The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 13

And, therefore, the story falls to the ground.

And, therefore, it should be, in reason, henceforward consigned to the limbo of exploded myths and idle tales.

It is true that Dr. Nash in his work on Worcesters.h.i.+re,[115] written in the eighteenth century and published in 1780, declares that "Tradition in this county says that she [_i.e._, Mrs. Abington] was the person who wrote the Letter to her brother, which discovered the Gunpowder Plot."

But then, obviously, this alleged tradition is absolutely worthless, unless it can be shown to have been a _continuous_ tradition from the year 1605 down to the time when Nash was writing his "_History_." For if the tradition sprang up at a later date, for the purposes of true history its value as a tradition is plainly nothing.

The learned David Jardine--to whom all students of the Gunpowder Plot will be for ever indebted for his labours in this conspiracy of conspiracies--in his "_Narrative_," published in the year 1857, and to which reference has been already frequently made in the course of this Inquiry, says,[116] "No contemporary writer alludes to Mrs. Abington as the author of the Letter."

And Jardine evidently does not think that the penmans.h.i.+p of the doc.u.ment can be brought home to this lady.

Moreover, if Mrs. Abington had written the Letter of Letters, surely she would have, at least, _shared_ her brother Lord Mounteagle's reward, which was 700 a year for life, equal to nearly 7,000 a year in our money.

For if 700 a year was the guerdon of _him_ that _merely delivered_ this Letter of Letters, what should have been the guerdon of _her_ that actually _penned_ the peerless treasure?

But the hypothesis that Mrs. Abington penned the Letter of Letters has absolutely no foundation in contemporary evidence. For there is not the faintest echo of an echo of testimony, nor the merest shadow of a shade of proof that _either_ she _or_ Mr. Abington had the remotest previous knowledge of the Gunpowder Treason Plot.

And the mere fact that Mr. Abington, although the harbourer of Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne, was spared from undergoing the extreme penalty of the law, in itself tends to disprove the allegation that either he or his wife had been in any way privy to the Plot. For no plotter's life was spared.

Mr. Abington became a celebrated antiquary, especially in regard to his own County of Worcesters.h.i.+re, within the confines of which he was ordered by the King to remain for the rest of his days.--See Jardine's "_Narrative_," p. 212.[A]

[Footnote A: The splendid Elizabethan mansion known as Hindlip Hall, four miles from Worcester, with a large and magnificent prospect of the surrounding country, was demolished early in the nineteenth century. A picture of this mansion is in the Rev. Ethelred Taunton's book, "_The Jesuits in England_" (Methuen & Co.). The present Hindlip Hall is the seat of the Lord Hindlip.]

In these circ.u.mstances, Dr. Nash's alleged tradition cannot possibly outweigh the inferences that the facts known and inferred concerning the Plot all tend to establish. For these inferences, both in respect of what happened _before and after_ the penning of the Letter, all go to show this: that the conjectures, surmises, and suggestions of this Essay are indeed probable to the degree of moral cert.i.tude.

And I respectfully submit these same conjectures, surmises, and suggestions cannot be upset, still less broken, by knowledge commensurate with zeal.

Jardine mentions the singular hypothesis that this famous Letter was penned by the Honourable Anne Vaux, at the dictation of the Honourable Mrs. Abington.

Now, the Honourable Anne Vaux was one of the daughters of the Lord Vaux of Harrowden, in Northamptons.h.i.+re, at whose house Father Henry Garnet (the chief of the Jesuits in England) lived for many years, from 1586, when Garnet returned to England from Rome. Anne Vaux and her sister, the Honourable Eleanor Brookesby, were high-minded women who lived at White Webbs, Stoke Pogis,[A] Wandsworth, and other places of Jesuit resort, rendering, along with Edward Brookesby,[B] Esquire (the husband of Eleanor Brookesby), the members of the Jesuit Society in England signally devoted service.

[Footnote A: The mansion-house at Stoke Pogis, where the Dowager Lady Vaux lived for a time along with Miss Anne Vaux, had been built by Elizabeth's favourite Chancellor, Sir Christopher Hatton. If this was the manor-house of Stoke Pogis, then Gray, the author of the immortal "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," sojourned at the place.]

[Footnote B: Edward Brookesby was of Arundel House, Shouldby, Leicesters.h.i.+re. Frances Brookesby (his sister, probably, and one of Queen Anne's Maids of Honour), became a devoted friend of Mary Ward.--See "_Life of Mary Ward_," vol. ii., p. 23.]

This was especially so in the case of the Honourable Anne Vaux, who spent and was herself spent in behalf of labours wherein the English Jesuits busied themselves for, as they thought, the greater glory of G.o.d and the greater good of man.

Jardine, however, after comparing the Letter with many letters and papers at the then State Paper Office, which are undoubtedly in the Honourable Anne Vaux's handwriting, says, "I am quite unable to discover the alleged ident.i.ty of the handwriting."[117]

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

Now, regard being had to the fact that "there is seldom smoke except there be, at least, some little fire, the question arises: Is it possible to account, on rational grounds, for any such statement of the worthy person still in being in 1680 as Dr. Williams credits him with?

(Nash's evidence, in the absence of proof of a _continuous_ tradition, is not one whit more worthy of credence than Dr. Williams' impalpability.)

It is possible.

For, it is well within the bounds of rational probability that what Mr.

