The Life Of A Conspirator Part 2

[37] This Sir T. Gerard was committed to the Tower on an accusation "of a design to deliver Mary Queen of Scots out of her confinement."--_Burke's Peerage_, 1886, p. 576.

[38] _Life of Gerard_, p. clii.

I can fancy certain people, on reading all this, saying, "How very underhand!" I would ask them to bear in mind that for Father Gerard to have acted otherwise, and to have gone about in "priestly garments,"

under his own name, would have been the same thing as to have gone to the common hangman and to have asked him to be so obliging as to put the noose round his neck, and then to cut him down as quickly as possible in order that he might relish to the full the ghastly operation of disembowelling and quartering. To this it may be replied that to conceal his ident.i.ty might be all very well, but that it was quite another thing to stay at the house of a friend under that concealment, and, in the character of a layman and a guest, to decoy his host's wife from her husband's religion, in that host's and husband's absence, thus betraying his friendship and violating his hospitality.

My counter-reply would be, that his host had frequently discussed religious questions with both himself and Lee, and had shown, at least, a very friendly feeling towards Catholics in general and their religion; that, as has already been proved, he had in so many words declared himself free from any objection to the marriage of his own sister with a Catholic; nay, that he wished to see her[39] "married well, and to a Catholic, for he looked on Catholics as honourable men;" and that Lady Digby had determined to become a Catholic after due consideration and without any unfair external influence. As to his revealing his priestly character to her and exercising his priestly functions on her behalf, it must be observed that she had expressed a particular wish to see and to converse with a priest, without any such action on her part having been suggested to her by either Gerard or Lee, and that, if Gerard had continued to conceal his own priesthood, she would have simply been put to the trouble, and possibly the dangers, of searching for some other priest. If it be further objected that he ought at least to have waited until her husband's return, I must so far repeat myself as to point out that a man who had stated that he would have no objection whatever to his sister's being married to a Catholic, might be fairly a.s.sumed to have no objection to finding himself also married to a Catholic. Again, since Lady Digby was convinced that her soul would only be safe when in the fold of the Church, it would be natural that she should not like to admit of any delay in her reception into it. This being the case, the guests had their duties to their hostess, as well as to their host. It is unnecessary to enter here into the question whether wives should inform their husbands, and grown-up sons and daughters their parents, before joining the Roman Catholic Church; I may, however, be allowed to say that I believe it to be the usual opinion of priests, as well as laymen, as it certainly is of myself, that in most cases, although possibly not absolutely in every case, their doing so is not only desirable, but a duty, provided no hindrance to the following of the dictates of their consciences will result from so doing. Where it would have such an effect, our Lord's teaching is plain and unmistakeable--"He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."

[39] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cli.

Some Protestants are under the impression that a conversion like Lady Digby's, in which she consulted, and was received into the Church by, a "priest in disguise" is "just the sort of thing that Roman Catholics like." There could be no greater mistake! It is just what they do not like. The secrecy of priests in the reign of James I. was rendered necessary by persecution: so was that of the laity in housing and entertaining them: so also were the precautions to conceal the fact that ma.s.s was said in private houses, and that rooms were used as chapels.

Now I would not pretend for a moment that such a condition of things was wholesome for either priests, Jesuits, laymen, or laywomen. There are occasions on which secrecy may be a dire necessity, but it is, at best, a necessary evil, and its atmosphere is unnatural, cramping, dangerous, and demoralising, although the persecution producing it may lead to virtue, heroism, and even martyrdom. The persecutions of the early Christians by the Romans gave the Church hundreds of saints and martyrs; yet surely those persecutions did not directly tend to the welfare of Christianity; and I suppose that the authorities of the established Church in this country would scarcely consider that Anglicanism would be in a more wholesome condition if every diocese and cure were to be occupied by a bishop or priest of the Church of Rome under the authority of the Pope, although the privations of the dispossessed Anglican clergy, and the inconveniences of the Anglican laity, might be the means of bringing about many individual instances of laudable self-denial, personal piety, and religious zeal. On the same principle, I think that a Catholic student, with an elementary knowledge of the subject, when approaching the history of his co-religionists in England during the reign of James I., would have good grounds for expecting that, while many cases of valiant martyrdom and suffering for the faith would embellish the pages he was about to read, those pages would also reveal that the impossibility of priests and religious living a clerical life, and the necessity of their joining day by day in the pursuits and amus.e.m.e.nts of laymen--laymen, often, of gaiety and fashion, if nothing more--had led to serious irregularities in discipline; that the frequent intervals without ma.s.s, or any other religious service or priestly a.s.sistance, had had the effect of rendering the laity deficient in the virtues which religious exercises and sacraments are supposed to inculcate; that the constant and inevitable practice of secrecy and concealment had induced a habit of mind savouring of prevarication, if not of deception, and that in the embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances and among the hara.s.sing surroundings of their lives, clergy as well as laity had occasionally acted with neither tact nor discretion. No one is more alive to the sufferings or the injustices endured by English Catholics in the early part of the seventeenth century, or more admires the courage and patience shown by many, if not most, of those who bore them, than myself; and it is only in fairness to those sufferers, and with a desire to look at their actions honestly, and, as much as may be, impartially, that I approach the subject in this spirit. I have laid the more emphasis on the dangers of secrecy, be it ever so unavoidable or enforced, because of their bearing upon a matter which will necessarily figure largely in the forthcoming pages.

