CAMEO IV.

Execution

of conspira

tors. 1606.

where four died on the 30th of January, and the other four, including Fawkes, on the following day

The Earl of Northumberland had been arrested on account of his connection with Percy, and a belief among the Council that if the plot had succeeded he was to have been made Regent. A bill had been brought before the House of Lords to attaint the memory of those conspirators who had not lived to be tried; but into it were brought the names of sundry persons not yet arraigned, and the Lords refused to pass it without evidence against them. Thereupon the Council set themselves to obtain evidence from the captives in the Tower, and put the servants on the rack.

Garnet, who was an acquaintance of Cecil, a gentleman of good birth and a finished scholar, was at first well treated, and his ability and wariness were so great that though the commissioners went day by day to his cell to examine and cross-examine him and Oldcorn, they could elicit nothing that could be used against them. The two servants, Owen and Chambers, were tortured, but betrayed nothing; and at last Garnet was also threatened, but answered, “ Minare ista pueris,” (threaten children with these things); and at last barbarous ingenuity was employed to make these prisoners criminate themselves. The warder, who had charge of Garnet, was directed to pretend to be his friend, and to offer to convey letters to his friends. Several letters were written, partly with ink, partly with orange-juice, which only became visible when held to the fire; but both Garnet and Oldcorn were wary, and not a word appeared that could form the ground of an accusation against them. The next expedient was one that had already been tried with Fawkes and one of the Winters. The warder showed each of the Jesuits a window in his door, and these being just opposite to one another, told them that they could safely converse. It was strange that men so cautious should not have guessed, as their predecessors had done, that in the space between lay hidden Lockerson, Cecil's private secretary, and Fossett, a magistrate, taking notes of whatever they said-an expedient only rivalled by Dionysius the elder.

The two priests consulted on their defence, and Garnet said he could not deny that he had been at White Webbs, but that he could maintain that he had not been there since Bartholomewtide, and he was well persuaded that he should wind himself out of this matter.

In another conversation Garnet said things that showed that he was connected with the conspirators, and told his friend that they must prepare for the rack, and that he heard that one Johnson, apparently a servant at Handlip, had been on the rack three hours. Next time, Oldcorn related his examination, and Garnet said he should demand proofs against himself. Altogether five of these interviews were permitted, and then the commissioners drew up fresh interrogatories, and on the 1st of March the horrible questioning began again on the poor servants and on Oldcorn. Owen was frightfully tortured, but said not

a word to criminate his master. On the 3rd, when he was to be examined, he was dead. The Roman Catholic writers say that he was tortured to death; but at the inquest it was deposed that he was lying on bloody straw, having killed himself with the blunt knife allowed at meals, lest he should be driven to betray his master or else in a delirium of terror. However, torture was absolutely contrary to English law, so that this may have been false evidence adduced in order to prevent a verdict of murder being necessary against the torturers. Oldcorn was also tortured, but said nothing admitting any treasonable practices, only he replied in the affirmative when asked whether he had had any communication with Garnet in the Tower.

He denied the conversa

Garnet on his side made his great mistake. tions with his companion, and even when the replies were read to him, he said Oldcorn might be weak enough to accuse himself falsely, but that he never would. He held out till the reports of Lockerson and Fossett were shown to him, and then showed himself overwhelmed and abashed at his falsehood. Step by step, admissions were elicited, and inquiries were founded on each, till at last he allowed that he had given Guy Fawkes letters of commendation in Flanders; that he had acceded, as to a general proposition, to Catesby's question whether in a good cause the innocent might not sometimes be destroyed with the nocent, that Greenway had in confession revealed to him the piot, having heard of it from Catesby, and he believed also from Thomas Winter, but that he had laid commands on Greenway to use every means for preventing the perpetration of so awful a crime. After this, Oldcorn and Mr. Abingdon were sent to Worcester to be tried, and Oldcorn, though apparently innocent of all save being a Jesuit, was put to death; but Abingdon, who had done nothing but hide the two priests, was pardoned on the intercession of his brotherin-law, Lord Monteagle.

After having been twenty-three times examined in prison, Henry Garnet was on the 3rd of March tried for high treason in the Guild Hall before a special commission. The King, the Lady Arabella Stewart, all the Ambassadors, and all the members of Parliament, were present, and Sir Edward Coke made a speech of some hours, describing the arrogance of the Pope and machinations of the Jesuits, whom he declared to be leagued for the King's overthrow, and the destruction of the Protestant leaders; but when his general invective was over, he entirely failed to adduce any evidence that Garnet had either instigated or approved the plot. None of the conspirators in death or torture had ever said a word that could be so construed.

Garnet showed great dignity and temper, defending himself with much skill and patience, though so often interrupted and captiously cut short, that the King himself declared that they were not giving him fair play. He rested his defence on the secrecy of the confessional, demonstrating that were it not thus inviolable, the only hope would be taken away of the sinner's coming to the person most likely to

CAMEO IV.

Trial of
Garnet.

1606.

CAMEO IV.

Execution of Garnet. 1606.

convince him of the guilt of his course. He abhorred the plot as much as any man in England, and had done as much to prevent it as he held it lawful to do.

The law of England made no exception in favour of the confessional. In later times, Garnet would have been acquitted, his knowledge having been only at second hand, through Greenway; while even in that century, he could only be found guilty of misprision of treason, not treason itself, and the jury made their verdict simply that he had concealed the conspiracy.

