What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence. Gerard John
time, as Goodman tells us,73 "a gentlewoman was hanged only for relieving and harbouring a priest; a citizen was hanged only for being reconciled to the Church of Rome; besides the penal laws were such and so executed that they could not subsist." Father Gerard says:74 "This being known to Catholics, it is easy to be seen how first their hopes were turned into fears, and then their fears into full knowledge that all the contrary to that they had hoped was intended and prepared for them", and, as one of the victims of these proceedings wrote, "the times of Elizabeth, although most cruel, were the mildest and happiest in comparison with those of King James."75
In such circumstances, the Catholic body being so numerous as it was, it is not to be wondered at that individuals should be found, who, smarting under their injuries, and indignant at the bad faith of which they considered themselves the dupes, looked to violent remedies for relief, and might without difficulty be worked upon to that effect. Their case seemed far more hopeless than ever. Queen Elizabeth's quarrel with Rome had been in a great degree personal; and moreover, as she had no direct heir, it was confidently anticipated that the demise of the crown would introduce a new era. King James's proceedings, on the other hand, seemed to indicate a deliberate policy which there was no prospect of reversing, especially as his eldest son, should he prove true to his promise, might be expected to do that zealously, and of himself, which his father was held to do under the constraint of others.76 As Sir Everard Digby warned Cecil, in the remarkable letter which he addressed to him on the subject:77 "If your Lordship and the State 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. For it is a general received reason among Catholics, that there is not that expecting and suffering course now to be run that was in the Queen's time, who was the last of her line, and last in expectance to run violent courses against Catholics; for then it was hoped that the King that now is, would have been at least free from persecuting, as his promise was before his coming into this realm, and as divers his promises have been since his coming. All these promises every man sees broken."78
It must likewise be remembered that if stratagems and "practices" were the recognized weapons of ministers, turbulence and arms were, at this period, the familiar, and indeed the only, resource of those in opposition, nor did any stigma attach to their employment unless taken up on the losing side. Not a little of this kind of thing had been done on behalf of James himself. As is well known, he succeeded to the throne by a title upon which he could not have recovered at law an acre of land.79 Elizabeth had so absolutely forbidden all discussion of the question of the succession as to leave it in a state of utter confusion.80 There were more than a dozen possible competitors, and amongst these the claim of the King of Scots was technically not the strongest, for though nearest in blood his claims had been barred by a special Act of Parliament, excluding the Scottish line. As Professor Thorold Rogers says, "For a year after his accession James, if Acts of Parliament are to go for anything, was not legally King."81
Nevertheless the cause of James was vigorously taken up in all directions, and promoted by means which might well have been styled treason against the authority of Parliament. Thus, old Sir Thomas Tresham, father of Francis Tresham, the Gunpowder Conspirator, who had been an eminent sufferer for his religion, at considerable personal risk, and against much resistance on the part of the local magistrates and the populace, publicly proclaimed the new king at Northampton, while Francis Tresham himself and his brother Lewis, with Lord Monteagle, their brother-in-law, supported the Earl of Southampton in holding the Tower of London on his behalf.82 In London indeed everybody took to arms as soon as the queen's illness had been known; watch and ward were kept in the City; rich men brought their plate and treasure from the country, and placed them where they would be safest,83 and the approaches were guarded. Cecil himself related in open court, in praise of the Londoners, how, when he himself, attended by most of the peers and privy councillors of the kingdom, wished to enter the City to proclaim the new sovereign, they found the gates closed against them till they had publicly declared that they were about to proclaim James and no one else.84
In times when statesmen could approve such methods of political action, it was inevitable that violent enterprises should have come to be considered the natural resource of those out of power, and it is very clear that there were numerous individuals, of whom no one party had the monopoly, who were ready at any moment to risk everything for the cause they served, and such men, although their proclivities were well known, did not suffer much in public esteem.
The Gunpowder Conspirators were eminently men of this stamp, and notoriously so. So well was their character known, that when, in 1596, eight years before the commencement of the Plot, Queen Elizabeth had been unwell, the Lords of the Council, as a precautionary measure arrested some of the principal amongst them, Catesby, the two Wrights, Tresham, and others, as being persons who would certainly give trouble should a chance occur.85 Since that time they had not improved their record. All those above-named, as well as Thomas Winter, Christopher Wright, Percy, Grant, and perhaps others, had been engaged in the ill-starred rebellion of Essex, on which occasion Catesby was wounded, and both he and Tresham came remarkably near being hanged.86 They had likewise been variously implicated in all the seditious attempts which had since been made – Catesby and Tresham being named by Sir Edward Coke as being engaged with Watson in the "Bye." Thomas Winter, Christopher Wright, and Faukes, had, if we may believe the same authority, been sent to Spain on treasonable embassies.87 Grant made himself very conspicuous by frequently resisting the officers of the law when they appeared to search his house.88 John Wright and Percy had, at least till a very recent period, been notorious bravoes, who made a point of picking a quarrel with any man who was reported to be a good swordsman, they being both expert with the weapon.89
It is evident that men of this stamp were not unlikely to prove restive under such treatment as was meted out to the Catholics, from which moreover, as gentlemen, they themselves suffered in a special degree. Lord Castlemaine remarks that loose people may usually be drawn into a plot when statesmen lay gins, and that it was no hard thing for a Secretary of State, should he desire any such thing, to know of turbulent and ambitious spirits to be his unconscious instruments,90 and it is obvious that no great perspicacity would have been required to fix upon those who had given such evidence of their disposition as had these men.
It must, at the same time, be confessed that the character of the plotters is one of the most perplexing features of the Plot. The crime contemplated was without parallel in its brutal and senseless atrocity. There had, it is true, been powder-plots before, notably that which had effected the destruction of the king's own father, Lord Darnley, a fact undoubtedly calculated to make much impression upon the timorous mind of James. But what marked off our Gunpowder Plot from all others, was the wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter in which it must have resulted, and the absence of any possibility that the cause could be benefited which the conspirators had at heart. It was at once reprobated and denounced by the Catholics of England, and by the friends and near relatives of the conspirators themselves.91 It might be supposed that those who undertook such an enterprise were criminals of the deepest dye, and ruffians of a more than usually repulsive type. In spite, however, of the turbulent element in their character of which we have seen something, such a judgment would, in the opinion of historians, be altogether erroneous. Far from their being utterly unredeemed villains, it appears, in fact, that apart from the one monstrous transgression which has made them infamous, they should be distinguished in the annals of
Stonyhurst MSS.,
Of the Prince of Wales it was prophesied:
Concerning this letter see Appendix B,
R.O.
Hallam,
See Appendix C,
Jardine,
Gardiner,
Trial of Father Garnet (Cobbett's
Camden, the historian, to Sir R. Cotton, March 15th, 1596. (Birch,
From Garnet's examination of March 14th, 1605-6 (
For Cecil's description of the men, see Winwood's
Catesby purchased his life for a fine of 4,000 marks, and Tresham of 3,000. Mr. Jessopp says that the former sum is equivalent at least to £30,000 at the present day. (
But see Appendix D,
Father Gerard says of him that "he paid them [the pursuivants] so well for their labour not with crowns of gold, but with cracked crowns sometimes, and with dry blows instead of drink and other good cheer, that they durst not visit him any more unless they brought store of help with them." (