FATHER GARNET (From a print dated 1802) FAUKE'S LANTERN (Preserved at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) ROBERT CECIL, EARL OF SALISBURY (From the original of Zucchero, in the collection of the KING JAMES THE FIRST (From a print dated 1621) A HISTORY OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT T CHAPTER I HOW THE PLOT WAS PLANNED HE death of Queen Elizabeth was hailed with joy by the English Roman Catholics, nearly all of whom looked forward to obtaining thereafter prompt relief from their persecution at the accession of the King of Scots. Over and over again, exasperated beyond measure by the fines and restrictions to which they were subjected under Walsingham and Burghley, they congratulated themselves that the 'Virgin Queen' could not live for ever, and with her death, no matter who might be her successor, would come the dawn of a brighter day. It was, therefore, with mingled feelings of intense surprise, anger, and dejection that the Roman Catholics gradually found that the heir of Mary Stuart was not prepared to help them, and that under the tyranny of Burghley's son, Robert Cecil, their burdens, instead of being lightened, were to be made heavier. Goaded into fury by the cruelty of the new Government, many of the Romanists were prepared to have recourse to arms rather than submit to an increase of the taxation laid upon them. But the English Roman Catholics, as a body, strong as they were numerically, were divided among themselves, The majority were not inclined to adopt forcible measures until the last extremity, and looked with suspicion upon that section of their co-religionists who permitted themselves to be guided by the Jesuits, whose coming into England had already wrought such terrible harm to the Roman cause during the last twenty years of Elizabeth's reign. It was from the Jesuitical party that the, Gunpowder Plotters sprung. All of these con spirators were acquainted with Father Henry Garnet, the Superior of the Jesuits in England, and with the Jesuit Fathers Oldcorne, Greenway, Baldwin, and Gerard. To these Jesuits the conspirators, before the inception of their plot, were wont to betake themselves for counsel and direction in matters political and religious; and they became identified in due course with the schemes concocted by Father Robert Parsons for obtaining aid from Spain. Such schemes were heartily disliked by the great mass of the Roman Catholic laity, and by the secular priests, who cordially detested the Jesuits and their pupils. The power of the Jesuits was, as the loyal Romanists but too well perceived, a source of weakness to their cause and a source of strength to the King's Protestant advisers, who cleverly made the methods of the Jesuits an excuse for tarring the whole Roman Catholic body with the same brush, and for bringing all its members into disfavour with the Protestant public, insufficiently well-informed to know how to discriminate between the patriotic priests and the Spanish faction. Most of the plotters had for a long time prior to the year 1605 been marked men' in the eyes of the Government. They had been mixed up in more than one doubtful affair under Elizabeth, and had suffered for their temerity. In the rebellion of Lord Essex, Catesby had been wounded, and both he and his friend Tresham were heavily fined. Percy was also actively engaged in this absurd outbreak, as were Thomas Winter and the Wrights. Guy Faukes and Winter had gone to Spain to solicit military aid on behalf of the restoration of their religion in England. Of Grant, Father John Gerard, in his Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, bears witness that he was in the habit of 'paying pursuivants so well for their labour, not with crowns of gold, but with cracked crowns sometimes, and with dry bones instead of drink and other 1 All of them were probably well spies, with the exception of Faukes. insignificant a person to be suspected. known by sight to Cecil's Bates was, perhaps, too B good cheer, that they durst not visit him any more unless they brought store of help with them.' Even Sir Everard Digby, too, had the courage to tell Lord Salisbury in writing that 'If you think fit to deal severely with the Catholics, within brief space there will be massacres, rebellions, and desperate attempts against the King and the State.' It is extraordinary, therefore, that men, who must have well known with what dire suspicion they were regarded by the British Government, should have ventured to concoct one of the most audacious conspiracies ever known to the ancient or the modern world.1 Another extraordinary circumstance inviting comment is the social position of the conspirators. It would be imagined that men engaged in so desperate a business must have been drawn from the lower and poorer grades of society. Not so with the gunpowder conspirators, who were (with one exception) gentlemen by birth, whilst many of their number were possessed of ample fortunes. It was, indeed, pre-eminently an aristocratic company forming that little band of traitors which aimed at the destruction of the three estates of the Realm. Catesby, Tresham, Percy, Rookewood, Digby, and the Winters, were gentlemen 1 'And yet I am assured notwithstandinge, that the best sort of Catholics will bear all their losses with patience. But how these tyrannicall proceedings of such base officers may drive particuler men to desperate attempts, that I can not answer for ' (Father Garnet to Father Parsons, Oct. 4, 1605). |