The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 38

[Footnote 1:--The following quotation is from the "_Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1603-1610_," p. 254:--"Nov. 13 (1605) Declaration of Fras. Tresham--Catesby revealed the Plot to him on October 14th: he opposed it: urged at least its postponement, and offered him money to leave the kingdom with his companions: thought they were gone, and intended to reveal the Treason; has been guilty of concealment, but, as he had no hand in the Plot, he throws himself on the King's mercy."

Now surely it stands to reason that if Tresham had penned the Letter--_Litterae Felicissimae_--he would have never addressed his Sovereign thus. He would have triumphantly gloried in the effort of his pen, and "worked" (as the phrase goes) "his beneficent action for all that it was worth." Tresham was held back _by the omnipotence of the impossible_; anybody can see _that_ who reads his evidence.

Besides Mounteagle, Tresham (who died of a painful disease, strangurion, in the Tower 23rd December, 1605) probably would have had a powerful (if bribed) friend in the Earl of Suffolk. Hence his friends saying that had he lived they feared not the course of Justice. The Earl of Suffolk was a son of Thomas fourth Duke of Norfolk, by his second wife, Margaret Audley, the heiress of Sir Thomas Audley, of Walden, Ess.e.x. The Duke was beheaded in 1572 for aspiring to the hand of James the First's mother, Mary Queen of Scots. It is to James's credit that he seems to have treated the Howard family, in its various branches, with marked consideration, after ascending the English Throne. Thomas fourth Duke of Norfolk's first wife was the heiress of the then last Earl of Arundel, Lady Mary Fitzalan. She left one son, Philip, who became the well-known Philip Howard Earl of Arundel and Surrey.]

[Footnote 2:--In 1568 a Commission was appointed which sat at York to hear the causes of the differences which had arisen between the Scottish Queen and her subjects. Thomas fourth Duke of Norfolk presided over this Commission, and the late lamented Bishop Creighton, in his fascinating biography of Queen Elizabeth, thinks that the proposal that Mary Stuart should be married to Norfolk came from the Scottish side at York on this occasion. Whatever may be the true history and character of Mary Queen of Scots, in clearness of mind she excelled her Royal cousin of England, that wonderful child of the Renaissance, poor, pathetic, lonely, yet marvellous, "Bess," who for 342 years, even from the grave, has ruled one aspect of English ecclesiastical life.[A] Moreover, I am of opinion that the Scots' Queen showed a singular tolerance of spirit towards the holders of theological opinions the contradictory of her own, whilst at the same time continuing constantly established in her own tenure of what she believed to be the Truth: indeed a tolerance of spirit, combined with a personal steadfastness, reached only by the very choicest spirits of that or any succeeding age.

Tolerance is not a simple but a compound product; and its attainment is especially difficult to women by reason of the essential intensity of their nature. Tolerance is a habit born of a consciousness of intellectual strength and moral power. It is a manifestation of that princely gift and grace which "becomes a monarch better than his crown." It ought to be the birthright and peculiar characteristic of all that know (and therefore believe) they have a living possession of the Absolute and Everlasting Truth. In the interests of our common Humanity, all who think that their strength is as the "strength of ten," because their "faith" (whatever may be the case with their "works") is "pure," should seek to place on an intellectual foundation, sure and steadfast, the principle, the grand principle, considered in so many of its concrete results, of religious toleration: a principle which England has exhibited in its practical working to the world: but rather as the conclusion of the unconscious logic of events than the conscious logic of the mind of man. Now this latter kind of logic alone, because it is idealistic, can give permanency; the former kind, being primarily materialistic, will inevitably sooner or later go "the way of all flesh;" and we know what _that_ is.

The ideas of Truth and Right imply a oneness or _unity_. Now unity is the opposite of multiplicity, and, _therefore_, the contrary of division and distinction. One must rule men by virtue of the prerogatives of Truth and Right when these are ascertained. The problem at the root of the terrible conflict on the veldt of South Africa since 11th October, 1899, to the present time, 26th October, 1901, involves this question of the unity that is implied in the ideas of Truth and Right. For those ideas are the originating causes, the moving springs, the ultimate justification, and the final vindication of all true and just claims to paramountcy and sovereignty everywhere. But who is to determine which side has Truth and Right, and, therefore, the true and the just claim to paramountcy and sovereignty in South Africa?

