What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence
TextTo reinforce this lucid explanation Salisbury sent six days later what had before been refused, an abstract of "confessions against Owen," and a corrected copy of the Act of Attainder. These documents deserve some consideration.
We have seen how much stress was laid upon the action of Parliament in regard of Owen, although the Act of Attainder which it passed affords no information whatever to assist our judgment of his case. In moving for this attainder, Sir E. Coke appeared at the bar of the House of Commons (April 29th, 1606) to exhibit the evidence on which the charge rested. His notes of this evidence, which are extant,385 clearly show that the government possessed no proofs at all beyond surmise and inference.386 Three testimonies were cited which were quite inconsistent and mutually destructive: (1) An extract from a confession of Guy Faukes, January 20th, 1605-6, declaring that he had himself initiated Owen in the Plot in May, 1605. (2) An information of one Ralph Ratcliffe, to the effect that Owen and Baldwin were busy with the Plot in April, 1604. (3) T. Winter's testimony – from his famous confession of November 23rd, or 25th, 1605 – that in the spring of 1604 Owen had assisted him to secure the services of Faukes.
In Salisbury's letter to Edmondes, the first and the last of these alone were cited,387 probably because it had by this time been perceived that Ratcliffe's evidence flatly contradicted that of Faukes.
Winter's confession has already been discussed, and moreover affords no proof that Owen was acquainted with the purpose for which the services of Faukes were required. There remains the very circumstantial story of Faukes himself, which belongs to a curious and interesting class of documents, containing matter of the highest importance, whereof no trace, not even a copy, is to be found amongst the State Papers. These comprise various confessions of Faukes, dated November 19th, 25th, and 30th, 1605, and January 20th, 1605-6, all dealing with information of a sensational nature, concerning which we learn nothing from the eleven depositions of the same conspirator preserved in the Record Office.388 For our knowledge of these mysterious documents we have to depend on transcripts of portions of them among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library, on fragmentary Latin versions in the Antilogia of Bishop Abbot, and on the extract cited from the last amongst them by Sir Edward Coke, which exactly agrees with that sent by Salisbury to Edmondes, as above mentioned.
It cannot escape notice that although these versions all profess to be taken from the originals under Faukes' hand, they are so utterly different as to preclude the belief that they have been copied from the same documents.389
It must farther be observed that we hear nothing of important matters contained in these confessions till the supposed author and his confederates were all dead, whereas these are such as would certainly have been produced on their trial had this been possible.390 Some of the evidence thus afforded is, in fact, too good, for the Government's purpose, to be true, for if authentic, it would have secured results which, though much desired, were never obtained. In particular it would have established beyond question the guilt of the Jesuits abroad, and especially of Father Baldwin.391 It is this Father, however, whose case conclusively proves the utter worthlessness of the evidence. Having been proclaimed and branded by the English government as a convicted traitor, he, five years later, fell into their hands, being delivered up, in 1610, by their ally the Elector Palatine. He was at once thrown into the Tower, where he was frequently and rigorously examined, it is said even on the rack.392 After a confinement of eight years he was discharged "with honour," his innocence being attested by the respect with which he was treated by men of all parties.393 In view of this unquestionable acquittal the famous proofs of his criminality, though certified on the royal word of King James himself, forfeit all claim to consideration.
A word may be added concerning Father Cresswell, an English Jesuit residing in Spain. He, too, was assumed to have been deeply implicated in this and other treasons. In November, 1605, Cecil included his name in a list of traitors against whom proofs were to be procured.394 It was even asserted that at the time of the intended explosion he came over to England "to bear his part with the rest of his Society in a victorial song of thanksgiving."395 He was, moreover, loudly denounced as the principal agent in the notorious Spanish Treason.
After all this it is somewhat surprising to find Sir Charles Cornwallis, the English Ambassador, while the excitement of the Powder Plot was at its height, testifying in the most cordial terms to his esteem for the said Cresswell. The latter having been called to Rome by his superiors, Cornwallis (December 23rd, N.S. 1605,) addressed to him the following letter.396
"Sir, although in matter of religion well you know that there are many discords between us, yet sure in your duty and loyalty to my King and Country I find in you so good a concordance I cannot but much reverence and love you, and wish you all the happiness that a man of your sort upon the earth can desire.
