The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 44

Sir Toby translated Bacon's "_Essays_" into Italian.--See Spedding's "_Life of Bacon_," and Alban Butler's "_Life of Matthews_."--Sir Toby Matthews (in the February of 1605-6, just after the Plot) was converted to popery by Father Robert Parsons, who was then at the English College, Rome; and Matthews' was, without doubt, the most remarkable and interesting of all the conversions effected by that strong-minded and most able Jesuit. Parsons' intellect was one of marvellous range, reach, versatility, and power. He was a spiritual or mystical man in his way, too; but his spirituality or mysticism not seldom failed to control his action in daily life. It was shut up, as it were, in a watertight compartment. This (_me judice_) sums up, approximately, the truth about Parsons. Of all the men in Europe, Parsons was the man Burleigh, Walsingham, and Salisbury most feared. He died in 1610. A really impartial Life of Parsons, if possible, by a learned lawyer and politician, is a desideratum. In some of his political ideas this Jesuit was a progressive born prematurely--"a man before his time." For he believed thoroughly in the sovereignty of the People, and in the desirableness of universal education. In this latter respect he resembled "that good lady, Mary Ward," the daughter of Marmaduke Ward, and niece of Thomas Ward (_ex hypothesi_). Campion, the Jesuit, who died a martyr in 1581, was much the more amiable and attractive character. But Campion was no politician.

Oldcorne, I maintain, was the greatest of all the three, because of his extraordinary mental equipoise and balance.

"_The History of the Jesuits in England, 1580-1773_," by the Rev. Ethelred L. Taunton, with twelve ill.u.s.trations (Methuen & Co., 1901), in some sort supplies a Life of Robert Parsons. But evidently the Jesuit Society is an enigma to Father Taunton, as to so many papists. A man must be a jurist and a statesman to understand the Jesuits. For their aim (_me judice_), their n.o.ble aim, ever has been to make the "Kingdoms of the world the Kingdoms of G.o.d and of His Christ."

If a delusion, surely a delusion merely, not a crime, the most puissant spirit among us must allow.

James Robert Hope-Scott, Q.C., thought that the Jesuits were the backbone of the Church of his adoption. And Dr. Christopher Wordsworth (no mean judge) thought that Hope-Scott might have become a more popular Prime Minister than even W. E. Gladstone, had he chosen a political career.

Wordsworth was Hope-Scott's tutor at Oxford.--See Dr. Christopher Wordsworth's "_Autobiography_."--He was Bishop of St. Andrews, N.B., and as a cla.s.sical scholar almost without a peer.]

[Footnote 111:--See Jardine's "_Criminal Trials_," vol. ii., p. 166.]

[Footnote 112:--"_Narrative_" p. 57. As appears from the Lives of Mary Ward, Father Gerard had known Mary Ward when a child in Yorkshire. Hence he probably knew her uncles, John and Christopher Wright, and also Thomas Percy.

Mary Ward was one of the greatest women-educationists and, in a sense, women's rights advocates England has ever seen. She ought to figure in the Supplement to the "_National Dictionary of Biography_." The following word-portrait of Mary Warde we owe to the skilful hand of her kinswoman, the gifted Winefrid Wigmore, a cousin once removed to Lady Mounteagle. It is as Mary Ward, that wonderful Yorkshire-woman, appeared in the year which witnessed the death of Shakespeare (1616). Perhaps the poet knew her; if so, no wonder he knew how to describe queenly souls. "She was rather tall (was Mary), but her figure was symmetrical. Her complexion was delicately beautiful, her countenance and aspect most agreeable, mingled with I know not what which was attractive.... Her presence and conversation were most winning, her manners courteous. It was a general saying 'She became whatsoever she wore or did.' Her voice in speaking was very grateful, and in song melodious. In her demeanour and carriage, an angelic modesty was united to a refined ease and dignity of manner, that made even princes[A] find great satisfaction, yea, profit, in conversing with her. Yet, these were withal without the least affectation, and were accompanied with such meekness and humility as gave confidence to the poorest and most miserable. There was nothing she did seem to have more horror of than there should be anything in herself or hers that might put a bar to the free access of any who should be in need of ought in their power to bestow."

No wonder that--with a brother to the right of him like Marmaduke Ward, and with a niece to the left o him like Mary Ward, "that great soul," who in after years, "in a plenitude of vision planned high deeds as immortal as the sun"[B]--Thomas Warde, the husband for eleven brief years (lacking nine days) of Margery Warde (born Slater), was instrumental, under Heaven, in giving effect to the all but too late repentance of the penitent, Christopher Wright!]