Lady Digby had no sooner been received into the Church than she became exceedingly anxious for the conversion of her husband, but news now arrived which made her anxious about him on another account. A messenger brought the tidings that Sir Everard was very seriously ill in London, and Lady Digby at once determined to start on the journey of some forty-five or fifty miles in order to nurse him. Her guests volunteered to go to him also, and they were able to accomplish the distance, over the bad roads of that period, much more rapidly than she was.

I will let Father Gerard give an account of his own proceedings with Digby for himself.[40] "I spoke to him of the uncertainty of life, and the certainty of misery, not only in this life, but especially in the next, unless we provided against it; and I showed him that we have here no abiding city, but must look for one to come. As affliction often brings sense, so it happened in this case, for we found little difficulty in gaining his goodwill.

[40] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cliii.

"He prepared himself well for confession after being taught the way; and when he learnt that I was a priest, he felt no such difficulty in believing as his wife had done, because he had known similar cases, but he rather rejoiced at having found a confessor who had experience among persons of his rank of life, and with whom he could deal at all times without danger of its being known that he was dealing with a priest.

After his reconciliation he began on his part to be anxious about his wife, and wished to consult with us how best to bring her to the Catholic religion. We both smiled at this, but said nothing at the time, determining to wait till his wife came up to town, that we might witness how each loving soul would strive to win the other."

When Digby had recovered and had returned to Gothurst with his wife, they both paid a visit to Father Gerard at the country house, some distance from their own home, at which he lived as chaplain. This was probably Mrs Vaux's house at Stoke Pogis, of which we shall have something to say a little later. While there, he was taken ill even more seriously than before. His life became in danger, and the best doctors in Oxford were sent for to his a.s.sistance. They despaired of curing him, and "he began to prepare himself earnestly for a good death." His poor young wife, being told that her husband could not recover, began "to think of a more perfect way of life," in case she should be left a widow. It may be thought that she might at least have waited to do this until after the death of her husband, but it is possible, and even probable, although not mentioned by Father Gerard, that Sir Everard himself desired her to consider what manner of life she would lead when he should be gone. She would be a very young widow with a large property, and Sir Everard would doubtless feel anxious as to what would become of her.[41] "For some days," says Father Gerard, "she gave herself to learn the method of meditation, and to find out G.o.d's will with regard to her future life, how she might best direct it to his glory. This was her resolution, but G.o.d had otherwise arranged, and for that time happily."

[41] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cliii.

Gerard himself was, humanly speaking, the means of prolonging Digby's life, for, in spite of the verdict of the great physicians from Oxford, that nothing could save him, Father Gerard refused to give up all hope, and persuaded him to send for a certain doctor of his own acquaintance from Cambridge. "By this doctor, then, he was cured beyond all expectation, and so completely restored to health that there was not a more robust or stalwart man in a thousand."

Not very long after he had become a Catholic, Digby was roughly reminded of the illegality of his position, by a rumour that his friend, Father Gerard, who had gone to a house to visit, as a priest, a person who was dying, was either on the point of being, or was actually, in the hands of pursuivants. This news distressed him terribly. He immediately told his wife that, if Father Gerard were arrested, he intended to take a sufficient number of friends and servants to rescue him, and to watch the roads by which he would probably be taken to London; and that "he would accomplish" his "release one way or another, even though he should spend his whole fortune in the venture." The danger of such an attempt at that period was obvious. Certainly his desire to set free Father Gerard was most praiseworthy, but whether, had he attempted it in the way he proposed, he would have benefitted or injured the Catholic cause in England, may be considered at least doubtful. A rescue by an armed force would have meant a free fight, probably accompanied by some bloodshed, with this result, that, if successful, the perpetrators would most likely have been discovered, and sooner or later very severely dealt with as aggressors against the officers of the law in the execution of their duty, and that, if unsuccessful, the greater proportion of the rescuing party would have met their deaths either on the field at the time, or on the gallows afterwards. To attempt force against the whole armed power of the Crown seemed a very Quixotic undertaking, and the idea of dispersing the whole of his wealth, whether in the shape of armed force or other channels, in a chimerical effort to set free his friend, however generous in intent, scarcely recommends itself as the best method of using it for the good of the cause he had so much at heart. This incident shows Digby's hastiness and impetuosity. Fortunately, the report of Father Gerard's arrest turned out to be false; so, for the moment, any excited and unwise action on Sir Everard's part was avoided.