"Much am I (I assure you) grieved at your departure, and the more that I was put in so good hope that your journey should have been stayed. The time of the year unpleasant to travel in, your body, as I think, not much accustomed to journeys of so great length, and the great good you did here to your poor countrymen (which now they want) are great motives to make your friends to wish your will in that voyage had been broken.
"If it be not, I shall not believe in words, for many here do greatly desire you for causes spiritual, and some for temporal. In the latter number am I, who, not affecting your spiritualities (for that these in you abound to superfluity), do much reverence and respect your temporal abilities, as wherein I acknowledge much wisdom, temper, and sincerity. So no friends you have shall ever more desire good unto you than myself. And therefore I wish I were able to make so good demonstration as willingly I would that I ever will here and in all places in this world rest
"Your very assured loving friend,"Ch. Co."
About the same time, in an undated letter to Lord Salisbury,397 Cornwallis again expresses his regret on account of the removal of Cresswell from Spain.
vi. Other Documents
It is impossible to analyze in detail the evidence supplied by the several conspirators after their capture, or to examine the endless inconsistencies and contradictions with which it abounds. One or two points must, however, be indicated.
1. As we have seen, it is clear that at the beginning an effort was made to invest the Plot with a far wider political significance than was afterwards attempted, and to introduce elements which were soon quietly laid aside. In the interrogatories prepared by Sir E. Coke and Chief Justice Popham, we find it suggested that the death of the Earl of Salisbury was a main feature of the scheme, "absolutely agreed upon" among the conspirators. Also that the titular Earl of Westmoreland, the titular Lord Dacre, the Earl of Northumberland, Sir Walter Raleigh, and others were mixed up in the business.
Nor were such endeavours altogether fruitless, for, supposing the testimony extorted from the prisoners to be worthy of credit, information was obtained altogether changing the character and complexion of the design. This was, however, presently buried in oblivion and treated as of no moment whatever.
Thus in Sir Everard Digby's declaration of Nov. 23rd,398 we find him testifying that the Earls of Westmoreland and Derby,399 were to have been sent to raise forces in the north. Faukes, in the famous confession which we have so fully discussed, was made to say "They meant also to have sent for the prisoners in the Tower to have come to them, of whom particularly they had some consultation," and although this important clause was omitted from the finished version finally adopted, it appears in that of Nov. 14th, sent by Cecil to the ambassador at Brussels. Again, in his examination of November 9th, famous for the ghastly evidence of torture afforded by his signature, we find Faukes declaring, "He confesseth also that there was speech amongst them to draw Sir Walter Rawley to take part with them, being one that might stand them in good stead, as others in like sort were named."400
With regard to Raleigh it must be remembered that he was in a very special manner obnoxious to Salisbury, who, however, was at great pains to disguise his hostility. On occasion of Sir Walter's trial, in 1603, he vehemently protested that it was a great grief to him to have to pronounce against one whom he had hitherto loved.401 But two years earlier, in his secret correspondence with James, he had not only described Raleigh to the future king as one of the diabolical triplicity hatching cockatrice eggs, but had solemnly protested that if he feigned friendship for such a wretch, it was only with the purpose of drawing him on to discover his real nature.402
Even more worthy of notice is the shameless manner in which evidence was falsified. That produced in court consisted entirely of the written depositions of the prisoners themselves, and of those who had been similarly examined. It was, however, carefully manipulated before it was read; all that told in favour of those whose conviction was desired being omitted, and only so much retained as would tell against them. On this subject Mr. Jardine well remarks:403 "This mode of dealing with the admissions of an accused person is pure and unmixed injustice; it is in truth a forgery of evidence; for when a qualified statement is made, the suppression of the qualification is no less a forgery than if the whole statement had been fabricated."