[Footnote A: Mary Ward was the friend or acquaintance of some of the greatest men and women in Europe. She was a friend of Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I. and daughter of Henry Bourbon, better known as "King Harry of Navarre."--See Macaulay's poem, "_Ivry_."]

[Footnote B: Line borrowed from Lord Bowen.--See his magnificent poem, ent.i.tled, "Shadowland," p. 214 of his "_Life_," by Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham, K.C.I.E. (Murray).]

[Footnote 113:--The second Edition is dated 1681. The Pamphlet was by a Dr. Williams, afterwards Bishop of Chichester.--See "_National Dictionary of Biography_."]

[Footnote 114:--The report would be at least second-hand, and it might be much more. For example, if Mr. Abington saw his wife write the Letter and told the worthy person what he (Abington) had by the evidence of his own eyes ascertained, then the worthy person would have the evidence at first-hand. Any person to whom the worthy person conveyed the intelligence would have it at second-hand, and so on. But if Mr. Abington had not seen his wife write the Letter, but had only been told by his wife that she had writ the Letter, then, although Abington would be a witness at first-hand _as to the bare fact of such a report having been made_, he would be only a witness at second-hand _as to the truth of the report_; for Mrs.

Abington, in herself reporting, might have spoken falsely either wilfully or through mental defect.]

[Footnote 115:--Vol. i., p. 585.]

[Footnote 116:--Jardine's "_Narrative_," p. 83.]

[Footnote 117:--Jardine's "_Narrative_" p. 84.]

[Footnote 118:--William Abington's chief poem was "Castara," sung in praise of his wife, the Honourable Lucia Powys. In the recent "_Oxford Book of English Verse_," selected by Quiller-Couch (Clarendon Press), there is a fine philosophic poem of the younger Abington (or Habington), ent.i.tled "_Nox nocti indicat scientiam_." John Amphlett, Esq., has edited the elder Abington's (or Habington's) "_Survey of Worcestershire_," with a valuable introduction, for the Worcestershire Historical Society.]

[Footnote 119:--It is, moreover, possible that, through her brother's good offices with the Government, Mrs. Abington had a sight of the Letter itself. If so, she would have been almost sure to detect the general similarity of the handwriting, notwithstanding the disguise, with the handwriting of Father Oldcorne, handwriting she must have known familiarly enough, to say nothing of the particular similarity in the case of certain of the letters.

As showing that, when at Hindlip, Father Oldcorne came into Mrs.

Abington's company, the following quotation may be given from one of Father Oldcorne's Declarations, dated 6th March, 1605-6:--"Both Garnett and he when there were no straungers did ordinarilye dyne and supp with Mr. Abington and his wyfe in the dyninge chamber."]

[Footnote 120:--Some idea of the feeling that Mrs. Abington and her husband must have had for this able and upright Jesuit, a true Jesuit in whom there was no guile, may be gathered from the following, which is taken from Foley's "_Records_," vol. iv., p. 213:--"Father Edward Oldcorne, S.J., came to Hindlip in the month of February or March, 1589, Mr. Richard Abington keeping house there at the time, who by the advice of other Catholics, then sojourning with him, sent into Warwickshire for the said Father to talk with Mrs. Dorothy Abington, his sister, about her religion, who, at the time living in the house with her brother Richard, was a very obstinate and perverse heretic, and had left the Court of Elizabeth, where she was brought up, to come and live with her brother princ.i.p.ally." We are told that Miss Abington desired to have speech on the subject of religion with some more than ordinarily learned Catholic.

"Father Oldcorne being sent for to that end, and after some earnest discourses with her for the s.p.a.ce of two days, and having yielded her full satisfaction in all points of religion, and showed such gravity, zeal, learning, and prudence in his proceeding with her that she was astonished thereat, and was unable to make any reply of contradiction to what he propounded to her."--From a MS. at Stonyhurst, Anglia, vol. vi., attributed to Father Thomas Lister, S.J.

Another ma.n.u.script account of Father Oldcorne says that he fasted and prayed for three days for the sake of this lady's conversion to the Catholic faith; after the third day he fell down from exhaustion, and yet a fourth day's fasting followed. Then the lady was converted and "became a sharer and partic.i.p.ant in the incredible fruit which he reaped in that county," _i.e._, Worcestershire.--See Foley's "_Records_," vol. iv., p.

213.

Father Gerard, in his "_Narrative_" of the Plot, says that the Government accused Father Oldcorne "of a sermon made in Christmas, wherein he should seem to excuse the conspirators, or to extenuate their act." The Government had this report from a certain Humphrey Littleton, concerning whom we shall learn more hereafter.