CHAPTER III.

A change of religion causes, to most of those who make it, a very forcible wrench. It may be, probably it usually is, accompanied by great happiness and a sensation of intense relief; no regrets whatever may be felt that the former faith, with its ministers, ceremonies, and churches have been renounced for ever; on the contrary, the convert may be delighted to be rid of them, and in turning his back upon the religion of his childhood, he may feel that he is dismissing a false teacher who has deceived him, rather than that he is bidding farewell to a guide who has conducted him, however unintentionally, unwittingly, or unwillingly, to the gate of safety. Yet granting, and most emphatically granting, all this, we should not forget that there is another view of his position.

Let his rejoicing be ever so great at entering that portal and leaving the land of darkness for the regions of light, be the welcome he receives from his future co-religionists as warm as it may, and be his confidence as great as is conceivable, the convert is none the less forsaking a well-known country for one that is new to him, he is leaving old friends to enter among strangers, and he is exchanging long-formed habits for practices which it will take him some time to understand, to acquire, and to familiarize.

A convert, again, is not invariably free from dangers. Let us take the case of Sir Everard Digby. A man with his position, popularity, wealth, intellect, and influence, was a convert of considerable importance from a human point of view, and he must have known it. If he lost money and friends by his conversion, much and many remained to him, and among the comparatively small number of Catholics he might become a more leading man than as a unit in the vast crowd professing his former faith; and although, on the whole, the step which he had taken was calculated to be much against his advancement in life, there are certain attractions in being the princ.i.p.al or one of the princ.i.p.al men of influence in a considerable minority. I am not for a moment questioning Digby's motives in becoming a Catholic; I believe they were quite unexceptionable; all that I am at the moment aiming at is to induce the reader to keep before his mind that the position of an influential English convert, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, like most other positions, had its own special temptations and dangers, and my reasons for this aim will soon become obvious.

In comparing the situation of a convert to Catholicism in the latter days of Elizabeth or the early days of James I., with one in the reign of Victoria, we are met on the threshold with the fact that terrible bodily pains, and even death itself, threatened the former, while the latter is exposed to no danger of either for his religion. In the matter of legal fines and forfeitures, again, the persecution of the first was enormous, whereas the second suffers none. But of these pains and penalties I shall treat presently. Just in pa.s.sing I may remark that many a convert now living has reason for doubting whether any of his forerunners in the times of Elizabeth or James I. suffered more pecuniary loss than he. One parent or uncle, by altering a will, can cause a Romish recusant more loss than a whole army of pursuivants.

Looking at the positions of converts at the two periods from a social point of view, we find very different conditions. Instead of being regarded, as he is now, in the light of a fool who, in an age of light, reason, and emanc.i.p.ation from error, has wilfully retrograded into the grossest of all forms of superst.i.tion, the convert, in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, was known to be returning to the faith professed by his fathers, one, two, or, at most, three generations before him. It was not then considered a case of "turning Roman Catholic," but of returning to the old religion, and even by people who cared little, if at all, about such matters, he was rather respected than otherwise.

Now it is different. During the two last generations, so many conversions have apparently been the result of what is known as the Oxford Movement, or of Ritualism, that converts are much a.s.sociated in men's minds with ex-clergymen, or with clerical families; and to tell the truth, at least a considerable minority of Anglicans of good position, while they tolerate, invite to dinner, and patronise their parsons, in their inmost hearts look down upon and rather dislike the clergy and the clergy-begotten.

