The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 16

CHAPTER XLI.

Now, regard being had to the fact that this kneeling young Penitent was, with his own lips, avowing the commission in _desire and thought_ of "murder most foul as at the best it is"[A] (and "we know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him"[B]), by confessing to a fellow-creature a wilful and deliberate transgression against that "steadfast Moral Law which is not of to-day nor yesterday, but which lives for ever"[C] (to say nothing of his avowal of the commission _in act and deed_ of the crime of sacrilege,[D] in taking a secret, unlawful oath contrary to the express prohibitions of a visible and audible Inst.i.tution which that Priest and that Penitent alike believed was of divine origin), I firmly, though with great and all-becoming deference, draw _these_ conclusions, namely, that _one of the plotters_ had _already_ poured into the bending ear of his breathless priestly hearer _glad tidings_ to the effect that he (the revealing plotter, whoever he was) had given that one supreme external proof which heaven and earth had then left to him for showing the genuineness of his repentance in regard to his crimes, and the perfectness of his contrition on account of his transgressions, by taking premeditated, active, practical, vigorous steps for the utter frustrating and the complete overthrowing of the prodigious, diabolical Plot.

[Footnote A: Shakespeare.]

[Footnote B: St. John the Divine.]

[Footnote C: Sophocles.]

[Footnote D: Of course the Gunpowder Treason Plot was a "sacrilegious crime," because it sought to compa.s.s the death of a king who was "one of the Lord's anointed," _as well as_ because of the unlawful oath of secrecy, solemnly ratified by the reception of the Sacrament at the hands of some priest in a house behind St. Clement's Inn, "near the princ.i.p.al street in London called the Strand."--See "_The Confessions of Thomas Winter and Guy Fawkes_." This house was probably the London lodging of Father John Gerard, S.J. Winter and Fawkes said that the conspirators received the Sacrament at the hands of Gerard. But "Gerard was not acquainted with their purpose," said Fawkes. Gerard denied having given the conspirators the Sacrament.--See Gardiner's "_What Gunpowder Plot was_," p. 44. One vested priest is very much like another, just as one soldier in uniform is very much like another. So Fawkes and Winter may have been mistaken. Besides, they would not be likely to be minutely examining the features of a priest on such an occasion.]

Furthermore; that it was _because_ of the possession by Hammond of this happy intelligence, early on that Thursday morning, before sunrise, that _therefore_, in the Tribunal of Penance, "he absolved" poor, miserable (yet contrite) Ambrose Rookwood "for all in general"--"without any other circ.u.mstances."

That is, I take it, without reproaching or even chiding him--in fact "without remark."[A]

[Footnote A: Father Nicholas Hart (alias Hammond) appears to have been stationed with the Vauxes, of Great Harrowden, usually. Foley (iv., Index) thinks it probable that the Father Singleton, S.J. (alias Clifton), mentioned by Henry Hurlston, Esquire, or Huddlestone, of the Huddlestones, of Suwston Hall, near Cambridge; Faringdon Hall, near Preston, in Lancashire; and Millom, "North of the Sands," was in reality Father Nicholas Hart (alias Hammond). I do not think so. For, according to the Evidence of Henry Hurlston (Foley's "_Records_," vol. iv., pp. 10, 11), who was at Great Harrowden, on Tuesday, November 5th, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Father Strange, S.J. (a cousin of Mr. Abington, of Hindlip), and this said Father Singleton, "by Thursday morning took their horses and intended to have ridden to Grote." They were apprehended at Kenilworth. This Father Singleton is a mysterious personage whose "future"

I should like to follow up. Was he the same as a certain "Dr. Singleton"

who figures in the "_Life of Mary Ward_" vol. i., p. 443? and was he of the Catholic Singletons, of Singleton, near Blackpool?]

CHAPTER XLII.

The other piece of Evidence that I wish to bring before my readers which tends to show that it was _one of the conspirators themselves that revealed the Plot_ is this:--

Jardine gives in his "_Criminal Trials_"[133] a certain Letter of Instructions to Sir Edward c.o.ke,[134] the Attorney-General who conducted the prosecution of the surviving Gunpowder conspirators at Westminster Hall[135] before a Special Commission for High Treason, on the 27th day of January, 1605-6.

This very remarkable doc.u.ment is in the handwriting of Robert Cecil first Earl of Salisbury.

It is as follows:--

"These things I am commanded to renew unto your memory. First, that you be sure to make it appear to the world that there was an employment of some persons to Spain for a practice of invasion, as soon as the Queen's breath was out of her body. The reason is this for which the King doth urge it. He saith some men there are that will give out, and do, that only despair of the King's courses on the Catholics and his severity, draw all these to such works of discontentment: where by you it will appear, that before his Majesty's face was ever seen, or that he had done anything in government, the King of Spain was moved, though he refused it, saying, 'he rather expected to have peace,' etc.

"_Next, you must in any case, when you speak of the Letter which was the first ground of discovery, absolutely disclaim that any of these wrote it, though you leave the further judgment indefinite who else it should be._ (The italics are mine.)

"Lastly, and you must not omit, you must deliver, in commendation of my Lord Mounteagle, words to show how sincerely he dealt, and how fortunately it proved that he was the instrument of so great a blessing as this was. To be short, sir, you can remember how well the King in his Book did censure[A]

his lordship's part in it, from which sense you are not to vary, but _obiter_ (as you know best how), to give some good echo of that particular action in that day of public trial of these men; because it is so lewdly given out that he was once of this plot of powder, and afterwards betrayed it all to me.

"This is but _ex abundanti_, that I do trouble you; but as they come to my head or knowledge, or that I am directed, I am not scrupulous to send to you.