Abington said to some person or persons unknown (a.s.suming that he ever said anything whatever) was _not_ that his wife _"had writ the Letter,"

but that_ his wife "_knew, or thought she knew, who had writ the Letter_."

The way in which to test the matter is this: Supposing, for the sake of argument, that my hypothesis be true, and that Father Oldcorne _did_ actually pen that Letter which was the instrument, not only of the temporal salvation of Mrs. Abington's brother, the Lord Mounteagle, but also of her father, the Lord Morley, together with many others of her kinsfolk, friends, and acquaintance, as well as of her lawful Sovereign and His Royal Consort, _is it, or is it not, probable that Mrs. Abington would guess, in some way or another, the mighty secret_?

It is probable.

For let it be remembered who and what Mrs. Abington was.

The Honourable Mary Parker, the daughter of Edward Parker Lord Morley and the Honourable Elizabeth Stanley, was the mother of William Abington, the well-known poet[118] of that name, who was born, in fact, on or about the 5th of November, 1605.

Therefore Mrs. Abington was the mother of a son who was a man of distinguished intellectual parts.

Moreover, seeing that usually it is from the mother that a son's capabilities are derived rather than from the father, it is more, rather than less, likely that Mrs. Abington herself was a naturally clear-minded, acute, discerning woman, gifted with that marvellous faculty which const.i.tutes cleverness in a woman--sympathetic, imaginative insight.

Now if this were so, Mrs. Abington's native perspicacity would be surely potent enough to enable her to form a judgment, at once penetrating and accurate, in reference to such a thing as the penmans.h.i.+p of the great Letter--a doc.u.ment which had come home, as events had proved, with such peculiar closeness to her own "business and bosom."[119]

In these circ.u.mstances, may the Lady of Hindlip not, in after days, when the tragic scenes of those fateful years 1605 and 1606 had become a sad, pathetic memory merely, have recalled to mind certain special aspects in the play of the countenance, in the tone of the voice, aye, in the general mien of Father Edward Oldcorne that she had noted shortly from and after the Michaelmas of that unhappy year 1605, forming evidence whence she might draw her own shrewd, wise conclusions?

May not this honourable woman--honourable by nature as well as by name--have recollected that _she_ had then observed that the holy man sought more than hitherto had been his wont the retirement of his "secret chamber?" That, at that period, he seemed more than ever absorbed, nay hidden, in thought?

May she not have recalled that at that "last" Christmastide, too, he, who was by nature so severely yet sweetly just, and the humblest among men, had shown himself disposed to judge those wicked wrong-doers with a mildness and a leniency that a.s.suredly, perforce, betokened--what? I answer, a consciousness of some high prerogative, some kingly right, abiding in him, whereby he was _warranted_ in thus speaking.

Again; did he not _then_ manifest a disposition, remarkable even in _him_, to act in diametrical opposition to the ordinary way of men, which is so well expressed by the sarcastic, cynical, yet only too true saying, that "the world is ready enough to laugh with a man, but it leaves him to weep alone." And this, when "a compa.s.sionate silence" (save in extraordinary circ.u.mstances) was the utmost that Justice and Charity alike would prompt even a Priest and a Jesuit (nay, even a Priest and a Jesuit of the type of Edward Oldcorne) to display towards the wretched, erring victims of that "_ineluctabile fatum_," that resistless decree of the Universe--"The guilty suffer."

Now, I submit, with sure confidence for an affirmative answer, to the judgment of my candid readers--of my candid readers that know something of _human_ nature, its workings, its windings, and its ways--the question: Whether or not it is not merely possible, but probable, that Mrs. Abington _divined that stupendous secret_, through and by means of the subtle, yet all-potent, _mental sympathy_, which must have subsisted betwixt herself and the disciplined, exalted, stately soul, who, as a Priest--aye! as a very Prophet--this high-born lady, or at least her spouse, had "counted it all honour and all joy" to have harboured, as a beloved spiritual Father, "elect and precious," for no less than sixteen years?[120]

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

Let us finally consider the Evidence and the deductions and suggestions therefrom which tend to prove that _subsequent_ to the dictating of the Letter by the contrite, repentant Christopher Wright, _and subsequent_ to the penning of the Doc.u.ment by the deserving, beneficent Edward Oldcorne, each of these two Englishmen, aye! these two Yorks.h.i.+remen, _were conscious of having performed_ the several functions that these pages have attributed unto them.

Let us take, then, the case of Christopher Wright first.

Now, the Evidence that tends to show that Christopher Wright was conscious of having been the revealing plotter and dictating conspirator[121] has been already mainly set forth, but let me recapitulate the same.

It is as follows:--

(1) That either Thomas Winter must have gone in search of Christopher Wright, or Christopher Wright must have gone in search of Thomas Winter, in order that it might be possible for Stowe to record on p. 880 of his "_Chronicle_" the following allegation of facts:--

"T. Winter, the next day after the delivery of the Letter, told Christopher Wright that he understood of an obscure letter delivered to the Lord Mounteagle, advising him not to appear at the Parliament House the first day, and that the Lord Mounteagle had no sooner read it, but instantly carried it to the Earle of Salisbury, which newes was presently made known unto the rest, who after divers conferences agreed to see further trial, but, howsoever, Percy resolved to stay the last houre."[122]

(2) Poulson says, in his account of the Wrights, of Plowland (or Plewland) Hall, in his "_History of Holderness_," vol. ii., p. 57, that Christopher Wright "was the first who ascertained that the plot was discovered."