I. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. notice; and Cecil was repeatedly warned from France and Flanders, that the exiles had some clandestine enterprise in hand, though the object and names of the conspirators had not been discovered.5 54 His object suspected. At home Catesby was indefatigable in the prosecution of his design. But though he might rely with confidence on the fidelity of his accomplices, he knew not how to elude the scrutinizing eyes of his more intimate friends. They noticed the excited tone of his conversation, his frequent and mysterious absence from home, and his unaccountable delay to join the army in Flanders. Suspicion was awakened, and Garnet, the superior of the jesuits, who had received orders from the pope and from his general to discountenance any attempt of the August. catholics to disturb the public tranquillity, seized the first opportunity to inculcate at the table of Catesby the obligation of submitting to the pressure of persecution, and of leaving the redress of wrongs to the justice of heaven. Catesby could not restrain his feelings. It is to you, and such "as you," he exclaimed, "that we owe our pre"sent calamities. This doctrine of non-resist 66 ance makes us slaves. No authority of priest "or pontiff can deprive man of his right to repel injustice." The jesuit replied; a private con 66 54 Winter's confession, 56. Greenway, 53-56. Winwood, ii. 172. Birch's Negociations, 233. 248, 251. 255. I. ference followed; and Catesby offered to reveal CHAP. his secret to the fidelity of his friend. But Garnet refused to hear him, and after much altercation it was agreed, that sir Edward Baynham, who was on the point of proceeding to Italy, should be solicited to explain the sufferings of the catholics, and to request the advice of the pontiff. In this conclusion each party sought to overreach the other. Catesby's object was to silence Garnet, and to provide an agent at Rome, whom he might employ as soon as the explosion had taken place. Garnet persuaded himself that he had secured the public tranquillity for a certain period, before the expiration of which he might receive from the pope a breve prohibitory of all violent proceedings." Fawkes, having completed his arrangement Parliament in Flanders, returned to England in September; prorogued. and immediately afterwards it was announced that the parliament would again be prorogued from October to the fifth of November. disappointment alarmed the conspirators: it This 55 Sir Edward Coke at the trial gave a different account of this transaction; but he made no attempt to bring forward any proof of his statement. I write from the manuscript relation of Greenway (p. 42) who was present. Eudæmon Joannes asserts the same from the mouths of the persons concerned. Apologia, 251. Garnet on his trial explained it in the same manner, and his explanation is fully confirmed by the letter which he wrote to his superior in Rome on July 24, immediately after his last conference with Catesby. It may be seen in App. note (B.) I. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. was possible that their project had been discovered; and, to ascertain the fact, Winter was employed to attend in the parliament house, and to watch the countenances and actions of the commissioners during the ceremony of prorogation. He observed that they betrayed no sign of suspicion or uneasiness; that they walked and conversed in apparent security on the very surface of the volcano prepared for their destruction. Hence it was inferred, that they must be still ignorant of its existence.56 Sir Everard It is, however, to these successive postponements that the failure of the plot must be attributed. None of the conspirators, if we except Catesby, were rich. Many of them, for the last twelve months, had depended on his bounty for the support of their families; the military stores had been purchased, and every preparation had been made at his expense. But his resources were now exhausted; and the necessity of having a large sum of money at his disposal against the day of the explosion, compelled him to trust his secret to two catholic gentlemen of considerable opulence. The first was a young man of five and twenty, sir Everard Digby, of Drystoke, in Rutlandshire. At an early age he was left by the death of his father a ward of the crown, and had in conse JAMES I. I. quence been educated in the protestant faith. CHAP. From the university he repaired to the court, where he attracted the notice of Elizabeth; but the year before her death, he turned his back to the bright prospect which opened before him, and retiring to his estates in the country, embraced the religion of his fathers. It was with difficulty that he could be induced to join in the conspiracy. Catesby made use of his accustomed arguments; shewed him a passage in a printed book, from which he inferred that the attempt was lawful; and assured him that the fathers of the society had approved of it in general, though they knew not the particulars." By degrees the doubts and misgivings of the unfortunate young man were silenced: he suffered himself to be persuaded, promised to contribute a sum of £1500, and undertook to invite, about the time of the opening of parliament, most of his catholic friends to hunt with him on Dunmoor, in Warwickshire. The second was Francis Tresham, who, on the Francis 57 See Digby's letters at the end of the Gunpowder Treason, p. 249. 251. "I saw," he says, “the principal point of the case 66 'judged in a Latin book of M. D. my brother's (Gerard's) father in “law.” p. 249. (Perhaps it should be N. D. the initials under which Persons, Gerard's superior, had published several works.) Garnet in an intercepted letter, furtively written to a friend from the Tower, says: “ Master Catesby did me much wrong. He told them "(his accomplices) that he asked me a question in Q. Elizabeth's "time of the powder action, and that I said it was lawful: all which " is most untrue. He did it to draw in others." Original in the state paper office. Tresham. I. CHAP. death of his father in September last, had succeeded to a large property at Rushton, in Northamptonshire. He had formerly been the associate of Catesby and Percy in the attempt of the earl of Essex, and had since that time borne his share of persecution on account of his religion. His character was fully known. He had nothing of that daring spirit, that invincible fidelity, which alone could have fitted him to be an accomplice in such an enterprise. He was by nature cold and reserved-selfish and changeOct. 14. able. But his pecuniary resources offered a temptation not to be resisted: and the conspirators, having administered the usual oath, con fided to him their secret, and extorted from him a promise of aiding them with £2000. But from that moment Catesby began to feel apprehensions, to which he had hitherto been a stranger. His mind was harassed with doubts of the fidelity of his new colleague; and his rest was broken by dreams of the most fearful and ominous import. 58 Plan of the conspirators. At this time their plan of operations was finally arranged. 1°. A list was made of all the peers and commoners whom it was thought 58 Winter's confession, 56. Greenway's MS. 57, 58. Digby and Tresham were admitted about the beginning of October, but I know not whether before or after the prorogation of the 3d. Besides the money promised by these gentlemen, Percy engaged to give them the earl of Northumberlands's rents, about 40007. Winter's confession, 56. |