At present, again, a prejudice is felt in England against an old Catholic, _prima facie_, on the ground that he is probably either an Irishman, of Irish extraction, or of an ancient Catholic English family rendered effete by idleness, owing to religious disabilities, or by a long succession of intermarriages. It would be easy to prove that these prejudices, if not altogether without foundation in fact, are immensely and unwarrantably exaggerated, but my object, at present, is merely to state that they exist. Three hundred years ago, whatever may have been the prejudices against Catholics, old or new, they cannot have arisen on such grounds as these, and if Protestants attributed the tenacity of the former and the determined return of the latter to their ancient faith rather to pride than to piety, there is no doubt which motive would be most respected in the fashionable world.

The conduct of the Digbys, immediately after their conversion, was most exemplary. They threw themselves heart and soul into their religion, and Father Gerard, who had received them into the Church, writes[42] of Sir Everard in the highest terms, saying:--"He was so studious a follower of virtue, after he became a Catholic, that he gave great comfort to those that had the guiding of his soul (as I have heard them seriously affirm more than once or twice), he used his prayers daily both mental and vocal, and daily and diligent examination of his conscience: the sacraments he frequented devoutly every week, &c."

"Briefly I have heard it reported of this knight, by those that knew him well and that were often in his company, that they did note in him a special care of avoiding all occasions of sin and of furthering acts of virtue in what he could."

[42] _A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 89.

He read a good deal in order to be able to enter into controversy with Protestants, and he was the means of bringing several into the Church--"some of great account and place." As to his conversation, "not only in this highest kind, wherein he took very great joy and comfort, but also in ordinary talk, when he had observed that the speech did tend to any evil, as detraction or other kind of evil words which sometimes will happen in company, his custom was presently to take some occasion to alter the talk, and cunningly to bring in some other good matter or profitable subject to talk of. And this, when the matter was not very grossly evil, or spoken to the dishonour of G.o.d or disgrace of his servants; for then, his zeal and courage were such that he could not bear it, but would publicly and stoutly contradict it, whereof I could give divers instances worth relating, but am loth to hold the reader longer." Finally, in speaking of those "that knew him" and those "that loved him," Father Gerard says, "truly it was hard to do the one and not the other."

Like most Catholics living in the country, and inhabiting houses of any size, the Digbys made a chapel in their home, "a chapel with a sacristy," says Father Gerard,[43] "furnishing it with costly and beautiful vestments;" and they "obtained a Priest of the Society" (of Jesus) "for their chaplain, who remained with them to Sir Everard's death." Of this priest, Gerard says[44] that he was a man "who for virtue and learning hath not many his betters in England." This was probably Father Strange,[45] who usually pa.s.sed under the _alias_ of Hungerford. He was the owner of a property, some of which, in Gloucestershire, he sold,[46] and "2000 thereof is in the Jesuites'

bank" said a witness against him. He was imprisoned, after Sir Everard Digby's death, for five or six years.[47] In an underground dungeon in the Tower[48] "he was so severely tortured upon the rack that he dragged on the rest of his life for thirty-three years in the extremest debility, with severe pains in the loins and head." Once when he was in agony upon the rack, a Protestant minister began to argue with him about religion; whereupon, turning to the rack-master, Father Strange[49]

"asked him to hoist the minister upon a similar rack, and in like fetters and tortures, otherwise, said he, we shall be fighting upon unequal terms; for the custom everywhere prevails amongst scholars that the condition of the disputants be equal."

[43] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clv.

[44] _A Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 89.

[45] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, by Father Pollen, p.

15.

[46] _Records of the English Province._ S.J. Series, ix. x. xi., p.

3.

[47] _Ib._, p. 5, and Stoneyhurst MSS.

[48] _Ib._, p. 3.

[49] _Ib._, p. 4.

Another Jesuit Father, at one time private chaplain to Sir Everard Digby, was Father John Percy,[50] who afterwards, under the _alias_ of Fisher, held the famous controversy with Archbishop Laud in the presence of the king and the Countess of Buckingham, to whom he acted as chaplain for ten years. He also had been fearfully tortured in prison, in the reign of Elizabeth; and if he recounted his experiences on the rack to Sir Everard Digby, the hot blood of the latter would be stirred up against the Protestant Governments that could perpetrate or tolerate such iniquities.

[50] _Records_, S.J. Series, i., p. 527.

In trying to picture to himself the "chapel with a sacristy" made by the Digbys at Gothurst, a romantic reader may imagine an ecclesiastical gem, in the form of a richly-decorated chamber filled with sacred pictures, figures of saints, crucifixes, candles, and miniature shrines.

