The Life Of A Conspirator Part 6

[120] _Somers Tracts_, Vol. ii. p. 108, footnote.

[121] _Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 176-8.

CHAPTER VI.

In the summer of the year 1605, Sir Everard Digby spent a week in London, and stayed at the lodgings in the Savoy of his friend Roger Manners,[122] the eldest brother of Sir Oliver Manners, whose conversion to the Catholic faith has been already noticed. This Roger Manners married the daughter and heir of the famous Sir Philip Sydney, and eventually succeeded his father, as fifth Earl of Rutland. Although Sir Everard stayed with Roger Manners, he "commonlie dieted at the Mearmaid in Bred Streete."[123] He spent much of his time with the excellent Sir Oliver Manners, which was all very well; but, unfortunately, Robert Catesby also "kept him companie" a great deal; without, however, letting him know what was chiefly occupying him in London just at that time.

Thomas Winter also came to see Sir Everard whilst he was in London, and his friends.h.i.+p with men who were conspiring to an evil end was endangering Digby without his knowing it. At that time he had no idea that any plot was in existence, although he was doubtless aware that many Catholics were considering what steps could be taken to relieve their condition; and the fact of his staying with Roger Manners proves that he had not come to London with any design of conferring with restless Catholics in a secret or underhand fas.h.i.+on.

[122] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I, No. 108.

[123] _Ib._

After his visit to London, Sir Everard seems to have returned to Gothurst and to have continued his usual innocent country life, with its duties and pleasures. A letter among the Hatfield MS., written to him on the eleventh of June--his eldest boy's birthday by the way[124]--treats of otter-hunting, and it is likely enough that Sir Everard practised this sport in the Ouse as well as in the other rivers and brooks of Buckinghams.h.i.+re.

[124] So it is usually believed, and so wrote Ben Jonson--"Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June";--so, too, Richard Farrar--"Born on the day he died, the eleventh of June." But some authorities give a different date, and the question has been fiercely disputed.

About the end of August, or perhaps early in September, 1605, a large party met at Gothurst, as guests of Sir Everard and Lady Digby, but with an ulterior purpose. To pray for the much-oppressed cause of the Catholic religion in England, for their suffering fellow-religionists, and for themselves, they had agreed to make a pilgrimage together to the famous shrine of St Winefride at Holywell, in Flints.h.i.+re,[125] which would entail a journey of a hundred and fifty miles.[126] Sir Everard does not appear to have accompanied it; but, among those a.s.sembled at Gothurst who were to go on the pilgrimage were his young wife, Miss Anne Vaux, Brooksby and his wife, Thomas Digby, Sir Everard's brother, who had evidently followed his example and become a Catholic, Sir Francis Lacon and his daughter, Father Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, a lay-brother named Nicholas Owen, who usually accompanied him, and Father Strange, Sir Everard's chaplain, making, with their servants and others, a party of pilgrims numbering little short of thirty. Later on, Father Darcy and Father Fisher also joined them.[127]

[125] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, by J. H. Pollen, S.

J., p. 15.

[126] A party, including ladies, would not be likely to travel faster than thirty miles a day over the bad roads, therefore it would take more than four times as long to go, then, from Gothurst to Holywell, as it would now take to go from Gothurst to the famous shrine at Lourdes, in the Pyrenees.

[127] Cal. Sta. Pa. Dom., 1603-10, p. 270.

If, as it seems, Sir Everard did not go with the pilgrimage, the reason may have been that he was engaged in endeavouring to negotiate the proposed marriage between young Lord Vaux and a daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, although it seemed early to do so, as the boy was then only about fourteen.

"Riding westward,[128] the party of pilgrims would stop for the night at some Catholic friend's house, and in the morning the two priests would say Ma.s.s. Even at Shrewsbury, when they had to put up at an inn, and at 'a castle in a holt at Denbighs.h.i.+re,' the daily Ma.s.ses were said without interruption, and even the servants were present. At St Winefride's Well, too, though the inn must have been small for so large a number, the Holy Sacrifice was again offered, and then the ladies went barefoot to the Well.[129] At Holywell they stopped but one night. Returning next day, they slept at a farmhouse seven miles from Shrewsbury, and after that they were again in the circle of their friends."[130]

[128] _Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, Pollen, p. 18.

[129] Jardine, in his _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_ (p. 180), says that the ladies walked barefoot from Holt, that is to say, a distance of about twenty miles.

[130] _Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 18, 19.

About the end of September (1605) Sir Everard Digby went to stay at Harrowden with young Lord Vaux. While he was there, his host's mother, her sister-in-law, Anne Vaux, and Father Garnet came thither on their return from the pilgrimage. His friend Catesby also arrived from a visit to Lord Mordaunt[131] at Turville. Anne Vaux, who, as I have said, had been uneasy about Catesby's proceedings, was in a hurry for his departure to Flanders, where he was to command an English regiment.

