your Honour's person, which is principally the cause I make bold to write unto your Lordship. You have yet the papists in your hands, and are masters; if you let them increase and grow so insolent, assuredly it will come to pass as to the King of Israel, who having overthrown Benhadab …" and so on.

On October 14th, Willaston again writes from Rouen211 "about some matters pretended by our Romish Catholics." The party, he says, "who" has given light into this business "is one George Southwaick, well-known to many of your Lordship's followers." This Southwaick, he holds to be "very honest;" he is going to England with sundry priests and others, and upon landing will at once communicate with the authorities and have his comrades arrested. "Southwaick himself," adds Willaston, "must be taken as well as the others, for he desireth not to be known to have given any information against the rest. If it please your Lordship to take order for his imprisonment apart, that conference privately may be had with him, until such time as shall be thought fit to deliver him, he can give you good directions for many matters, and may stand your honour in stead for such purposes."

There follows a notable suggestion: "If your Lordship would be pleased to set some man to win the Nuncio of the Pope his secretary in Paris, you should receive very direct and sound instructions from him." The writer goes on to speak of an intended rebellion in England, and the kindling of a fire there, and dutifully concludes, "God grant they touch not the person of the King nor of his children."

On the 27th of October, nine days before the "discovery," Southwaick himself, now in England, writes to Cecil,212 urging that the impending arrest of priests and others should be deferred, and that for better management of "the business, and for the better and more substantial manifestation thereof," he ventures to suggest that "more scope of time would make the service of more worth." Moreover, he gives warning of preparations for trouble in the shires, in connection with "their plot," and finally promises, "your Honour shall not only have knowledge of all such as are any way intercepted in the same, but also knowledge of the end of their whole purpose, and withal be certain of their meeting here in London, where I do not doubt to apprehend forty priests, with many great of name, at mass, in good speed of their great intent."

On the morning of the 5th of November itself, evidently before receiving news that the final blow had been struck, Southwaick writes to Levinus Munck, Cecil's private secretary.213 He excuses himself for recent silence on the ground that he could not without prejudice to "the business" have communicated with his employers. "The parties," he declares, "have had, ever since I saw you, such obscure meetings, such mutable purposes, such uncertain resolutions, as hath made me ride both day and night, as well in foul weather as fair, omitting no opportunities, lest I should not effect what I have by the weight of my credit and the engagement of my duty and reputation propounded to my honourable Lord." He farther begs that nothing may be done that might disclose his true character to his intended victims, and concludes by declaring that, if he be not much mistaken, he is about "a singular service."

If such letters proved nothing more, they would abundantly serve to discredit the idea that a government which conducted its operations in such a fashion could be hoodwinked by such clumsy contrivances as those of the cellar and the mine.

Five days later,214 Southwaick again writes to Munck, inclosing a note of the priests who have had meetings in Paris, or have been written to in England. The Ambassador (in Paris) will, he says, bear witness that, although unable to particularize, he had given notice two months since that there was a plot brewing. He adds a significant hint, the like of which we have already seen: "Should I chance to be apprehended, I will rest myself upon my honourable Lord."215

Meanwhile the English ambassadors abroad were no less active and vigilant than the informers at home, and while clearly aware that there was some danger on foot, never doubted that the king's government would not be caught napping.

On the 9th of October, Sir Thomas Edmondes wrote to Cecil from Brussels216 to warn him of suspicious symptoms in the Low Countries; and on the following day Cecil wrote to Edmondes217 expressing apprehensions of trouble from the Jesuits abroad. On the same day, October 10th, Sir Thomas Parry wrote from Paris to the secretary,218 of a petition which the Catholics were preparing against the meeting of Parliament, "and some further designs upon refusal;" and in another letter informed Edmondes:219 "somewhat is at present in hand amongst these desperate hypocrites, which I trust God shall divert, by the vigilant care of his Majesty's faithful servants and friends abroad, and prudence of his council at home."

That such confidence was not misplaced is shown by Cecil's assurance to Sir Thomas Parry,220 mentioned above, that the proceedings of the priests were never unknown to Government.

Amongst the papers at Hatfield is a curious note, anonymous and undated, giving information of a plot involving murder and treason, which, like the letter to Monteagle, simulates rather too obviously the workmanship of an illiterate person, and artfully insinuates that the design in question is undertaken in the name of religion, and chiefly favoured by the priests.221

Another remarkable document is preserved in the same collection. This is a letter written to Sir Everard Digby, June 11th, 1605, and treating of an otter hunt to be undertaken when the hay shall be cut. It has, however, been endorsed by Salisbury, "Letter written to Sir Everard Digby – Powder Treason."222 Not only is it hard to see how the terms of the document lend themselves to such an interpretation, but the date at which it was written was fully three months prior to Digby's initiation in the conspiracy. The idea is certainly suggested that, far from being passive and indolent, the authorities were sedulously seeking pretexts to entangle as many as possible of those "great of name," concerning whom we have already heard from one of their informers. This much, at any rate, seems clear. Those at the centre of this complex web of espionage, to whom were addressed all these informations and admonitions, cannot have been, as they protested somewhat overmuch, in a state of careless inactivity, depending for security only upon the protection of the Almighty, "who," as the secretary afterwards piously declared, "blessed us in our slumber [and] will not forsake us now that we are awake."223

The slumber would at least appear not to have been dreamless. On the one hand, the secretary was evidently much exercised by a threatened rapprochement between his royal master and Pope Clement VIII., who, through a Scotch Catholic gentleman, Sir James Lindsay, had sent a friendly message to King James, which had elicited a courteous and almost cordial reply.224 The significance of this Cecil strenuously endeavoured, in a letter to the Duke of Lenox,225 to explain away, and in February, 1604-5, we find him assuring the Archbishop of York with an earnestness somewhat suspicious,226 "I love not to procure or yield any toleration; a matter which I well know no creature living durst propound to our religious Sovereign." For himself, he thus declares: "I will be much less than I am, or rather nothing at all, before I shall become an instrument of such a miserable change." Nevertheless, on the 17th of April following, he was fain to acknowledge, in writing to Parry,227 that the news of Pope Clement's death had much eased him in his mind.

