The Life Of A Conspirator Part 4

Nor was this the only ground on which the persecutions by James appeared unfair, tyrannical, and odious to Catholics. During the reign of Elizabeth they had endured their sufferings as the penalties of a religion contradicting that of their monarch. Perhaps they did not altogether blame her so much for her persecutions, as for persecuting the right religion in mistake for the wrong; and, after all, they knew she had been persuaded by her Council that, for purposes of State, it was necessary to break off relations with the Apostolic See, and to maintain the newly-fangled Anglican faith; they knew that the refusal of Rome to acknowledge her legitimacy, threatened the very foundations of her throne, and consequently made every Catholic seem a traitor in her eyes; they knew, too, that the Holy See had favoured Mary Queen of Scots, whom she had regarded as her most dangerous rival. Under these circ.u.mstances, therefore, while they found their troubles and trials excessively bitter, they may not have been very profoundly astonished at them. But when James, after a brief respite, continued and even increased the persecutions of the previous reign, they looked at the matter in quite a different light. In the first place, they expected that the Protestant son of so Catholic a mother, who had suffered imprisonment and death because she was a Catholic, could scarcely become the friend and accomplice of those who had betrayed and martyred his mother. I am not trenching on the question of the martyrdom of Mary Queen of Scots; I am merely writing of the feeling respecting her death, prevalent at that time among members of her own religion in this country. Secondly, unlike Elizabeth, James had no cause for fearing the Holy See; it never questioned his legitimacy; it had a.s.sisted him when King of Scotland; its adherents in England had almost universally hailed his accession to the crown with loyalty and rejoicing; and, as I have already shown, the Pope had sent messages to him, offering to a.s.sist in a.s.suring the allegiance of the Catholics by removing any priests who might be obnoxious to him.

Even Goodman, the Protestant Bishop of Gloucester, wrote[72]:--"After Sixtus Quintus succeeded Clement Octavus, a man, according to his name, who was much given to mercy and compa.s.sion. Now to him King James did make suit to favour his t.i.tle to the crown of England, which as King James doth relate in his book, _Triplici nodo triplex cuneus_, the Pope did promise to do." James said that he would show favour to Catholics[73] "were it not that the English would take it ill, and it would much hinder him in his succession; and withall, that his own subjects in Scotland were so violent against Catholics, that he, being poor, durst not offend them. Whereupon the Pope replied, that if it were for want of means, he would exhaust all the treasures of the church and sell the plate to supply him." And again, says Goodman of the English Catholics and King James[74]:--"And certainly they had very great promises from him." Nevertheless,[75] "he did resolve to run a course against the papists," and "at his discourses at table usually he did express much hatred to them."

[72] _The Court of King James I._, Vol. i. p. 82 _seq._

[73] _Ib._, p. 83.

[74] _The Court of King James I._, Vol. i. p. 86.

[75] _Ib._ p. 87.

Father Gerard writes that[76] there were "particular emba.s.sagies and letters from His Majesty unto other Princes, giving hope at least of toleration to Catholics in England, of which letters divers were translated this year into French and came so into England, as divers affirmed that had seen them." He was also "well a.s.sured that immediately upon Queen Elizabeth's sickness and death, divers Catholics of note and fame, Priests also, did ride post into Scotland, as well to carry the a.s.surance of dutiful affection from all Catholics unto His Majesty as also to obtain his gracious favour for them and his royal word for confirmation of the same. At that time, and to those persons, it is certain he did promise that Catholics should not only be quiet from any molestations, but should also enjoy such liberty in their houses privately as themselves would desire, and have both Priests and Sacraments with full toleration and desired quiet. Both the Priests that did kneel before him when he gave this promise (binding it with the word of a Prince, which he said was never yet broken), did protest so much unto divers from whom I have it. And divers others, persons of great worth, have a.s.sured me the same upon the like promise received from His Majesty, both for the common state of Catholics and their own particular."

[76] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 24.