Father Garnet wrote a letter of introduction for him to a Jesuit priest in that country, and Catesby himself showed this letter to his nervous cousin, a.s.suring her that he was so anxious to start that he would spend 500 in obtaining a license[132] to go abroad with his men and horses, about which, he pretended, there was some difficulty.

[131] Henry, fourth Baron Mordaunt, was suspected of being concerned in the Gunpowder Plot. He was committed to the Tower, and fined by the Star Chamber. See Burke's _Dormant and Extinct Peerages_, p.

380.

[132] _Father Garnet and the G. P._, Pollen, p. 21.

After a few days' visit at Harrowden, the family seat of the Vaux's, which was then in a rather dilapidated condition,[133] Sir Everard Digby invited Catesby, Mrs Vaux, and Father Garnet to stay with him at Gothurst; and he started with Catesby to ride home, leaving his other guests to follow them. The distance between Harrowden and Gothurst was something like fifteen miles, and Digby and his friend became very confidential in the course of it.

[133] _Life of Father Gerard_, p. cx.x.xv.

Perhaps there are few occasions on which it is easier to converse freely than a long ride with a single companion; in most cases, no one can possibly be within earshot, therefore the voice need not be unnaturally lowered; the speakers are not confronting each other, and this prevents any nervous dread lest the mention of subjects on which either feels strongly should raise a tell-tale blush or a quiver of a lip or eyelid; and, if the topic should become embarra.s.sing, the surroundings of those on horseback enable them to change it more easily, and with less apparent effort or intention, than under almost any other conditions.

Lastly, the fresh country air, as it is inhaled in the easy exercise of riding, clears the brain and invigorates the energies, and when is it fresher or pleasanter than on a fine day at the end of September, such as we can imagine Sir Everard Digby and Robert Catesby to have enjoyed on their ride from Harrowden to Gothurst? Both of them, as we read, were fine men, fine hors.e.m.e.n on fine horses, and old friends; and they must have made a handsome and well-a.s.sorted pair, as they went their way along the roads, through the woods, and over the commons of Northamptons.h.i.+re and Buckinghams.h.i.+re.

Early in their ride, when they were well clear of the outskirts of the little market town of Wellingborough,[134] beside the famous Red Well of which, some twenty years later, Charles I. and his Queen were to dwell in tents, in order to drink its medicinal waters, Catesby told his companion that he had a communication of the greatest importance to make to him; that he was only at liberty to convey it upon an oath of secresy; and that from all others intrusted with the subject of this communication, the oath had not been accepted unless sealed and confirmed by Holy Communion--which alone would demonstrate its sacred and religious nature--but that, in the case of so honourable a man as Digby, a simple oath would suffice. This was paying a very flattering compliment, and, when Catesby drew a small poignard, handed it to him, and asked him to swear secresy upon it,[135] Sir Everard, thinking that the matter would concern some "stirres in Wales" on behalf of the persecuted Catholics, of which Catesby had talked at Gothurst during the summer, took the oath without much hesitation, and returned the little weapon.

[134] S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part 2, No. 135.

[135] S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Bk., Part 2, No. 135.

Then Catesby began a long, earnest, and serious discourse. There can be little doubt that he would first dwell upon the desperate condition of their co-religionists in Great Britain, the hopelessness of redress or any improvement in their state, and the likelihood of their persecution becoming still more intolerable under the incoming parliament. At last, he told his patient and sympathetic listener that the time had come for action. They could expect no help from the king, no help from the parliament, no help from foreign Catholic princes or powers, no help from a general, an ordinary, and a legitimate rising among their Catholic fellow-countrymen; there was nothing for it, therefore, but to help themselves. It was plain enough where, and from whom, their greatest danger lay. The few must be sacrificed to save the many. He had been reading his Bible[136]--the very Protestants who so cruelly oppressed them would commend that--and there he found instances in which the deliberate a.s.sa.s.sination of tyrants appeared to be not only tolerated but commended.

[136] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

I cannot guarantee that Catesby said exactly all these things to Digby; I merely enumerate the arguments which he is stated, on good authority, to have used in persuading those who joined in his plot; and it is well known that he found no other of his adherents so difficult to convince as Sir Everard; therefore it is most unlikely that he omitted one of his pleas in this case.