Surely the answer is that people who have shown that they can rule Humanity because _first_ they have themselves obeyed princely ideals of the Good, the Beautiful, and the True. Nothing short of this can satisfy the universal conscience of mankind.

What have our men of light and leading been about that they have not explained clearly and straight from the shoulder these truths to the world long, long ago? Had they done so, how much innocent blood might have been never spilt! How many bitter tears might have been never shed!]

[Footnote A: See "_Life of Mary Queen of Scots_," by Samuel Cowan (Sampson, Low, 1901); also "_The Mystery of Mary Stuart_," by Andrew Lang (Longmans, 1901).]

[Footnote 3:--Lord Mounteagle had been a party to the sending of Thomas Winter and Father Oswald Tesimond into Spain in 1601 to negotiate with King Philip III. of Spain an invasion of England with an army on Elizabeth's death. In 1601 he seems to have been a prisoner in the house of Mr. Newport, of Bethnal Green. But in 1602 he was with Catesby at White Webbs, by Enfield Chase, near London; so he was then at liberty. On the accession of James I., Mounteagle--along with the Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare's patron and friend), and Francis and Lewis Tresham--held the Tower of London for the King, who seems to have welcomed Mounteagle at Court from the first. After James's accession Christopher Wright and Guy Fawkes were sent on a mission to Spain to urge upon the Spanish King to invade the realm. This mission seems to have been a continuation of the mission in 1601 of Winter and Tesimond. Mounteagle, however, took no part or lot in despatching the second mission. (It is important to notice the fact that as far back as 1601 and 1603 Thomas Winter and Tesimond, Christopher Wright and Fawkes, were co-workers in revolutionary designs against the Government of the day.)

Mounteagle's father, Lord Morley, was living in 1605. He did not die till 1618, when his son and heir succeeded him as eleventh Baron Morley.

Mounteagle was called to the House of Lords in the autumn of 1605, under the t.i.tle of Baron Mounteagle, in right of his mother. "Mounteagle," says Father Oswald Tesimond, alias Greenway, "was either actually a Catholic in opinion and in the interior of his heart, or was very well-disposed towards the Catholics, being a friend of several of the conspirators and related to some of them." After the Plot, Mounteagle evidently left the religion of his ancestors, though his wife (_nee_ Tresham) continued constant herein, and brought up her children Catholics; but Mounteagle "died a Catholic."

Jardine thinks that Mounteagle held some ceremonial office at Court, probably in the Household of Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of James I., who was at heart a Roman Catholic, though most probably never received into that Church.--See "_Carmel in England_" (Burns & Oates, 1899), p. 30. We hear of Mounteagle about ten days before the 5th November, 1605, calling at the Palace at Richmond to kiss the Prince's hands (_i.e._, Henry Prince of Wales). Thomas Winter told Catesby that Mounteagle, at that time, gathered from what he heard at the Royal Household that the Prince would not be present at the opening of Parliament. Somerset House was Queen Anne's Palace. It would be the centre for all the most brilliant wits, amba.s.sadors, and diplomatists of the day.]

[Footnote 4:--The Earl of Arundel and Lord William Howard were half-brothers. (Lord William Howard was "the Belted Will Howard," renowned in Border story as the scourge of the lawless moss-trooper. For a description of this remarkable man see Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel.") The half-brothers were both the sons of that unfortunate n.o.bleman, Thomas fourth Duke of Norfolk, who in 1572 was beheaded for aspiring to the hand of Mary Queen of Scots. Lord Arundel died in the Tower of London in 1595, "a Martyr-in-will for the Ancient Faith." Though their father was a strong Protestant (being a pupil of John Fox, the author of Fox's "_Book of Martyrs_") both his sons, Philip and William, became strong Roman Catholics, as did his daughter, Margaret Lady Sackville. Philip Howard Earl of Arundel, losing his father when only fifteen years old, was, at an early age, drawn within the vortex of the gaieties of the Court of his kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. However, in the year 1581, while still a mere courtier and votary of pleasure, it happened he was present, we are told, at "the disputation in the Tower of London in 1581, concerning divers points of religion betwixt Fr. Edmond Campion of the Society of Jesus and some other Priests of the one part; Charke, Fulk, Whitaker, and some other Protestant Ministers of the other." We are further told by his biographer, an unknown Jesuit writer of the seventeenth century, "By that he saw and heard there, he easily perceived on which side the Truth and true Religion was, tho' at that time, nor untill a year or two after, he neither did nor intended to embrace and follow it: and after he did intend it a good while pa.s.sed before he did execute it. For, as himself signify'd in a letter which he afterwards writ in the time of his imprisonment in the Tower to Fr. Southwell, he resolved to become Catholic long before he could resolve to live as a Catholic, and thereupon he defer'd the former until he had an intent and resolute purpose to perform the latter. The which (being aided by a special grace of G.o.d) he made walking one day alone in the Gallery of his Castle at Arundel, where after a long and great conflict within himself, lifting up his eies and hands to Heaven, he firmly resolved to become a member of G.o.d's Church, and to frame his life accordingly."

