The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 11

132-136.

The dark lantern, now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was left burning in the cellar by Fawkes.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Let me now make two quotations.

One is from the King's Book, giving an account of the procedure followed by the Earl of Suffolk the Lord Chamberlain, and the Lord Mounteagle, the champion, protector, and hero of the England of his day, in whose honour the "rare" Ben Jonson[96] himself composed the epigram transcribed at the end of this Inquiry.

The other quotation, collected from the relation of a certain interview between Catesby, Tresham, Mounteagle, and Father Garnet, is one which plainly shows that Mounteagle was closely a.s.sociated with Catesby, not merely as a pa.s.sive listener but as an active sympathiser, as late as the month of July, 1605, in general treasonable internal projects, which indeed only just fell short of particular treasonable external acts.

But this, of course, does not prove any complicity of Mounteagle in the particular designment known as the Gunpowder Treason Plot, of which diabolical scheme, I have no reasonable doubt, the happy, debonair, pleasure-loving, but withal shrewd and generous, young n.o.bleman was perfectly innocent.

These two quotations show, first, how zealously and faithfully Mounteagle of the Ja.n.u.s-face, looking both before and after--as henceforward we must regard him--kept his hand on the pulse of the Government at the most critical hour of his country's annals, with a view to doing what both he and his mentor deemed to be justice in the rightful claims and demands, though diverse and conflicting, of each group of "clients."

And, secondly, how wisely and prudently Christopher Wright and his counsellor or counsellors had acted in determining upon this favoured child of Fortune as their "vessel of election" for conveying that precious Instrument, which for all time is destined to be known as Lord Mounteagle's Letter, to the Earl of Salisbury and, through him, to King James, his Privy Council and Government, on that Sat.u.r.day night, the 26th day of October, 1605.

The King's Book says: "At what time hee [_i.e._, the Earl of Suffolk,[97]

the Lord Chamberlain] went to the Parliament House accompanied with my Lord Mounteagle, being in zeale to the King's service, earnest and curious to see the event of that accident whereof he had the fortune to be the first discoverer: where having viewed all the lower roumes he found in the vault under the upper House great store and provision of Billets, f.a.ggots, and Coales; and enquiring of Whyneard, keeper of the Wardrobe, to what use hee had put those lower roumes and cellars; he told them that Thomas Percy had hired both the house and part of the cellar or vault under the same, and that the wood and coale therein was the sayde gentleman's owne provision. Whereupon the Lord Chamberlaine casting his eye aside perceived a fellow standing in a corner there, calling himself the said Percyes man and keeper of that house for him, but indeed was Guido Fawkes the owner of that hand which should have acted that monstrous tragedie."[98]

The Discourse then goes on to say that the Lord Chamberlain reported to the King in the "privie gallerie," in the presence of the Lord Treasurer, "the Lord Admirall," "the Earles of Worcester, Northampton, and Salisbury," what he had seen and observed, "noting Mounteagle had told him, that he no sooner heard Thomas Percy[A] named to be possessour of that house, but considering both his backwardnes in Religion and the old dearenesse in friends.h.i.+p between himself and the say'd Percy, hee did greatly suspect the matter, and that the Letter should come from him. The sayde Lord Chamberlaine also tolde, that he did not wonder a little at the extraordinarie great provision of wood and coale in that house, where Thomas Percy had so seldome occasion to remaine; as likewise it gaue him in his minde that his man looked like a very tall and desperate fellow."[99]

[Footnote A: I think that Lord Mounteagle or Thomas Ward (or both) must have given some member of the Privy Council a hint that a Christopher Wright was a probable conspirator, for it is noticeable that on the 5th of November several persons testified as to Christopher Wright's recent whereabouts. Ward probably hoped that Wright's name would be joined with Percy's in the Proclamation, and so haply warn the conspirators the better that the avenger of blood was behind. _Or_, the Government may have procured Christopher Wright's name from some paper or papers found in Thomas Percy's London house, on the 5th of November, the day of Fawkes'

capture.

At that time the Privy Council undertook all preliminary inquiries in regard to the crime of High Treason. It is different now; at first the case may be brought before an ordinary magistrate.]

CHAPTER x.x.x.

Shortly after Midsummer (_i.e._, July), 1605, Father Garnet was at the Jesuit house at Fremland, in Ess.e.x. Catesby came there with Lord Mounteagle and Tresham.

At this meeting, in answer to a question, "Were Catholics able to make their part good by arms against the King?"--Mounteagle replied, "If ever they were, they are able now;" and then that young n.o.bleman added this reason for his opinion, "The King is so odious to all sorts."

At this interview Tresham said, "We must expect [_i.e._, wait for] the end of Parliament, and see what laws are made against Catholics, and then seek for help of foreign princes."

"No," said Garnet, "a.s.sure yourself they will do nothing."

"What!" said my Lord Mounteagle, "will not the Spaniard help us? It is a shame!"[A]

[Footnote A: If Mounteagle was in the company of Catesby at Fremland in the summer of 1605, these two may have been together at Bath between the 12th October and the 26th. Catesby probably would endeavour to induce Lord Mounteagle to join Sir Everard Digby's rebellion, as he did induce Stephen Littleton and Humphrey Littleton.]

