What Gunpowder Plot Was

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

“Mr. Garnet rejoined that Bates was a dead man, and therefore although he would not discredit him, yet he was bound to keep that secret which was spoken in confession as well as Greenway.”281

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

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

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

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

“At my last being before them I told them I thought Greenway knew of this business, but I did not charge the others with it, but that I saw them all together with my master at my Lord Vaux’s, and that after I saw Mr. Whalley,” i. e. Garnet, “and Mr. Greenway at Coughton, and it is true. For I was sent thither with a letter, and Mr. Greenway rode with me to Mr. Winter’s to my master, and from thence he rode to Mr. Abington’s. This I told them, and no more. For which I am heartily sorry for, and I trust God will forgive me, for I did it not out of malice but in hope to gain my life by it, which I think now did me no good.”284

This clearly refers not to the confession of December 4, but to that of January 13,285 in which these matters were spoken of, and it is to be noted that Bates does not acknowledge having spoken falsely, but of having told inconvenient truths.

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

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

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

“Before that I knew anything of the plot, I did ask Mr. Farmer,” i. e. Garnet, “what the meaning of the Pope’s Brief was; he told me that they were not (meaning priests) to undertake or procure stirs; but yet they would not hinder any, neither was it the Pope’s mind they should, that should be undertaken for the Catholic good. I did never utter thus much, nor would not but to you; and this answer with Mr. Catesby’s proceedings with him and me give me absolute belief that the matter in general was approved, though every particular was not known.”288

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

On June 8 or 9, 1605,289 Catesby asked Garnet the question whether it was lawful to kill innocent persons, together with nocents, on the pretence that his inquiry related to the siege of a town in war. At first Garnet treated the question as of no other import. “I … thought it at the first but as it were an idle question, till I saw him, when we had done, make solemn protestation that he would never be known to have asked me any such question so long as he lived.” On this Garnet began to muse within himself as to Catesby’s meaning.

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

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

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

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

This suggestion took shape in the mission of Sir Edmund Baynham. We are only concerned here with Garnet’s expostulations, and again it must be said that they appear to have been singularly mild, considering all that Catesby had admitted.

A few days later Garnet learnt the whole truth from Greenway, in a way which is said to have been tantamount to confession. Admitting once more that he may have been bound to keep silence to others on these details, he could not keep silence to himself. There are no partitions in the brain to divide what one wishes to know from what one wishes not to know, and if Garnet thoroughly abhorred the plot, he was surely bound to take up Catesby’s earlier self-revelations, and to strive to the uttermost to probe the matter to the bottom, in all legitimate ways. No doubt he had moments in which his conscience was sorely troubled, but they were followed by no decisive action, and it is useless to say that he expected to meet Catesby at ‘All-hallowtide.’ With all the Jesuit machinery under his hands, he could surely have found Catesby out between July and November, and this omission is perhaps the most fatal condemnation of Garnet’s course. If he had for many months known enough otherwise than in confession to enable him to remonstrate with Catesby in November, why could he not have remonstrated four months before with much more hope of success?

Still more serious is Garnet’s own account of his feelings when Greenway imparted the story to him, saying that he thought the plot unlawful, and ‘a most horrible thing.’ He charged Greenway ‘to hinder it if he could, for he knew well enough what strict prohibition we had had.’ Greenway replied ‘that in truth he had disclaimed it, and protested that he did not approve it, and that he would do what lay in him to dissuade it.’ Yet up to the discovery of the plot, Garnet, though he met Greenway at least once, took no means of inquiring how Greenway had fared in his enterprise. “How he performed it after,” he explained, “I have not heard but by the report of Bates’s confession.”290

On July 24, Garnet writes a letter to the General of his Society, in which, as we are told, nothing learnt only in confession ought to have been introduced. Accordingly, either in this or a later letter,291 he merely speaks in general terms of the danger of any private treason or violence against the King, and asks for the orders of his Holiness as to what is to be done in the case, and a formal prohibition of the use of armed force. Surely some stronger language would be expected here. It is true that, according to his own account, Garnet remained ‘in great perplexity,’ and prayed that God ‘would dispose of all for the best, and find the best means which were pleasing to Him to prevent so great a mischief.’ He tells us, indeed, that he wrote constantly to Rome ‘to get a prohibition under censures of all attempts,’ but as the answer he got was that the Pope was of the opinion that ‘his general prohibition would serve,’ it does not seem likely that Garnet enlarged on the real danger more than he had done in the letter referred to above. He expected, he says, some further action; ‘and that hope and Mr. Catesby’s promise of doing nothing until Sir Edmund had been with the Pope made me think that either nothing would be done or not before the end of the Parliament; before what time we should surely hear, as undoubtedly we should if Baynham had gone to Rome as soon as I imagined.’292 In a further declaration, Garnet disclosed that there was more in his conduct than misplaced hopefulness. Speaking of Catesby’s first consultation with himself, he adds: —