Then there was a long delay. James seems to have been unwilling to let him be executed, but there were those at Court who too well understood the art of destroying the royal scruples of justice and mercy by practices such as deprived them of all right to talk of Jesuit deceit. Garnet was falsely informed that Greenway was in the Tower, and that 500 of his Church had conformed to the English in their horror at his connection with the plot. He was thus induced to write letters to Greenway, and to a lady named Anne Vaux, who really was in the Tower, vindicating himself, but these contained nothing that could harm himself or any one else. He also wrote to the King on his horror of the plot, though he had been forced to conceal what he knew only through confession. His enemies thought they had here another snare, and calling him before them, stated that Greenway admitted that the consultation with him had not been made under seal of confession. This was false, for Greenway was out of their reach, safe on the continent; but Garnet, believing him to be in their hands, could only say he had understood the matter as under the seal. Then, three weeks after the letter written in the Tower, he was asked whether he had corresponded with Greenway. Unfortunately he again denied that he had sent him letter or message, and was confuted by the letter so basely obtained. It is almost incredible that men so stained with treacherous practices should have had the face to examine him on his views as to the lawfulness of equivocation. He declared that the endeavour to force men to criminate themselves out of their own mouths was barbarous and unjust (even as the English justice now holds it), and therefore he declared that in self-defence equivocation, even confirmed by an oath, was justifiable.

Here was the fatal admission. It was easy to represent to James that the two false denials wrenched from the prisoner, and again this declaration, proved that no credit could be attached to his professions of innocence. The abhorrent thing is to see the men who employed deceit and treachery so lavishly as a means of ensnaring and hunting down their victim, making the far more venial denials of one, thus brought to bay, tell against him. But Henry Garnet's untruthsif they did not lead directly to his death-marred the nobleness of his martyr spirit. Six weeks after his sentence, James consented to his execution, which took place on the 3rd of May, 1606. The official account declared him to have confessed his guilt, but private letters say

Prosecution

berland. 16с6.

that he persisted in denying all knowledge of the plot except, through CAMEO IV .confession. He remained so calm and resolute, so pious and resigned, that all were struck by his demeanour, and the cruel details of the of Northum punishment for treason were delayed till he was dead. Zealous Romanists, regarding him as a saint and a martyr, gathered up the blood-stained straws beneath the scaffold, to be preserved as relics. The spots on one of these were supposed, by the aid of a little imagination, to represent Father Garnet's face surrounded with a halo of glory, and Garnet's straw was viewed as a miracle attesting his sanctity, likenesses thereof, ever increasingly distinct, being handed about among his admirers, so that it is wonderful that he was not canonised, since he was, by the acknowledgment of friends and enemies alike, a most blameless and devout man—a martyr to the secrecy of the confessional, and in our eyes only erring when, in the last extremity, he defended himself with a falsehood.

The consequences of the conspiracy were not yet at an end. All the noblemen, whom the conspirators would fain have spared, fell under suspicion, were thrown into the Tower, and condemned to pay heavy fines. The Earl of Northumberland was brought before the Star Chamber, and convicted of having been intended by Perey to be Regent, of having admitted that conspirator to be a gentleman pensioner without exacting the oath of supremacy, and of having written letters to his people in the north bidding them take care that Percy did not make off with his rents. For which heinous offences he was fined 300,000l., and imprisoned during His Majesty's pleasure! On the other hand, Lord Monteagle was rewarded with a grant of lands, and 300l. a year for his life; while Robert Cecil for his vigilance in discovering the plot received the Earldom of Salisbury and the Order of the Garter.

Parliament had been adjourned, and when it met the next year it devised still more stringent measures for the repression of Roman Catholics. Seventy articles were passed, fining each person 201. a month for absence from church, and 100l. for each child not baptized by a Protestant minister, disabling Romanists from all manner of public offices, disinheriting children educated beyond seas-in short, doing all that was possible to force uniformity on the recusants. this was in spite of a sensible remonstrance from Henri IV., for it was the effect of terror on the public mind, and all the country was united on the point.

All

In fact, Queen Mary's fires and Catesby's plot had filled the English with a horror and dread of Popery which made them believe all Roman Catholics to be ever ready for any kind of treason and barbarity, and almost any weapon to be lawful against them.

James in truth took much less part in foreign affairs than his predecessor. Strangely enough, in spite of being a Scot, he inclined far more to Spain than to France, as perhaps his hereditary preference for the Guise and Valois party made him, look on Henri IV. as an interloper, and perhaps as an apostate, for he never treated France with cordial friendship; and it is quite comprehensible that he should prefer the genuine old Popery of Spain to the new-fashioned Romanism of Henri, which professed to protect the Reformers, but yearly became more and more aggressive against them, even while the men whom, above all others, Henri trusted, were staunch Huguenots.

Rosny, whom he had made Duke of Sully and Grand Master of the Artillery, had been always more devoted to him and to his aggrandisement, than to any other consideration. Sully held that loyalty consisted in crushing whatever opposed the power of the crown, and never seems to have perceived that to take away all vestiges of independence from subjects of all ranks might lead to the annihilation of the religion for which he had fought.

Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Duke of Bouillon, had intrigued with Biron, and thus with Spain and Savoy. He had married into the Orange Nassau family, and was closely connected with the German Protestants, and therefore, Huguenot though he was, his little