It would, however, appear that the spectre of possible toleration still haunted him, and that he felt it necessary to commit the king to a course of severity. In a minute of September 12th, 1605, addressed to the same ambassador, which has been corrected and amended with an amount of care sufficiently testifying to the importance of the subject,228 after speaking of "the plots and business of the priests," and the tendency of Englishmen going abroad "in this time of peace" to become Catholics, he thus continues: "Only this is it wherein my own heart receiveth comfort, that we live under a most religious and understanding Prince, who sticketh not to publish, as well in his own particular, as in the form of his government, how contrary that religion is to his resolution, and how far he will be from ever gracing [it]." He goes on to declare that nothing will so avail to make his Majesty withdraw his countenance from any man as such "falling away."

About the same time as this was written, we are told by a writer, almost a contemporary,229 that a dependent of Cecil's warned a Catholic gentleman, by name Buck, of a "wicked design" which his master had in hand against the papists.

On the 17th of October, more than a week before the first hint of danger is said to have been breathed, we find the minister writing to Sir Thomas Edmondes, at Brussels,230 in terms which certainly appear to couple together the growing danger of conversions to Catholicism, of which we have heard above, and the remedy soon to be supplied by the new policy which the discovery of the Plot so effectively established. He speaks of the "insolencies" of the priests and Jesuits, who are doing much injury by infecting with their poison "every youth that cometh amongst them;" ominously adding, "which liberty must, for one cause or another, be retrenched."

There can be no doubt that the issue of the Gunpowder Plot was eminently calculated to work such an effect; and even more would seem to have been anticipated from it than was actually realized, for the secretary, we are told, promised King James that in consequence of it not a single Jesuit should remain in England.

In the accounts supplied to us as to the manner of the "discovery," we obtain much interesting information from the utterances of the government itself. In studying these we cannot fail to notice an evident effort to reconcile two conflicting interests. On the one hand, that the king and the nation should be properly impressed with a sense of their marvellous deliverance, it was essential to represent the catastrophe as having been imminent, which could not be unless the preparations for it had been altogether unsuspected; and it was likewise desirable to magnify the divine sagacity of the monarch, which had been the instrument of Providence to avert a disaster otherwise inevitable. On the other hand, however, it should not be made to appear that those to whose keeping the public safety was intrusted had shown themselves culpably negligent or incompetent; and it had therefore to be insinuated that, after all, they were not without "sufficient advertisement" of danger, and even of danger specifically connected with the actual conspirators, and directed against the Parliament. But, again, lest such information should appear suspiciously accurate, the actual plotters had to be merged in a larger body of their co-religionists, and their design to be represented in vague and general terms. At the time, no doubt, this was effective enough. Now however that we know, by the light of subsequent investigations, who exactly were engaged, and what was in hand, it is possible to estimate these declarations at their true value.231

Except with the aid of such an explanation as this, it seems impossible to understand the endless inconsistencies and contradictions of the official narrative. This we have in four forms, all coming to us on the highest authority, but addressed to different audiences, and hopelessly at variance upon almost every point. One is that given to the world as the "King's Book,"232 containing, as Mr. Jardine tells us, the version which it was desired that the general public should accept. A second was furnished by Cecil himself to the ambassadors at Madrid and Brussels, and the Lord Deputy in Ireland,233 and a third to the ambassador at Paris.234 We have likewise the minute of November 7th, already mentioned as perhaps intended for the information of the Privy Council, which, although it has seemingly served as the basis of the story told in the "King's Book," contradicts that story in various not unimportant particulars.

We shall afterwards have to examine in some detail the divergencies of these several narratives: at present we are concerned only with the intimation which they afford of a previous knowledge of the Plot on the part of the government. In the "King's Book" – which was not only to be disseminated broadcast at home, but to be translated and spread abroad, and, moreover, to be suited to the taste of its supposed author – the preternatural acuteness of the monarch is extolled in terms of most preposterous flattery, and his secretary is represented as altogether incredulous of danger, and unwilling to be convinced even by his royal master's wonderful interpretation of the mysterious warning. Nevertheless, not only is mention parenthetically introduced of the minister's "customable and watchful care of the king and State, boiling within him," of his laying up these things in his heart, "like the Blessed Virgin Mary," and being unable to rest till he had followed the matter farther, – but it is dexterously intimated that, for all his hardness of belief, he was sufficiently well informed before the warning came to hand, and that "this accident did put him in mind of divers advertisements he had received from beyond the seas, wherewith he had acquainted as well the king himself, as divers of his Privy Councillors, concerning some business the Papists were in, both at home and abroad, making combination amongst them for some combination against this Parliament time," their object being to approach the king with a petition for toleration, "which should be delivered in some such order, and so well backed, as the king should be loth to refuse their requests; like the sturdy beggars craving alms with one open hand, but carrying a stone in the other, in case of refusal."