It is dangerous to make too much of evidence against which there may be the shadow of a suspicion. Father Gerard's personal testimony can be accepted without the smallest hesitation; but that of Father Watson, who was probably one of the priests he mentioned who "did kneel before"

James when he made the solemn promise which Father Gerard heard of at second hand, should be received with more caution. Lord Northampton's statement in his speech at Sir Everard Digby's trial should certainly obtain very careful consideration. "No man," said he,[77] "can speak more soundly to the point than myself; for being sent into the prison by the King to charge him with this false alarm" (_i.e._, the report that James had promised toleration to Catholics), "only two days before his death, and upon his soul to press him in the presence of G.o.d, and as he would answer it at another bar, to confess directly whether at either or both these times he had access unto his Majesty at Edinburgh, his Majesty did give him any promise, hope, or comfort of encouragement to Catholics concerning toleration; he did there protest upon his soul that he could never win one inch of ground or draw the smallest comfort from the King in those degrees, nor further than that he would have them apprehend, that as he was a stranger to this state, so, till he understood in all points how those matters stood, he would not promise favour any way; but did protest that all the crowns and kingdoms in this world should not induce him to change any jot of his profession, which was the pasture of his soul and earnest of his eternal inheritance. He did confess that in very deed, to keep up the hearts of Catholics in love and duty to the King, he had imparted the King's words to many, in a better tune and a higher kind of descant than his book of plainsong did direct, because he knew that others, like sly bargemen, looked that way when their stroke was bent another way. For this he craved pardon of the King in humble manner, and for his main treasons, of a higher nature than these figures of hypocrisy, and seemed penitent, as well for the horror of his crime as for the falsehood of his whisperings."

[77] _Criminal Trials_, Jardine, Vol. ii. p. 177.

Probably Northampton may have exaggerated, possibly he may have lied, in making this statement; but there is this to be remembered, that owing to his false testimony against the Jesuits, already recorded in this chapter, Father Watson must be regarded as a somewhat discredited witness, and it will not do for us Catholics to accept his verbal evidence against King James, and then to turn round and repudiate the evidence against the Jesuits in his own handwriting,[78] without some very strong reason for so doing. A reason of a certain strength does indeed exist; for Watson's evidence against James was given freely and uninterestedly; whereas his evidence against the Jesuits may very probably have been offered in the hope that it might be accepted as the price of pardon, or at least of some mitigation of the awful sufferings included in the form of death to which he had been sentenced.

[78] Quoted above. I copied from Dodd; but the original may be found in the S.P. Dom., James I., Vol. iii. n. 16.

Even if we altogether discard Watson's evidence of James's promises, enough remains to satisfy my own mind that the new king had given the Catholics more or less hope of toleration; and, if I am too easily satisfied on this point, there can be no sort of question that Sir Everard Digby, who was often with Father Gerard, and that many other English Catholics had been a.s.sured, rightly or wrongly, and believed, wrongly or rightly, that King James had solemnly promised to give them immunity from persecution, if not freedom of worship, and that he had basely and treacherously broken his faith with them and sold them for the price of popularity among his far more numerous Protestant subjects: who, then, can blame them for considering themselves to have been most unjustly, perfidiously, and infamously treated by that monarch?