Between the Catholics and the Protestants, Catesby considered that there was a regular warfare; no war could be conducted without bloodshed, and in war all was fair. It might even be maintained that the righteous Catholics were in the position of executioners, who should carry out the extreme sentence of death upon the iniquitous and murderous villains who, under the names of princes and rulers, were persecuting and slaying G.o.d's innocent people. Who were these princes and rulers? King James and his parliament. They richly deserved to die the death, and unless they were destroyed they would work even greater evils. Let the sword of justice fall upon them.

Were the Catholics to rise and invade the houses of parliament with drawn sabres? No. Such a thing would be impossible. Resort must be had to stratagem, a method to which holy men had often resorted in ancient times, as might be read in the sacred pages of the Old Testament. But, unlike the warriors of Israel, the modern Christian soldier fought less with the sword than with that much more powerful medium known as gunpowder. It had already been the princ.i.p.al agent of destruction in many great battles; let it be used in the strife between the oppressed English Catholics and the king with his parliament.

Before entering into details of the proposed attack, it would be well to consider that the end aimed at was not any private revenge or personal emolument.[137] The sole object was to suppress a most unjust and barbarous persecution by the only expedient which offered the least prospect of success. There could be no doubt as to its being lawful, since G.o.d had given to every man the right of repelling force by force.

If Digby should consider the scheme cruel, let him contrast it with the cruelties exercised during so many years against the English Catholics; let him calculate the number of innocent martyrs who had been butchered by the public executioner, or had died from ill-treatment or torture in prisons; let him estimate the thousands who had been reduced by the penal laws against recusants, from wealth or competence, to poverty or beggary; and then let him judge whether the sudden destruction of the rulers who had been guilty of such fearful persecutions, and avowedly intended persecutions yet more atrocious, could be condemned on the charge of cruelty. Nay, more; unless a decisive blow were delivered very shortly, something like a ma.s.sacre of Catholics might be expected, and,[138] "Mr Catesby tould him that the papistes throate should have been cutte."

[137] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

[138] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xviii. n. 24.

Catesby would then tell his friend and companion, as they rode through the peaceful Midland scenery, with its horse-chestnuts and its beeches in their rich autumn colouring, on that September afternoon, how he must be a man, and nerve himself to hear the means which it was proposed to employ for carrying out the judgment of G.o.d upon their wicked oppressors.[139] Every Catholic peer was to be warned, or enticed from the House of Lords on a certain day, and then, by the sudden explosion of a large quant.i.ty of gunpowder, previously placed beneath the Houses of Parliament, the king and his councillors, his Lords and his Commons, were to be prevented from doing any further mischief in this world. As soon as the execution was over, the Catholics would[140] "seize upon the person of the young prince, if he were not in the Parliament House, which they much desired. But if he were," in which case, of course, he would be dead, "then upon the young Duke Charles, who then should be the next heir, and him they would erect, and with him and by his authority, the Catholic religion. If that did also fail them, then had they a resolution to take the Lady Elizabeth, who was in the keeping of the Lord Harrington in Warwicks.h.i.+re; and so by one means or other, they would be certain to settle in the crown one of the true heirs of the same." How loyal they were!

[139] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi., No. 94, 20 Nov. 1605, B, C, and D.

[140] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 85.

On first hearing of this inhuman, detestable, and diabolical scheme, Sir Everard was overcome with horror, as well he might be, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Catesby induced him to consider it any further.[141] If Sir Everard had been a man of firm will and determination of character, he would have obeyed his conscience and resolutely followed his own good instincts; but instead of doing so, he was weak enough to listen with attention and interest to the arguments of Catesby. To a man of a religious mind like Sir Everard Digby, those of a Scriptural character would be some of the most persuasive, and his companion would hardly fail to point out the wholesale ma.s.sacres and cruelties apparently sanctioned in the Old Testament.

[141] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.

If he so pleased, he could quote plenty of biblical precedents for slaying and maiming, on a far larger scale than was proposed in the Gunpowder Plot, which would be a mere trifle in comparison with some of the following butcheries:--"They warred against the Midianites," "and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian."[142] "They slew of them in Bezek ten thousand men." "And they slew of Moab at that time ten thousand men, all l.u.s.ty, and all men of valour; and there escaped not a man."[143] "David slew of the Syrians two and twenty thousand."[144] "The other Jews," "slew of their foes seventy and five thousand."[145] "Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Juda an hundred and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men, because they had forsaken the Lord G.o.d of their fathers,"[146] just as King James and the English Government had forsaken Him, in Catesby's and Sir Everard's opinions.

[142] Numbers x.x.xi. 7, 8. For the benefit of my Protestant readers, I quote my Scripture from the Anglican version, to show them that there is nothing "apocryphal" in it.

[143] Judges iii. 29.

[144] 2 Samuel viii. 5.

[145] Esther viii. 16.

[146] 2 Chron. xxviii. 6.