It will be sufficient to cite one notorious and compendious example. In regard of the oath of secrecy taken by the conspirators, Faukes (Nov. 9th, 1605) and Thomas Winter (Jan. 9th, 1605-6) related how they administered it to one another, "in a chamber," to quote Winter, "where no other body was," and afterwards proceeded to another chamber where they heard Mass and received Communion at the hands of Father Gerard.404 Both witnesses, however, emphatically declared that the Father knew nothing of the oath that had been taken, or of the purpose of the associates.
Such testimony in favour of one whom they were anxious above all things to incriminate, the government would not allow to appear. Accordingly, Sir E. Coke, preparing the documents to be used in court as evidence, marked off the exculpatory passages, with directions that they were not to be read.405 Having thus suppressed the passage which declared that the Jesuit was unaware of the conspirators' purpose, and of their oath, Coke went on to inform the jury, in his speech, "This oath was by Gerard the Jesuit given to Catesby, Percy, Christopher Wright, and Thomas Winter, and by Greenwell [Greenway] the Jesuit to Bates at another time, and so to the rest."406
3. Neither must it be forgotten that even apart from these manifest instances of tampering, the confessions themselves, obtained in such circumstances, are open to much suspicion. In an intercepted letter to Father Baldwin, of whom we have heard, Father Schondonck, another Jesuit, then rector of St. Omers, speaks thus:407 "I much rejoice that, as I hear, there is no confession produced, by which, either in court or at the place of execution, any of our society is accused of so abominable a crime. This I consider a point of prime importance. Of secret confessions, or those extorted by violence or torture, less account must be made; for we have many examples whereby the dishonesty of our enemies in such matters has been fully displayed."
Father John Gerard in his Autobiography408 relates an experience of his own which illustrates the methods employed to procure evidence such as was required. When, in Queen Elizabeth's time, he had himself been taken and thrown into prison, the notorious Topcliffe, the priest-hunter, endeavoured to force him into an acknowledgment of various matters of a treasonable character. Father Gerard undertook to write what he had to say on the subject, and proceeded to set down an explicit denial of what his questioner suggested. What followed he thus relates.409
"While I was writing this, the old man waxed wroth. He shook with passion, and would fain have snatched the paper from me."
"'If you don't want me to write the truth,' said I, 'I'll not write at all.'"
"'Nay,' quoth he, 'write so and so, and I'll copy out what you have written.'"
"'I shall write what I please,' I answered, 'and not what you please. Show what I have written to the Council, for I shall add nothing but my name.'"
"Then I signed so near the writing, that nothing could be put in between. The hot-tempered man, seeing himself disappointed, broke out into threats and blasphemies: 'I'll get you into my power, and hang you in the air, and show you no mercy: and then I shall see what God will rescue you out of my hands.'"
It was not by Catholics alone that allegations of this sort were advanced. Sir Anthony Weldon tells us410 that on the trial of Raleigh and Cobham, the latter protested that he had never made the declaration attributed to him incriminating Raleigh. "That villain Wade,"411 said he, "did often solicit me, and, not prevailing, got me, by a trick, to write my name on a piece of white paper, which I, thinking nothing, did; so that if any charge came under my hand, it was forged by that villain Wade, by writing something above my hand, without my consent or knowledge."
Moreover, there exists undoubted evidence that the king's chief minister availed himself upon occasion of the services of such as could counterfeit handwriting and forge evidence against suspected persons. One Arthur Gregory412 appears to have been thus employed, and he subsequently wrote to Salisbury reminding him of what he had done.413 After acknowledging that he owes his life to the secretary who knows how to appreciate "an honest desire in respect of his Majesty's public service," Gregory thus continues:
"Your Lordship hath had a present trial of that which none but myself hath done before, to write in another man's hand, and, discovering the secret writing being in blank, to abuse a most cunning villain in his own subtlety, leaving the same at last in blank again, wherein although there be difficulty their answers show they have no suspicion."
This the calendarer of State Papers believes to refer to the case of Father Garnet, and it is certain from Gregory's own letter that at one time he held a post in the Tower. Is it not possible that an explanation may here be found of the strange circumstance, that perhaps the most important of Father Garnet's examinations414 bears an endorsement, "This was forbydden by the King to be given in evidence"?