It may be worth while to quote here again from Goodman, the Protestant Bishop of Gloucester, respecting the persecutions of the Catholics in the reign of James.[79] "Now that they saw the times settled, having no hope of better days, but expecting that the uttermost rigour of the law should be executed, they became desperate; finding that by the laws of the kingdom their own lives were not secured, and for the coming over of a priest into England it was no less than high treason. A gentlewoman was hanged only for relieving and harbouring a priest; a citizen was hanged only for being reconciled to the Church of Rome: besides, the penal laws were such and so executed that they should not subsist:--what was usually sold in shops and openly bought, this the pursuivant would take away from them as being popish and superst.i.tious. One knight did affirm that in one term he gave twenty n.o.bles in rewards to the doorkeeper of the attorney-general; another did affirm, that his third part which remained to him of his estate did hardly serve for his expense in law to defend him from other oppressions, besides their children to be taken from home to be brought up in another religion. So they did every way conclude that their estate was desperate, etc." If objection should be taken to Goodman as a witness on the Protestant side, on the ground that he eventually became a Catholic, I would reply that, at the time he wrote what I have quoted, he was, as the editor of his _Court of James the First_ says,[80] "an earnest and zealous supporter of the Church," of England, and of James I., Goodman himself writes[81] in that very book:--"Truly I did never know any man of so great an apprehension, of so great love and affection--a man so truly just, so free from all cruelty and pride, such a lover of the church, and one that had done so much good for the church." Such an admirer of King James might certainly be trusted not to say a word that he could honestly avoid about the ill-treatment endured by any cla.s.s of his subjects during his reign.

[79] _The Court of King James I._, Vol. i. pp. 100-1.

[80] Introduction, p. viii.

[81] Vol. i. p. 91.

CHAPTER V.

Considering that the king had been led to distrust the Catholics through the two lately discovered plots in which some of their number had taken part, the best policy for those who remained loyal, and these were by far the majority, would have been to have taken every opportunity of displaying their faithfulness to their sovereign, and, for those whose position so ent.i.tled them, to present themselves as often as they conveniently could at his Court, even if their welcome was somewhat cold. Digby chose to follow an exactly opposite course. He went to Court on James's accession and received knighthood, and then he returned to the country, only visiting London occasionally, and then not going to Court. Like his fellow-Catholics, he at first entertained hopes that the new king was about to exhibit toleration, and as much as any of them was he disappointed and embittered as time speedily began to prove the contrary. One cause of Sir Everard Digby's disgust at the aspect of affairs, early in James the First's reign, may have been that, as a courtier, he had expected much from the Queen's being a Catholic,[82]

and that not only did no apparent good come of it, but her example gave the greatest discouragement, as well as grave scandal, to such of her subjects as professed her own religion. Indeed, all that can safely be said of her Catholicism, is that she was[83] "a Catholic, so far, at least, as her pleasure-loving nature allowed her to be of any religion at all." Nevertheless, "she took great delight in consecrated,"--or, as Catholics would say, blessed or sacred--"objects." She had allowed herself to be crowned by[84] "a Protestant Archbishop; but when the time arrived for the reception of the Communion, she remained immovable on her seat, leaving the King to partake alone." "Enthusiastic Catholics complained that she had no heart for anything but festivities and amus.e.m.e.nts, and during the rest of her life she attended the services of the church sufficiently to enable the Government to allege that she was merely an enemy of Puritanical strictness." On one occasion, the king,[85] "with some difficulty," had actually "induced her to receive the Communion with him at Salisbury, but she had been much vexed with herself since, and had refused to do it again. On Christmas Day she had accompanied him to Church, but since then he found it impossible to induce her to be present at a Protestant service. At one time Sir Anthony Standen, a Catholic, was employed by James on a mission to some of the Italian States, and he brought home with him some objects of devotion, as a present from the Pope to the Queen of England. These delighted her; yet, when the king heard of them, they were returned to the Pope through the Nuncio in Paris."

[82] In his _History of the Catholic Church in Scotland_, translated by Father H. Blair, Canon Bellesheim says (Vol. iii. p. 347) that she was probably received into the Church in 1600. But Father Forbes Leith, in his _Narrative_ (pp. 272 _seq_.) gives an authority stating it to have taken place in 1598.

See also a very interesting article on "Anne of Denmark," by the Rev. J. Stevenson, in _The Month_, Vol. 16 (x.x.xv.) pp. 256-265.

[83] _History of England_, from 1603-42. By S. R. Gardiner, Vol. i.

p. 142. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13/23, 16/26; Persons to Aldobrandino, September 18/28, _Roman Transcripts_, R.O.