“Neither ever did I enter further with him then, as I wrote, but rather cut off all occasions (after I knew his project) of any discoursing with him of it, thereby to save myself harmless both with the state here, and with my superiors at Rome, to whom I knew this thing would be infinitely displeasing, insomuch as at my second conference with Mr. Greenwell,” i. e. Greenway, “I said ‘Good Lord, if this matter go forward, the Pope will send me to the galleys, for he will assuredly think I was privy to it.’”293

To say that Garnet had two consciences, an official and a personal one, would doubtless err by giving too brutally clear-cut a definition of the mysterious workings of the mind. Yet we shall probably be right in thinking not only that, as a Catholic, a priest, and a Jesuit, he was bound to carry out the directions conveyed to him from the Pope, but that those directions commended themselves to his own mind whenever he set himself seriously to consider the matter. It was but human weakness294 to be so shocked by the persecution going on around him as to regard with some complacency the horrors which sought to put a stop to it, or at least to find excuses for omitting to inquire, where inquiry must necessarily lead to active resistance. The Government theory that Garnet and the other Jesuits had originated the plot was undoubtedly false, but, as far as we are able to judge, they did not look upon it with extraordinary horror, neither did they take such means as were lawful and possible to avert the disaster.

To sum up the conclusions to which I have been led. There may be difference of opinion as to my suggested explanations of some details in the ‘traditional’ story; but as a whole it stands untouched by Father Gerard’s criticisms. What is more, no explanation has been offered by any one which will fit in with the evidence which I have adduced in its favour. As for the plot itself, it was the work of men indignant at the banishment of the priests after the promises made by James in Scotland. The worse persecution which followed no doubt sharpened their indignation and led to the lukewarmness with which Garnet opposed it; but it had nothing to do with the inception of the plot.

As to the action of the Government, it was in the main straightforward. It had to disguise its knowledge that James did not discover the plot by Divine inspiration, and having firmly persuaded itself that the Jesuits had been at the bottom of the whole affair, it suppressed at least one statement to the contrary, which it may very well have believed to be untrue, whilst the Attorney General – not a man easily restrained – put forward his own impression as positive truth, though he had no evidence behind it. On the other hand, James, having before him in writing Garnet’s account of the information gained from Greenway in confession, refused to allow it to be used against the prisoner.

The attempt to make Salisbury the originator of the Plot for his own purposes breaks down entirely, if only because, at the time when the plot was started, he had already pushed James to take the first step in the direction in which he wished him to go, and that every succeeding step carried him further in the same direction. It is also highly probable that he had no information about it till the Monteagle letter was placed in his hands. That there was a plot at all is undoubtedly owing to James’s conduct in receding from his promises. Yet, even his fault in this respect raises more difficult questions than Roman Catholic writers are inclined to admit. The question of toleration was a new one, and James may be credited with a sincere desire to avoid persecution for religion. He was, however, confronted by the question of allegiance. If the Roman Catholics increased in numbers, so far as to become a power in the land, would they or the Pope tolerate a ‘heretic’ King? This was the real crux of the situation. In the nineteenth century it is not felt, and we can regard it lightly. In the beginning of the seventeenth century men could remember how Henry IV. had been driven to submit to the Papal Church on pain of exclusion from the throne. Was there ever to be a possibility of the like happening to James? There can be no doubt that he believed in the doctrines of his own Church as firmly as any Jesuit believed in those which it was his duty to maintain. But, though this question of doctrine must not be left out of sight, it must by no means be forced into undue prominence. It was the question of allegiance that was at stake. James tried hard to avoid it, and it must be acknowledged that his efforts were, to some extent, reciprocated from the other side,295 but the gulf could not be bridged over. In the end the antagonism took its fiercest shape in the disputation on the new oath of allegiance enjoined on all recusants in 1606. The respective claims of Pope and King to divine right were then brought sharply into collision. Now that we are removed by nearly three centuries from the combatants, we may look somewhat beyond the contentions of the disputants. Behind the arguments of the Royalist, we may discern the claim of a nation for supreme control over its own legislation and government. Behind the arguments of the Papalist, we may discern an anxiety to forbid any chance occupant of a throne, or any chance parliamentary majority, from dictating to the consciences of those who in all temporal matters are ready to yield obedience to existing authority.