"You must remember to lay Owen as foul in this as you can."

[Footnote A: The word "censure" here means, formed an opinion of his lordship's part. From Lat. _censeo_, I think.]

Now, strangely enough, in the day of public trial of these men, the learned Attorney-General forgot in one particular the aforesaid clear and express Injunctions of his Majesty's princ.i.p.al Secretary of State.

For, if he be correctly reported, Sir Edward c.o.ke then said:--[136]

"The last consideration is concerning the admirable discovery of this treason, _which was by one of themselves_, _who had taken the oath and sacrament, as hath been said, against his own will; the means was by a dark and doubtful letter sent to my Lord Mounteagle._"[A] (The italics are mine.)

[Footnote A: "Truth will out!"]

Now, regard being had (1) to what Salisbury bade c.o.ke _not say_; and (2) to what c.o.ke as a matter of fact _did say_, I infer, first, that it _was_ one of the conspirators who revealed the Plot; because of just scruples that his conscience had, well-nigh at the eleventh hour, awakened in his breast: that, secondly, not only so, but that the Government, through Salisbury, Suffolk, c.o.ke, and probably Bacon, strongly suspected as much: that, thirdly, this was the explanation not only of their _comparatively_ mild treatment of the Gunpowder conspirators themselves,[137] but also, I hold, of the subsequent _comparatively_ mild treatment of the recusants generally throughout the country.[138]

For had the Government stripped all English Papists of their lands and goods and driven them into the sea, Humanity scarcely could have complained of injustice or harshness, regard being had to the devilish wholesale cruelty of the Gunpowder Plot.

Contrariwise, the entire action of the Government resembles the action of a man in whose hand the stick has broken whilst he is in the act of administering upon a wrong-doer richly deserved chastis.e.m.e.nt.

For, indisputably, the Government abstained from following after, and from reaping the full measure of, their victory (to have recourse to a more dignified figure of speech) _either on grounds of principle, policy--or both_.

Moreover, none of the estates of the plotters were forfeited. And this, regard being had to the fact that the plotters were "moral monsters," and to the well-known impecuniosity of the tricky James and his northern satellites, is itself a circ.u.mstance pregnant with the greatest possible suspicion that there was some great mystery in the background.--See Lathbury's "_Guy Fawkes_," pp. 76, 77, first Edition.

For, even if deeds of marriage settlement intervened to protect the plotters' estates, an Act of Parliament surely could have swept them away like the veriest cobwebs. For Sir Edward c.o.ke himself might have told the King and Privy Council that "an Act of Parliament could do anything, short of turning a man into a woman," if the King and Council had needed enlightening on the point.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Again: the primary instinct of self-preservation alone would have a.s.suredly impelled the bravest of the brave amongst the nine malefactors, including Tresham, who were incarcerated in the Tower of London, either to seek to save his life when awaiting his trial in Westminster Hall, or, at any rate, when expecting the scaffold, the ripping knife, the embowelling fork, and the quartering block, in St. Paul's Churchyard or in the old Palace Yard, Westminster, to seek to save his life, _by divulging the mighty secret respecting his responsibility for the Letter of Letters, had anyone of them in point of fact penned the doc.u.ment. For "skin for skin all that a man hath will he give for his life."_

Hence, from the silence of one and all of the survivors--a silence as unbroken as that of the grave--we can, it stands to reason, draw but this one conclusion, namely, that the nine surviving Gunpowder conspirators were stayed and restrained by the omnipotence of the impossible from declaring that _anyone of them_ had saved his King and Parliament.

Hence, by consequence, _the revealing conspirator must be found amongst that small band of four who survived not to tell the tale_.

Therefore is our Inquiry reduced to within a narrow compa.s.s, a fact which simplifies our task unspeakably.

If it be objected that "a point of honour" may have stayed and restrained one of the nine conspirators from "discovering" or revealing his share in the laudable deed, it is demonstrable that it would be a _false_, not a _true_, sense of duty that prompted such an unrighteous step.

For the revealing plotter, whoever he was, had duties to his kinsfolk as well as to himself, and, indeed, to his Country, to Humanity at large, and also to his Church, which _ought, in justice_, to have actuated--and it is reasonable to believe would have a.s.suredly actuated--a disclosure of the truth respecting the facts of the revelation.

But I hold that the nine conspirators told nothing as to the origin of this Letter of Letters, _because they had none of them, anything to tell_.

Moreover, I suggest that what Archbishop Usher[139][A] meant when he is reported to have divers times said, "that if Papists knew what he knew, the blame of the Gunpowder Treason would not lie on them,"[140][B] was this:--

[Footnote A: Protestant Archbishop of Armagh.]

[Footnote B: Such a secret as the answer to the problem "Who revealed the Gunpowder Plot?" was a positive burden for Humanity, whereof it should have been, in justice, relieved. For it tends to demonstrate the existence of a realm of actualities having relations to man, but the workings of the causes, processes, and consequences of which realm are invisible to mortal sight; in other words, of the contact and intersection of two circles or spheres, whereof one is bounded by the finite, the other by the infinite.

Now, in the case of strong-minded and intelligent Catholics, the weight of _this_ fact would have almost inevitably impelled to an avowal of the fact of revelation had not the omnipotence of the impossible stayed and restrained. Hence, the absence of avowal demonstrates, with moral cert.i.tude, the absence of ability to avow. And this latter, with moral cert.i.tude, proves my point, namely, that one of the four slain divulged the Plot.]

_That it was "the Papist Doctrine" of the non-binding force of a secret, unlawful oath that (Deo juvante) had been primarily the joint-efficient cause of the spinning right round on its axis of the h.e.l.l-begotten Gunpowder Plot._