Sir Robert Howard, in the reign of Henry VI., married the Lady Margaret Mowbray, daughter of Thomas De Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, and grand-daughter, maternally, of Richard Fitzalan Earl of Arundel ("_Law Times_," 9th November, 1901). The motto of the Howards Dukes of Norfolk is, "_Virtus sola invicta_"--"Virtue alone unconquered." The motto of the Howards Earls of Carlisle is, "_Volo sed non valeo_"--"I am willing, but I am not able."

The Earl of Arundel was "reconciled" by Fr. Wm. Weston, of the Society of Jesus, in 1584. In the next year he was imprisoned, and after an incarceration of ten years died in 1595. Fr. Robert Southwell, the poet, wrote for the Earl's consolation, when the latter was in the Tower of London, that ravis.h.i.+ng work, the "_Epistle of Comfort_." (The ill.u.s.trious House of the Norfolk Howards has been indeed highly favoured in being able to call "Friend" and "Father" two such exquisite geniuses as Robert Southwell and Frederic William Faber.) The two half-brothers, Philip and William, married two sisters, the daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas Lord Dacres of the North, "a person of great estate, power, and authority in those parts (as possessing no less than nine baronies) and one of the most ancient for n.o.bility in the whole kingdom." These ladies were among the most amiable and delightful women of their time. From Philip Howard Earl of Arundel and Surrey and Anne Dacres is descended the present Duke of Norfolk; and from his half-brother Lord William Howard and Elizabeth Dacres the present Earl of Carlisle: both of which Englishmen are indeed worthy of their "n.o.ble ancestors," and fulfil the great Florentine poet's ideal of "the truly n.o.ble," in that _they_ confer n.o.bility upon their _race_.

For further facts concerning those mentioned in this note--who so appeal to the historic imagination and so touch the historic sympathies--see the "_Lives of Philip Howard Earl of Arundel and Anne Dacres his wife_" (Hurst & Blackett), and the "_Household Books of Lord William Howard_" (Surtees Society).]

[Footnote 5:--Lord Mounteagle would be also akin to Lord Lumley (who had estates at or about Pickering, I believe), through the great House of Neville. Lord Lumley's portrait, from a painting in the possession of the Right Hon. the Earl of Scarbrough, Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, is to be found in Edward Hailstone's "_Yorks.h.i.+re Worthies_,"

vol. i. Edward Hailstone, Esquire, of Walton Hall, Wakefield, was a rich benefactor to the York Minster Library, and his memory should be ever had in grateful remembrance by all who "love Yorks.h.i.+re because they know her."--See Jackson's "_Guide to Yorks.h.i.+re_" (Leeds).]

[Footnote 6:--It should be remembered that (i.) the page's evidence goes to show that the man who delivered the Letter was a "tall man." (ii.) That the Letter was given in the street to the page who was already in the street when the "tall man" came up to him with the doc.u.ment.

Hoxton is about four miles from Whitehall. I opine that Mounteagle proceeded from Bath to Hoxton, and that the supper had been pre-arranged to take place at Hoxton on the evening of the 26th of October, 1605, by Thomas Ward, the gentleman-servant of Lord Mounteagle, who indeed read the Letter after Mounteagle had broken the seal and just glanced at its contents. Anybody gifted with ordinary common sense can see that this scene must have been all planned beforehand.]

[Footnote 7:--The letters "wghe" are not, at this date (5th October, 1900), clearly discernible.]

[Footnote 8:--See letter dated November, 1605--Sir Edward Hoby to Sir Thomas Edmonds. Add. MSS. in British Museum, No. 4176, where name "Thomas Ward" is given.]