Richard, Thomas, and Dorothy Abington were brothers and sister respectively to Edward Abington, who suffered, in 1587, as one of the fellow-conspirators of Anthony Babington, a distinguished and captivating gentleman from Dethick, a chapelry or hamlet in the Parish of Ashover, in the County of Derbyshire. In the Parish Church of Ashover may be still seen monuments to members of the Babington family. (Communicated to me by my partner, Mr. G. Layc.o.c.k Brown, Solicitor, of York.)

The history of the romantic but ill-fated Babington conspiracy requires to be impartially re-written, and to this end diligent search should be made to find, if possible, the alleged contemporary history of that curious, ill-starred movement, which is said to have been written by the gifted Jesuit martyr, "the Venerable" Robert Southwell, S.J., the author of that exquisitely imaginative and tender poem, "The Burning Babe," an Elizabethan gem of the highest genius.--See the "_Oxford Book of English Verse_;" also Dr. Grossart's Edition of Southwell's Poetical Works, and Turnbull's Edition likewise.--A good Life of Southwell is a desideratum.]

[Footnote 121:--It is obviously unnecessary either in the former part or in the latter part of this Inquiry to a.s.sign separate logical divisions for the case of Thomas Ward. His evidence is common to both, and will appear in due course of this investigation.]

[Footnote 122:--Thomas Winter lodged apparently at an inn known by the sign of the "Duck and Drake," in St. Clement's Parish, in the Strand. This fact is proved by the testimony of John Cradock, a cutler, who deposed on the 6th of November, before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, that he had engraved the story of the Pa.s.sion of Christ on two sword hilts for Mr.

Rookwood and Mr. Winter, and on a third sword hilt for another gentleman, "a black man," of that company, of about forty years of age. The Winter here referred to, no doubt, was Thomas, not Robert, the elder brother.

For Cradock's evidence _in extenso_, see Appendix; also for evidence of Richard Browne, servant to Christopher Wright; also for letter of Popham, the Chief Justice to Salisbury, as to Christopher Wright; also for evidence of William Grantham as to purchase by Christopher Wright of beaver hats at the shop of a hatter, named Hewett.]

[Footnote 123:--This emphatic "surely all is lost," of Christopher Wright, is worthy of notice, as indicating the cert.i.tude of his frame of mind.

Now, "cert.i.tude" is the offspring of knowledge, and therefore of belief, and when it is not the life is the death of Hope, an emotion Wright had then clearly abandoned. Hence we may justly infer a special consciousness on Christopher Wright's part as to the genesis of the fact that the game was indeed up, thanks to the infatuated behaviour of his brother-in-law, Thomas Percy: "up" to all and singular the plotters' fatal undoing; yet, after all, traceable back indirectly to Christopher Wright's own repentant act and deed! Truly the repentant wrong-doer suffers temporal punishment by the everlasting Law of Retribution, which lives for ever!]

[Footnote 124:--Was this said by Christopher Wright on Sunday, the 3rd of November, at the meeting behind St. Clement's? There is none such statement recorded by Fawkes in any of his Declarations or Confessions in the Record Office, London.]

[Footnote 125:--See H. Speight's "_Nidderdale_" (Elliot Stock), p. 344.

The t.i.tle of this interesting work is "_Nidderdale and the Garden of the Nidd; A Yorkshire Rhineland_": being a complete account, historical, scientific, and descriptive, of the beautiful Valley of the Nidd.--See also "_Connoisseur_" for November, 1901.]

[Footnote 126:--Christopher Wright must have known well the great family of Hildyard, of Winestead, near Patrington. General Sir H. J. T. Hildyard, K.C.B., is a scion of this ancient house. The Hildyards are mentioned in the "_Hatfield MSS._"]

[Footnote 127:--This good woman's evidence proves that on the 5th of October Wright left her lodgings. Now, my suggestion is that Christopher Wright, after quitting Spurr Alley, went down into Warwickshire, probably to Lapworth. That thence he repaired to Hindlip Hall, four miles from Worcester, to have his interview with Father Oldcorne. Rookwood went to Clopton, close to Stratford-on-Avon, and not far from both Lapworth and Hindlip, soon after Michaelmas, _i.e._, the 11th of October (old style).

That about Michaelmas the diplomatic Thomas Warde came into Warwickshire and Worcestershire to interview Father Oldcorne, and give full a.s.surance to the Jesuit that he, Warde, as diplomatic go-between, would vouch for the conveyance of the Letter, on receipt of the same, to the Government authorities. That the shrewd, diplomatic Warde, all eyes and ears, from what he was ear-witness and eye-witness of at Lapworth, sent post-haste for his brother, Marmaduke Ward, of Newbie. Most probably William Ward, Marmaduke Ward's son, was at this time on a visit to his uncle Thomas in London.--See Kyddall's evidence as to "William Ward, nephew to Mr.