[84] _History of England_, Gardiner, Vol. i, p. 116. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, Aug. 11, 1/11, _Roman Transcripts_, R.O.

[85] _History of England_, Gardiner, Vol. i. p. 142.

Now to any good Catholic, especially to an exceedingly zealous convert in his first fervour, like Sir Everard Digby, a Protestant king might be tolerable, provided he treated his Catholic subjects properly; but a court presided over by a queen, herself a convert, who was a most indifferent Catholic, if not an apostate,[86] would be odious in the extreme. It was difficult enough, in any case, to make many simple Catholics understand that there was anything very wrong in avoiding persecution by putting in an occasional appearance at the Protestant churches, without joining in the service, if they heard ma.s.s when they could, and went regularly to confession and communion; but the difficulty was immensely increased when they heard that the greatest lady in the land, who was herself a Catholic, did that very thing.

Again, the country-gentlemen of high estate, Sir Everard Digby among them, suffered fines and penalties for their faith; yet here was the Catholic queen herself, contently living in the greatest luxury, and yielding on the most important points of her religion, in order to obtain it.[87] No wonder, therefore, that Sir Everard Digby absented himself from Court, however impolitic it may have been in him to do so.

[86] In her _Queens of England_, Miss Strickland gives her authority for the statement that Queen Ann died "in edifying communion with the Church of England."

[87] Her practical concealment of her religion may have been chiefly on her husband's account. Father Abercromby, S.J., who received her into the Church, wrote that James I. said to her:--"Rogo te, mea uxor, si non potes sine hujusmodi (sacerdote) vivere, utaris quam poteris, secretissime, alias peric.l.i.tabitur corona nostra."

Bellesheim's Hist., p. 453.

In his country home, at Gothurst, he brooded, with much impatience, over the wrongs of his co-religionists, nor can it have been a pleasant reflection that at any moment his beautiful house might be broken into by pursuivants, who would hunt every recess and cupboard in it, in search of a priest, or of what Anglicans then denominated "ma.s.sing-stuff." Should they suspect that the most richly carved pieces of oak-work concealed a hiding-place, the "officers of justice" would ruthlessly shatter them to pieces with axe or crowbar; his wife's private rooms would not be safe from the intrusion of the pursuivants, or the bevy of rough followers who might accompany them; and, if his house were filled with guests, even were they Protestants, it would none the less necessarily be given up to the intruders for so long a time as they might choose to remain. The invasion would be as likely to be made by night as by day; no notice would be given of its approach, and, as its result, not only might the domestic chaplain be carried off a prisoner, with his face to a horse's tail and his legs tied together beneath its girths, but Sir Everard himself would be liable to be taken away in the same humiliating position, on a charge of High Treason.

The fine which Catholics had to pay must have been sufficiently annoying even to a rich man like Sir Everard Digby, and this annoyance would be greatly increased by the knowledge that to poorer men it meant ruin, as well as by the remarks of his less wealthy Catholic friends that "after all, to him it was a mere nothing."

The present was bad enough, and worse things were expected in the future. Most of us know the fears with which we hear that a Prime Minister of opposite politics to our own is going to bring in a bill, in the coming session, directed against our personal interests; even the coming budget of a Chancellor of the Exchequer on our own side of the House, in a very bad year, is antic.i.p.ated with serious misgivings.

Imagine, therefore, the terrors of the Catholics whose lives would already have been rendered unendurable, had the laws existing against them been put into full force, when they not only observed a rapidly increasing zeal among magistrates and judges in their proceedings against Romish recusants, but heard, on what appeared to be excellent authority, that additional, and most cruel, legislation against them was to be enacted in the Parliament shortly to be opened.

One of the most remarkable features in Sir Everard Digby's character was his extreme susceptibility to the influence of others; and, for this reason, what may seem, at first sight, an undue proportion of a volume devoted to his biography, must necessarily be allotted to a description of the friends, and more especially one particular friend, under whose influence he fell; and, if my readers should sometimes imagine that I have forgotten Sir Everard Digby altogether, or if they should feel inclined to accuse me of writing Catesby's life rather than Digby's, I can a.s.sure them that I am guiltless on both counts. For the moment, however, I must beg them to prepare themselves for an immediate and long digression, or rather an apparent digression, and warn them that it will be followed by many others.