[Footnote 9:--Stowe's "_Chronicle_," continued by Howes, p. 880. Ed. 1631.

From the evidence of William Kydall, it was physically impossible for Thomas Winter to confer with Christopher Wright, Wright being nearly 100 miles away from London "the next day after the delivery of the Letter,"

for the next day would be Sunday, October the 27th. Wright reached London in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 30th.

See Appendix respecting discrepancy as to date not affecting allegation of fact when the former is not of the essence of the statement, per Lord Chief Justice Scroggs, _temp._ Charles II.]

[Footnote 10:--Fawkes was apprehended at "midnight without the House,"

according to "_A Discourse of this late intended Treason_." Knevet having given notice that he had secured Fawkes, thereupon Suffolk, Salisbury, and the Council went to the King's chamber at the Palace in Whitehall, and Fawkes was brought into the Royal Presence. This was at about four o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, the 5th of November.

Fawkes showed the calmest behaviour conceivable in the Royal Presence. To those whom he regarded as being of authority he was respectful, yet very firm; but towards those whom he deemed as of no account, he was humorously scornful. The man's self control was astounding. He told his auditory that "a dangerous disease requires a desperate remedy!" (See "_King's Book_.")

Whitehall Palace had been a Royal Palace since the reign of Henry VIII.; it was burned down in the time of William and Mary. It was formerly what St. James's Palace is now in relation to royal functions.

It was at St. James's Palace that His Most Gracious Majesty King Edward VII. deigned to receive the respectful address of condolence on the death of His late beloved Imperial Mother, and of loyal a.s.surance of devoted attachment to His Throne and Person from Cardinal Vaughan, together with several Bishops, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Ripon, the Lord Mowbray and Stourton, and the Lord Herries, including other peers and representatives of the English Roman Catholic laity.

By a singular coincidence the day happened to be the 295th anniversary of the execution of Father Henry Garnet, S.J., in St. Paul's Churchyard, London (3rd May, 1606): a coincidence of happy augury, let us devoutly hope, that old things are about to pa.s.s away, and that all things are about to become new!]

[Footnote 11:--Ess.e.x House was between the Strand and the River Thames.

Somerset House was a favourite Palace of Queen Anne of Denmark, the Consort of James I. Here the Spanish Amba.s.sador Extraordinary, Juan Fernandez de Velasco, Duke de Frias, and Constable of Castile, sojourned a fortnight, when in 1604 he came to ratify the treaty of peace between England and Spain.]

[Footnote 12:--By Poulson in his "_History of Holderness_," Yorks. (1841), vol. ii., pp. 5, 7, in an account of the Wright family, where there is a pedigree showing the names of Christopher Wright and his elder brother John. Poulson may have been recording a local tradition, though he mentions no kind of authority.--See also Foster's Ed. of Glover's "_Visitation of Yorks.h.i.+re_," Also Norcliffe's Ed. of Flower's "_Visitation of Yorks.h.i.+re_" (Harleian Society).

See Supplementum for account of my visit to Plowland (or Plewland) Hall, in the Parish of Welwick, Holderness, on the 6th of May, 1901.]

[Footnote 13:--See "_Guy Fawkes_," by Rev. Thomas Lathbury, M.A. (J. W.

Parker, 1839), p. 21. Lathbury does not give his authority for this interesting statement respecting this conspirator, Christopher Wright. It is presumed, however, that he had some ground for the statement; for it is antecedently improbable that his "imagination" should have provided so circ.u.mstantial an a.s.sertion. Then, whence did he derive it?

Query:--Does Greenway's Narrative make any such statement? Apparently Jardine had a sight of the whole of this invaluable MS., and possibly Lathbury (who appears to have been a clergyman of the Established Church) may have seen it likewise through Canon Tierney, the Editor of "_Dodd's Church History_."]

[Footnote 14:--I am afraid that when the Acts of the High Commission Court that sat in the King's Manor, in York, under the Presidency of Queen Elizabeth's kinsman, the Earl of Huntingdon, come to be published, we shall find that "the lads and la.s.sies" of Yorks.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re especially were very "backward in coming forward" to greet the rising of the Elizabethan ecclesiastical aurora which it was their special privilege to behold.