Before taking the trouble of raising any such representation before the mind, it would be well to remember that, in the times of which we are treating, that was the most perfect and the best arranged chapel in which the altar, cross, chalice, vestments, &c., could be concealed at the shortest possible notice, and the chamber itself most quickly made to look like an ordinary room. The altar was on such occasions a small slab of stone, a few inches in length and breadth, and considerably less than an inch in thickness. It was generally laid upon the projecting shelf of a piece of furniture, which, when closed, had the appearance of a cabinet. Some few remains of altars and other pieces of "ma.s.sing stuff," as Protestants called it, of that date still remain, as also do many simple specimens used in France during the Revolution of last century, which have much in common with them. To demonstrate the small s.p.a.ce in which the ecclesiastical contents of a private chapel could be hidden away in times of persecution, I may say that, even now, for priests who have the privilege of saying ma.s.s elsewhere than in churches or regular chapels--for instance, in private rooms, on board ship,[51]

or in the ward of a hospital--altar, chalice, paten, cruets, altar-cloths, lavabo, alb, amice, girdle, candlesticks, crucifix, wafer-boxes, wine-flask, Missal, Missal-stand, bell, holy-oil stocks, pyx, and a set of red and white vestments (reversible)--in fact, everything necessary for saying ma.s.s, as well as for administering extreme unction to the sick, can be carried in a case 18 inches in length, 12 inches in width, and 8 inches in depth. Occasionally, as we are told of the Digbys, rich people may have had some handsome vestments; but a private chapel early in the sixteenth century must have been a very different thing from what we a.s.sociate with the term in our own times, and however well furnished it may have been as a room, it must have been almost devoid of "ecclesiastical luxury."

[51] In his _Mores Catholici_ (Cincinnati, 1841, Vol. II. p. 364), Kenelm H. Digby says that "Portable altars were in use long before the eleventh century. St Wulfran, Bishop of Sens, pa.s.sing the sea in a ship, is said to have celebrated the sacred mysteries upon a portable altar."

Here and there were exceptions, in which Catholics were very bold, but they always got into trouble. For instance, when Luisa de Carvajal came to England, she was received at a country house--possibly Scotney Castle, on the borders of Kent and Suss.e.x--the chapel of which[52] "was adorned with pictures and images, and enriched with many relics. Several ma.s.ses were said in it every day, and accompanied by beautiful vocal and instrumental music." It was "adorned not only with all the requisites, but all the luxuries, so to speak, of Catholic worship;" and Luisa could walk "on a spring morning in a pleached alley, saying her beads, within hearing of the harmonious sounds of holy music floating in the balmy air." What was the consequence? "The beautiful dream was rudely dispelled. One night, after she had been at this place about a month, a secret warning was given to the master of this hospitable mansion, that he had been denounced as a harbourer of priests, and that the pursuivants would invade his house on the morrow. On the receipt of this information, measures were immediately taken to hide all traces of Catholic worship, and a general dispersion took place." I only give this as a typical case to show how necessary it then was to make chapels and Catholic worship as secret as possible.

[52] _The Life of Luisa de Carvajal_, by Lady G. Fullerton, p. 154, _seq._

Sir Everard Digby was anxious that others, as well as himself, should join the body which he believed to be the one, true, and only Church of G.o.d, and of this I have nothing to say except in praise. An anecdote of his efforts in this direction, however, is interesting as showing, not only the necessities of the times, but also something of the character and disposition of the man. In studying a man's life, there may be a danger of building too much upon his actions, as if they proved his inclinations, when they were in reality only the result of exceptional circ.u.mstances, and I have no wish to force the inferences, which I myself draw from the following facts, upon the opinions of other people; I merely submit them for what they are worth.

Father Gerard says[53] that Sir Everard "had a friend for whom he felt a peculiar affection," namely, Oliver Manners, the fourth son of John, fourth Earl of Rutland, and said by Father J. Morris[54] to have been knighted by King James I. "on his coming from Scotland," on April 22nd, 1603, but by Burke,[55] "at Belvoir Castle, 23rd April 1608." He was very anxious that this friend should be converted to the Catholic faith, and that, to this end, he should make the acquaintance of Father Gerard; "but because he held an office in the Court, requiring his daily attendance about the King's person, so that he could not be absent for long together," this "desire was long delayed." At last Sir Everard met Manners in London at a time when he knew that Father Gerard was there also, "and he took an opportunity of asking him to come at a certain time to play at cards, for these are the books gentlemen in London study both night and day." Instead of inviting a card-party, Digby invited no one except Father Gerard, and when Manners arrived, he found Gerard and Digby "sitting and conversing very seriously." The latter asked him "to sit down a little until the rest should arrive." After a short silence Sir Everard said:--

[53] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clxvi. _seq._

[54] _Ib._, footnote to p. cciii.