To an impetuous man, zealous to the last degree, but not according to knowledge, few things are more dangerous than an intimate friend of similar views and temperament. Exactly such a friend had Sir Everard Digby. Here is a description of him by one who knew him well.[88] He "grew to such a composition of manners and carriage, to such a care of his speech (that it might never be hurtful to others, but taking all occasions of doing good), to such a zealous course of life, both for the cause in general, and for every particular person whom he could help in G.o.d's service, as that he grew to be very much respected by most of the better and graver sort of Catholics, and of Priests, and Religious also, whom he did much satisfy in the care of his conscience; so that it might plainly appear he had the fear of G.o.d joined with an earnest desire to serve Him. And so no marvel though many Priests did know him and were often in his company. He was, moreover, very wise and of great judgment, though his utterance was not so good. Besides, he was so liberal and apt to help all sorts, as it got him much love. He was of person above two yards high, and, though slender, yet as well proportioned to his height as any man one should see. His age (I take it) at his death was about thirty-five, or thereabouts. And to do him right, if he had not fallen into"--one particular and exceedingly "foul action and followed his own judgment in it (to the hurt and scandal of many), asking no advice but of his own reasons deceived and blinded under the shadow of zeal; if, I say, it had not been for this, he had truly been a man worthy to be highly esteemed and prized in any commonwealth."

[88] Father Gerard's _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 56, 57.

Be his attractions and virtues what they might, this man, Robert Catesby, had not anything like such an unblemished past as his friend, Sir Everard Digby. He was of an old Warwickshire and Northamptonshire family--he was the lineal descendant of William Catesby, who was attainted and executed for high treason after the battle of Bosworth Field.[89] Robert Catesby's father, who had been an ardent Catholic, had suffered considerable losses in his estate, and been imprisoned on account of his religion; but Robert himself, on his father's death, apostatized, became exceedingly dissolute, and still further impoverished the family property by his extravagance. Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, says of him:[90] "For Catesby, it is very well known that he was a very cunning, subtle man, exceedingly entangled in debts, and scarce able to subsist."

[89] Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, p. 506. Jardine's _Criminal Trials_, Vol. ii. p. 26.

[90] _Court of King James I._, Vol. i p. 103.

Some three or four years before Sir Everard Digby's conversion, Catesby had returned to the faith of his fathers. Whatever may have been the love of his G.o.d manifested by the reformed reprobate, his hatred of his queen, and afterwards of his king, was unmeasured. I have no desire to say anything in disparagement of Catesby's religious fervour; but, considering that he had once abjured the Catholic faith, it may be no harm to remark that some people seem to like to profess the religion hated most by their enemies, and to exhibit zeal for it in proportion to that shown by their enemies against it. With several of his friends, Catesby joined the ill-fated conspiracy of the Earl of Ess.e.x, in the course of which he was wounded, taken prisoner, and finally ransomed for 3000 in all. When fighting for Ess.e.x, he greatly distinguished himself as a swordsman. Later, as I have already said, he was implicated in the intrigue that sent Christopher Wright and Guy Fawkes to Madrid in the hope of inducing Philip of Spain to depose James I. A modern Jesuit, Father J. Hungerford Pollen, has well said of him:[91] "The owner of large estates in the counties of Northampton, Warwick, and Oxford, honourably married, with issue to perpetuate the ancient family of which he was the only representative--such is not the sort of man we should have thought likely to engage in a desperate adventure, and this presumption might be further strengthened by the consideration of his moral qualities. He was brave and accomplished, attractive to that degree which makes even sober men risk life and fortune to follow where he should lead, honest of purpose and truthful, and, above all, exceedingly zealous for religion. These qualities should have, and would have, insured him from the frightful error into which he fell, had they not run to excess in more than one direction. Full of the chivalry that characterised the Elizabethan period, he was also infected with its worldliness, a failing which ill accorded with the patience every Catholic had to practice, and, moreover, his force of character carried him into obstinate adherence to his own views and plans. This it was that worked such ruin upon himself and all those who came in contact with him. Happy times may lead such men so to direct their energies, that the evil side of their character is never displayed, but times of great temptation often bring out the latent flaw in unexpected ways."