Mr. Thomas Graves Law knows about these invaluable historical doc.u.ments, and I hope that he will undertake their editors.h.i.+p. He is just the man for this grand piece of work. To the people of "New England," as well as of "Old England," these records of the York Court of High Commission are of extraordinary interest, because they relate to "Puritan Sectaries" as well as to "Popish Recusants," Scrooby, so well known in the history of the Pilgrim Fathers, being in the Archdiocese of York.]

[Footnote 15:--So that bad as they were, they were not h.o.a.ry-headed criminals, if we except Percy who seems to have been prematurely "grey."

The name of Thomas Percy's mother appears under "Beverley" as "Elizabeth Percye the widowe of Edward Percye deceased," in Peac.o.c.k's "_List of Roman Catholics of Yorks.h.i.+re in 1604_."

The Percy Arms are in Welwick Church. (Communicated by Miss Burnham, of Plowland, Welwick.)]

[Footnote 16:--I have seen the statement in a letter of the Earl (who was one of the most scientific men of his age) which he wrote after the discovery of the Plot. The letter is in Collins' "_Peerage_." The Earl of Salisbury was Northumberland's enemy, as Northumberland was looked up to by the popish recusants as a sort of natural leader, though the Earl, on his own avowal, was no papist. Salisbury's native perspicacity, however, told him that Northumberland, from every point of view, was alike to the Royal House of Stuart and to the n.o.ble house of Salisbury dangerous. For had the oppressed papists "thrown off" the yoke of James in course of time, Salisbury's life would have been not worth the price of a farthing candle; and the philosophic, nonchalant Northumberland would have thought that the papists' support was well "worth a Ma.s.s," just as did King Harry of Navarre, the father of Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I., a few years previously. (An ancient portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria is in the possession of the York Merchant Adventurers, York.) Then again, Salisbury had a personal grudge against the proud Percy. For the latter evidently in his heart scorned and rejected Salisbury, not only as a _novus h.o.m.o_--a new man--but as belonging to that band of statesmen who had controlled Elizabeth's policy, and told her not what she ought to do, but what she could do; and whom the great Northern Earl would have been taught from his cradle to spurn at and despise, because they were nothing other than "a low bad lot," who "were for themselves;" very different indeed from the Earls of Ess.e.x, Walter and Robert, and such men as Sir Henry Sidney and his still greater son, Sir Philip Sidney, the darling of the England of his day. Percy indeed once declared that if Percy blood and Cecil blood were both poured into a bowl, the former would refuse to mix with the latter. So, human nature being what it is, no wonder the shrewd and able Salisbury had no love for the "high and mighty" Northumberland, and that _carpe diem_--seize your opportunity--was Salisbury's motto as soon as he got the chance. (I know of no stronger proof that, during the past 300 years, in spite of back-waters, the world _has_ made true moral progress than the contrast presented by the present Prime Minister and the present First Lord of the Treasury and their ancestors of "Great Eliza's golden time" and the days of James Stuart.)]

[Footnote 17:--Robert Catesby held his Chastleton estate in possession from his grandmother. He sold it to pay his ransom after the Ess.e.x rebellion. (Dr. Jessopp in Article on "Catesby," "_National Dictionary of Biography_.")

Had Catesby an estate at Armcote, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, not far from Chipping Norton?]

[Footnote 18:--This Father Gerard of the seventeenth century was the second son of Sir Thomas Gerard, of Byrn, Lancas.h.i.+re. He was an acquaintance of the Wards, of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale, most probably, for he was the early and life-long friend of Mary Ward.--See the "_Life of Mary Ward_," by Mary Catherine Elizabeth Chambers (Burns & Oates).]

[Footnote 19:--Sir Thomas Leigh settled considerable property to the uses of the marriage. Jardine says that only Chastleton actually came into Catesby's possession.]

[Footnote 20:--S. T. Coleridge, speaking of the age of Elizabeth, says that, notwithstanding its marvellous physical and intellectual prosperity, "it was an age when, for a time, the intellect stood superior to the moral sense." "_Lectures on Shakespeare_," Collier's Ed. (1856), p. 34.]

[Footnote 21:--What a lesson to us all, of every creed and philosophy, is the just, yet terrible fate of these personally charming men, "to hug the sh.o.r.e" of plain Natural Ethics, of solid Moral Virtue, which indeed is "fairer than the morning or the evening star." The establishment of Ethical Societies by such men as the late Sir John Seeley and Professor Henry Sidgwick for the diffusion of true Moral Ideas is a fact pregnant with happy augury for the twentieth century.]