The Condition of Catholics Under James I. Part 15

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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances to tell a lie with intent to deceive. And Catholic moralists permit under such circ.u.mstances a.s.sertions 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 a.s.serted, 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 const.i.tute 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d Incarnate, and with a human nature hypostatically united to G.o.d, should be subject to ignorance; nor that He Who was appointed Judge by G.o.d 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 G.o.d. It did not, however, occur to me at the moment to adduce this pa.s.sage 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sailed by Sir Edward c.o.ke.

"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. c.o.ke, 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 G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pervert.i.tur 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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances which, rightly or wrongly, he considers to justify him in making them, furnish no presumption whatever that, under other circ.u.mstances, 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 circ.u.mstances 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.

x.x.xI.

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 a.s.severations 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 ma.n.u.script narrative, he first boldly and very properly a.s.serts, 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 subst.i.tuting a third person as the narrator, and solemnly protests on his salvation that he knows not the Priest from whom Catesby and his a.s.sociates 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Ma.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 c.o.ke, 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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.sumption 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'