[91] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 1 and 2.

This is admirably put, except, perhaps, on one single point; and it is one of such importance that I will pause to consider it, especially as it applies to Sir Everard Digby, almost, if not quite, as much as to Catesby. In the reign of Elizabeth, it was not chivalry but the decay and abolition of chivalry and the chivalrous spirit which occasionally led to deeds which a knight-errant would have despised. As Sir Walter Scott says:--[92] "the habit of constant and honourable opposition, unembittered by rancour or personal hatred, gave the fairest opportunity for the exercise of the virtues required from him whom Chaucer terms a very perfect gentleman." Again he says:--"We have seen that the abstract principles of chivalry were, in the highest degree, virtuous and n.o.ble, nay, that they failed by carrying to an absurd, exaggerated, and impracticable point, the honourable duties which they inculcated."

Chivalry, therefore, acted as a wholesome check upon the barbarity, the licentiousness, and the semi-civilisation of the middle ages, and when it was abolished, the knights and n.o.bles, in spite of all the glamour of refinement and education in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, still retained enough of the savage brutality of their forefathers to be occasionally very dangerous, when the discipline of chivalry had been withdrawn. "It is needless," says Sir Walter Scott, "by multiplying examples, to ill.u.s.trate the bloodthirsty and treacherous maxims and practices, which, during the sixteenth century, succeeded to the punctilious generosity exacted by the rules of chivalry. It is enough to call to the reader's recollection the b.l.o.o.d.y secret of the ma.s.sacre of St Bartholomew, which was kept by such a number of the Catholic n.o.blemen for two years,[93] at the expense of false treaties, promises, and perjuries, and the execution which followed on naked, unarmed, and unsuspecting men, in which so many gallants lent their willing swords." Now I am not going to enter here upon the question of Sir Walter Scott's historical accuracy, or its contrary, on this horrible ma.s.sacre; but might he not have extended his period "of treacherous maxims and practices," which "succeeded to the punctilious generosity exacted by the rules of chivalry," a few years later, and included, with the Ma.s.sacre of St Bartholomew, the Gunpowder Plot?

Catesby was quite a man of the type contemplated by Sir Walter Scott, gallant, charming, zealous, brave to a degree, and even pious, yet with something of the wild, lawless, and bloodthirsty spirit of the but partially-tamed savage, which every now and then a.s.serted itself, until an even later period, unless it was kept under control by some such laws as those of chivalry. It was not, therefore, chivalry, but the _want_ of chivalry, which led to the spirit, habits, and actions of Catesby and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot.

[92] _Essay on Chivalry._

[93] Where Sir Walter obtained his authority for this statement I do not know.

I hope this digression--a digression from a digression--may be pardoned.

It is high time that I returned to Robert Catesby in his relations to Sir Everard Digby.

It was likely enough that Sir Everard Digby should become intimate with a zealous Catholic landowner in the neighbouring counties of Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, especially as Catesby's mother's house, at Ashby St Legers, was little more than twenty miles from Gothurst; but probably the reason of his seeing so much of him was that Catesby's first cousin, Tyringham of Tyringham, lived only three-quarters of a mile from Gothurst, the two estates adjoining each other, either house lying within a short distance of the high road, on opposite sides of it.

Once on intimate terms, Sir Everard and Catesby were constantly together. In speaking of his master, Sir Everard's page, William Ellis, said in his examination[94]:--"both at London and in the countrie Mr Robert Catesby hath kept him companie."