Wright."--The boy was sent down to Lapworth on November the 5th, the fatal Tuesday, in the charge of Kyddall. It is possible that William Ward, however, came up into Warwickshire along with his father and half-sister Mary. If so, he must have gone up to London between Marmaduke Ward's going to Lapworth and the flight of "uncle Christopher" on the 5th; for there is no evidence that William Ward accompanied Christopher Wright and Kyddall up to London on Monday, the 28th of October. Kyddall styles William Ward "nephew to Mr. Wright." Now, this designation would be, by common usage, accurate if Christopher Wright married Margaret Ward; otherwise, supposing William Ward's mother was Elizabeth Sympson, it would not be; for Ursula Wright would be naught akin to William Ward.]

[Footnote 128:--Mr. Jackson, "mine host" of "the Salutation," probably meant between a week and a fortnight when he said "about a fortnight."

"Many things had happened since then," so Mr. Jackson might easily fancy a longer time had elapsed than was really the case. For Kyddall's evidence shows that Christopher Wright was at Lapworth on the 24th October, and that he did not reach London till the 30th (Wednesday). On Wednesday Wright may have again called for his quart of sack or for the foaming tankard of the nut-brown ale, partly with a view to ascertaining whether or not any tidings had "leaked out" as to the Letter received by Salisbury, though, as a fact, it was not shown to the King until Friday, the 1st of November. Christopher Wright's last visit to "the Salutation"

was, belike, what is styled nowadays "a pop visit."

At Patrington, in Holderness, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, there is to-day (May, 1901) an ancient hostelry known by the sign of the "Dog and Duck." At this house, I doubt not, both John and Christopher Wright full many a time and oft had quenched their thirst and heard and discussed the rural gossip of their day; for Plowland Hall was only about a mile distant from the "Dog and Duck" and its good cheer. The "Hildyard Arms" and the "Holderness" Inn, Patrington, may have been likewise, belike, favourite haunts of theirs, for human nature is pretty much the same generation after generation. And even our social habits bind us to the Past. What thoughts crowd into the mind when one makes a visit to the "Dog and Duck,"

at Patrington, within a short walk of Plowland Hall!

It is possible that, between the reigns of Elizabeth and Victoria, Plowland Hall was reduced to smaller proportions than it had been in the days of John and Christopher Wright. This was the case with Ugthorpe Hall, the seat of the Catholic Ratcliffes, near Whitby, situate in a lovely little dingle or dell amid the Cleveland Moors; also it was the case with Grosmont House, the seat of the Catholic Hodgsons, near Whitby, situate near and almost laved by the rushing waters of the Yorkshire Esk.]

[Footnote 129:--Father Henry Garnet knew John Wright, but, according to Garnet's testimony, he did not know Christopher Wright, a fact which alone tends to show that the younger Wright was essentially a subordinate conspirator; for certainly Father Garnet knew, more or less, all the princ.i.p.al plotters, namely, Catesby, Thomas Winter, John Wright, Percy, and even Fawkes, whom he once saw, and to whom he gave letters of introduction when Fawkes went to Flanders, in 1605, to see Stanley and Owen.]

[Footnote 130:--Father Hart was captured, along with Father John Percy (alias Fisher, afterwards famous for his controversy with Archbishop Laud, who could not "abide" the Jesuits), at the house of Lord Vaux of Harrowden. Hart was banished for a time, but died in England, in 1650, aged seventy-two.

Query--Did Hart make any communication to Bellarmine or Eudaemon-Joannes, I wonder?]

[Footnote 131:--See Jardine's "_Criminal Trials_;" vol ii., p. 166.]

[Footnote 132:--See Foley's "_Records_," vol. i., p. 173, citing "Gunpowder Plot Book," No. 177. Eudaemon-Joannes, in his "_Apologia_" for Henry Garnet, gives reasons why Father Hart, S.J., may have thus acted.

Dr. Abbott, in his "_Antilogia_," in reply to Eudaemon-Joannes, answers Joannes at great length.]

[Footnote 133:--Vol. ii., p. 120. It may be here stated that by the Common Law of England a confessor was obliged to reveal the fact to the Government in the case of his receiving from a penitent the confession of the heinous crime of High Treason.

Garnet said that "the priest is bound to find all lawful means to hinder and discover it, but that the seal of the Confessional must be saved, _salvo sigillo confessionis_."--See Foley's "_Records_," vol. iv., p.

162.--It seems to me that this statement of Garnet is of the utmost importance.]

[Footnote 134:--Afterwards the well-known Lord c.o.ke, the famous Editor of Judge Littleton's work on "_Tenures_."--For a diverting account of c.o.ke and his domestic infelicities see Lord Macaulay's Essay on "Lord Bacon."]