Then said Father Garnet, "You see we must all have patience."[100]

It is also to be remembered that when Sir Edmund Baynham, a Gloucesters.h.i.+re Catholic gentleman of good family--but of whom Winter said "he was not a man fit for the business at home," _i.e._, the purposed Gunpowder ma.s.sacre--went to Flanders and Rome in the first week of September, 1605, Mounteagle appears to have written certain letters of introduction or of general recommendation, in Baynham's behalf, to English Catholics residing in Flanders or in Rome. Jardine says that "it is not quite certain that Baynham was himself entrusted with the great secret of the Plot."[101]

I think that it is morally certain he was not.

Sir Edmund Baynham[A] was intended by the prime conspirators to be at Rome to justify (_if he could_) to the Pope any action that the conspirators might have perpetrated on or after November the Fifth in behalf of their religion. But the prime conspirators were far too astute "to open their mouth" to let a chattering, hare-brained swashbuckler like Baynham "fill other people's" in every wine-shop _en route_ for "the Eternal City."

[Footnote A: Father Garnet was also employing Sir Edmund Baynham as _his_ diplomatic intermediary with the Pope in order "to gain time," so that meanwhile the plotters might find s.p.a.ce for repentance! Garnet was apparently one of those men who though possessed of a profound knowledge of Man know little or nothing of men. Whereas Oldcorne seems to have had practical reason as well as theoretical wisdom. Oldcorne, I take it, had a good, strong, clear, practical head on his shoulders, which included in its armoury _will_, in the sense of _power_, as well as intellect and heart, and "_where there's a will there's a way_."]

Guy Fawkes probably was authorised to impart and possibly actually did, under the oath, impart some knowledge of the Plot to Captain Hugh Owen, a Welsh Roman Catholic soldier of fortune serving in Flanders under the Archdukes.[102] Owen's name figures in the Earl of Salisbury's instructions to Sir Edward c.o.ke, the Attorney-General who prosecuted the surviving Gunpowder conspirators in the historic Westminster Hall.

Moreover, I have thought that at least some of the powder must have been purchased in Flanders through the good offices of the said Captain Owen.

The powder and the mining tools and implements appear to have been stored at first in the house at Lambeth and placed under the charge of Robert Keyes and, eventually, of Christopher Wright. The powder was, I take it, packed in bags, and the bags themselves packed in padlocked hampers.

Afterwards, I conclude, the powder bags were deposited in the barrels, and the barrels themselves carried by two of the conspirators, with aid of brewers' slings, and deposited in the cellar, which apparently had at least two doors.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

Now, when deep within the depths of the moral being of Christopher Wright there first arose that tender day-spring, a realization of guilt and shame: that crimsoned dawn, a sense of grief and sorrow for those two high crimes whereby his wretched conscious-self had been made darksome and deformed: acts, wondrous in the telling, in that soul had been indeed wrought out; regard being had to the overmastering power of Man's conditioned yet free will.

Furthermore, the historical Inquirer cannot but seek, if possible, by the exercise of the philosophic faculty, to penetrate to what, on the human side, may have been the originating cause, the moving spring, of the limited yet responsible moral nature of a guilty creature, whose eyes for well-nigh three hundred years have been closed by a violent death; of a guilty creature who, in the awful tragedy of his end, verified in himself, in the sight of all men, the sublimely terrible words of the old Greek tragedy, "The guilty suffer."

For wrong-doing, by a steadfast law of the universal reason, "till time shall be no more," will ever entail temporal punishment; and, by nature, expiation and atonement must be wrought out in the criminal's own keen consciousness.

Yet, by a compensating law of universal reason, as inexorable as its fellow, according as Man does work out that measure of punishment, expiating and atoning, which to him Destiny has allotted for his guerdon, in that proportion does his soul regain its forfeited harmoniousness and peace.

Now the originating cause, the moving spring, in the case of the, I hold, contrite Christopher Wright was, on the human side, the flooding of his soul by memories pure and bright of days long, long ago.

I need not labour this point; but in a note I will relate certain facts concerning her to whom Christopher Wright owed the gifts of life and nurture, which will sufficiently tell what manner of woman that Elizabethan Yorks.h.i.+re mother was, in respect of courage, humanity, and devotedness to her ideals.[103]

I furthermore opine that, although it was the personal dawning consciousness of Christopher Wright himself that _primarily_ prompted the happy step of recourse to Father Edward Oldcorne,[104] yet Christopher Wright, in my judgment, already had confided the just scruples of his conscience to the ear, not of a "superior" judicial Priest, but of an "equal" counselling Layman.

That Layman, I hold, was Thomas Ward, who, belike, heightened and strengthened his connection's laudable resolve.[105]

Now, if such were the case, I do not doubt that Father Oldcorne, that skilled, tried "minister of a mind diseased," the duties of whose vocation urged him, with persistent force, promiscuously "to work good unto all men," voluntarily offered to pen the immortal Letter; _provided he were released from the obligations of that solemn secrecy imposed by "the seal of the Confessional": released by the Penitent himself, in whom alone resided the prerogative of granting or withholding such a release_.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

Again; I think that probably Thomas Ward had either at Hindlip, Evesham or elsewhere at least one interview with the great Jesuit himself--"the gradely Jesuit," as the good, simple-hearted Lancas.h.i.+re Catholics would style him--in order that Father Oldcorne might receive from Ward in person satisfactory a.s.surance that, with certainty, when the Letter had been prepared it would be delivered directly by Ward himself, or indirectly by him, through Mounteagle, to the Government authorities.

Nay, to make a.s.surance doubly sure, it is even possible that Father Oldcorne may have insisted on a _second Letter_ being penned and sent to _another n.o.bleman at the Court_, the Earl of Northumberland, a man of ancient lineage and great name, with whom Ward, through the Gascoignes, would be distantly connected.[106]