Gregory's letter, of which we have been speaking, has appended to it an instructive postscript:
"Mr. Lieutenant expecteth something to be written in the blank leaf of a Latin Bible, which is pasted in already for the purpose. I will attend it, and whatsoever else cometh."415
vii. Catholic Testimony
It will not improbably be urged that the government history is confirmed in all essential particulars by authorities to whom no exception can be taken, namely, contemporary Catholic writers, and especially the Jesuits Gerard and Greenway, whose narratives of the conspiracy corroborate every detail concerning which doubts have been insinuated.
This argument is undoubtedly deserving of all consideration, but upon examination appears to lose much of its force. If the narratives in question agree with that furnished by the government, it is because they are based almost entirely upon it, and upon those published confessions of Winter and Faukes with which we are familiar.
On this point Father Gerard is very explicit:416 "Out of [Mr. Thomas Winter's] examination, with the others that were made in the time of their imprisonment, I must gather and set down all that is to be said or collected of their purposes and proceedings in this heady enterprize. For that, as I have said, they kept it so wholly secret from all men, that until their flight and apprehension it was not known to any that such a matter was in hand, and then there could none have access to them to learn the particulars. But we must be contented with that which some of those that lived to be examined, did therein deliver. Only for that some of their servants that were up in arms with them in the country did afterwards escape, somewhat might be learned by them of their carriage in their last extremities, and some such words as they then uttered, whereby their mind in the whole matter is something the more opened."
Elsewhere he writes, exhibiting more confidence in government documents than we can feel:417
"[The prisoners'] examinations did all agree in all material points, and therefore two only were published in print, containing the substance of the rest. And indeed [this is] the sum of that which I have been able to say in this narration touching either their first intentions or the names or number of the conspirators, or concerning the course they took to keep the matter so absolutely secret, or, finally, touching the manner of their beginning and proceeding in the whole matter; for that – as I noted before – it being kept a vowed secret in the heads and hearts of so few, and those also afterwards apprehended before they could have means to declare the particulars in any private manner, therefore no more can be known of the matter or manner of this tragedy than is found or gathered out of their examinations."
As for Greenway, it should not be forgotten that for the most part he confined himself to translating Gerard's narrative from English into Italian, though he supplemented it occasionally with items furnished by his own experience as to the character and general conduct of the conspirators on previous occasions, or during their last desperate rally. Of this he was able to speak with more authority, as he not only chanced to be in the immediate neighbourhood, but actually visited them at Huddington House (the seat of Robert Winter) on November 6th, being summoned thither by Catesby through his servant Bates.418 Greenway, like Gerard, constantly refers to the published confessions of Winter and Faukes as the sources of his information.
It may here be observed that the practical identity of the narratives of these two fathers was unknown to Mr. Jardine, who having seen only that of Father Greenway, and believing it to be an original work, founded upon this erroneous assumption an argument which loses its force when we learn the real author to have been Gerard. Mr. Jardine maintains that the narrator must, from internal evidence, have been an active and zealous member of the conspiracy, "approving, promoting and encouraging it with the utmost enthusiasm."419 It so happens, however, that the real author, Father Gerard, is just the one of the incriminated Jesuits whose innocence is held by historians certainly not partial to his Order, to be beyond question. Mr. Gardiner considers420 that there is "strong reason" to believe him not to have been acquainted with the Plot. Dr. Jessopp is still more emphatic, and declares421 that it is impossible for any candid reader of all the evidence to doubt that Gerard must be exonerated.
What has been said of Gerard and Greenway may serve also for Father Garnet, who in his various examinations and other utterances assumes the truth of the government story, for neither had he materials to go upon except those officially supplied.
It is obvious that the conclusion to be drawn from the above considerations is chiefly negative. That the conspirators embarked on a plot against the state, is, of course unquestionable. What was the precise nature of that plot is by no means clear, and still less what were the exact circumstances of its initiation and its collapse. This only appears to be certain, that things did not happen as they were officially related, while the elaborate care expended on the falsification of the story seems to indicate that the true version would not have served the purposes to which that story was actually put.