The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 20

For a fortnight before Michaelmas (11th October, old style) the chief of the English Jesuits was being harboured at Great Harrowden, the house of the Dowager Lady Vaux and the young Lord Vaux.

Great Harrowden Hall appears to have been rebuilt by the guardians of the youthful baron a little before the year 1605. For in "_The Condition of Catholics under James I._," being largely the life of Father John Gerard, there is (p. 147) the following statement: "Our hostess set about fitting up her own present residence for that same purpose, and built us separate quarters close to the old Chapel.... Here she built a little wing of three stories for Father Percy and me. The place was exceedingly convenient, and so free from observation that from our rooms we could step out into the private garden, and thence through s.p.a.cious walks into the fields, where we could mount our horses and ride whither we would." On p. 175 Father Gerard says: "Our vestments and altar furniture were both plentiful and costly ... some were embroidered with gold and pearls and figured by well-skilled hands. We had six ma.s.sive silver candlesticks on the altar, besides those at the sides for the Elevation; the cruets were of silver also, as were the basin for the lavabo, the bell, and the thurible. There were, moreover, lamps hanging from silver chains, and a silver crucifix on the altar. For greater Festivals, however, I had a crucifix of gold, a foot in height."

The Hall at Great Harrowden contained hiding-places for the priests, probably contrived by Brother Nicholas Owen, the servant of Father Garnet.

The priests that resided at Great Harrowden were at that time mainly Jesuits. And besides Father Gerard himself, Fathers Strange, Nicholas Hart, and Roger Lee were there oftentimes to be found.[A]

[Footnote A: The present Lord Vaux of Harrowden, in the course of a most courteous reply to various historical questions the writer ventured to propound to him, says, in a letter dated 15th November, 1901, that his residence, Harrowden Hall, was erected in the year 1719. It will, therefore, not be the self-same mansion as that wherein Fathers Garnet, Gerard, Fisher, Roger Lee, etc., were wont to be harboured by his Lords.h.i.+p's distinguished ancestors.

None of the grand old English Catholic families, those "honourable people," if such were ever known to mortal, have a better right than the Lords Vaux of Harrowden, to take as their motto those fine words of Gerald Ma.s.sey:--

"'They wrought in Faith,' and _not_ 'They wrought in Doubt,'-- Is the proud epitaph that we inscribe Above our glorious dead."

The name "Vaux of Harrowden" is still to be found in the bead-roll of English Roman Catholic Peers. And, along with such historic names as Norfolk, Mowbray and Stourton, Petre, Arundell of Wardour, Stafford, Clifford of Chudleigh, and Herries, the name "Vaux of Harrowden" was appended to "the Roman Catholic Peers' Protest," dated from the House of Lords, 14th February, 1901, addressed to the Earl of Halsbury, Lord High Chancellor of England, anent "the Declaration against Popery," that Our Most Gracious King Edward VII. was compelled, by Act of Parliament, to utter on the occasion of meeting His Majesty's first Parliament.]

CHAPTER LI.

On the 4th of October, Father Garnet wrote a long letter to Father Parsons in Rome, who was then virtually the ruler of the Catholics of England, though that st.u.r.dy Yorks.h.i.+reman, Father John Mush,[A] among secular priests, together with many others, resented being dictated to by Father Parsons, certainly a man of great genius, but indulging too much the mere "wire-puller" instinct and propensity to be reckoned a prince among ecclesiastical statesmen.

[Footnote A: Mush may have been of the Mushes, of Knaresbrough, stanch Catholics, but in humble circ.u.mstances.--See Peac.o.c.k's "_List_."]

This letter of Father Garnet's, to which reference has been just made, is a remarkable production. It begins as follows:--

"My very loving Sir,

"This I write from the elder Nicholas[A] his residence where I find my hostess with all her posterity very well; and we are to go within few days nearer London."

[Footnote A: Father Nicholas Hart, S.J., as distinguished from Brother Nicholas Owen, S.J.]

The letter then says:--

"The judges now openly protest that the King will have blood and hath taken blood in Yorks.h.i.+re."[B]

[Footnote B: The "Venerable" Thomas Welbourn and John Fulthering suffered at York on the 1st August, 1605; and William Brown at Ripon on the 5th September.--See Challoner's "_Missionary Priests_." Ed. by T. G. Law (Jack, Edinburgh).]

There were four paragraphs at the end of the letter.

Now, a short but separate paragraph of three lines is carefully obliterated between the first and the third of these paragraphs.

The third paragraph ends thus:--

"_I cease 4th Octobris._"

The fourth paragraph then continues:--

"My hostesses both and their children salute you. Sir Thomas Tresham is dead."[C]

[Footnote C: The hostesses would be those valiant women, Elizabeth Dowager Lady Vaux of Harrowden (_nee_ Roper), the Honourable Eleanor Brookesby, and the Honourable Anne Vaux. William Lord Vaux of Harrowden, who harboured Father Parsons in 1580-81, had married for his second wife a sister of Sir Thomas Tresham. This Lord Vaux's eldest son Ambrose, a priest, resigned his t.i.tle in favour of his half-brother the Honourable George Vaux, afterwards Lord Vaux of Harrowden. The first wife of William Lord Vaux was Elizabeth Beaumont, of Gracedieu, Leicesters.h.i.+re. She was the mother of Ambrose, Elizabeth, and Anne Vaux. Father Garnet for many years lived at Harrowden, from 1586 as the guest of William Lord Vaux, whose son, George Lord Vaux of Harrowden, married Elizabeth Roper, daughter of the first Lord Teynham. This lady was the above-named Dowager Lady Vaux of Harrowden, mother of Edward Lord Vaux of Harrowden, who became as "n.o.ble a confessor for the Faith" as were his numerous other relatives. (The present Lord Vaux of Harrowden, whose family name is Mostyn, is descended from the above-mentioned Lords Vaux, through the female line.)]

_Here ends the body of the letter._

CHAPTER LII.

_After the body of the letter there is a post scriptum._

Now, there are nine words in the _post scriptum_ that suffice to clench the argument of this book.

And why? Because, I respectfully submit, those nine words show that between the 4th day of October, 1605, _and_ the 21st day of October, Garnet had received from somewhere _intelligence to the effect that machinery was being put into motion whereby the Plot would be squashed_.

For the _post scriptum_ to this letter of Father Garnet is as follows:--

"_21 Octobris._

"This letter being returned unto me again, FOR REASON OF A FRIEND'S STAY IN THE WAY, I blotted out some words, purposing to write the same by the next opportunity, as I will do apart.

"I have a letter from Field, the Journeyman in Ireland, who telleth me that of late, there was a very severe proclamation against all ecclesiastical persons, and a general command for going to the churches, with a solemn protestation that the King never promised nor meant to give toleration.

"I pray you speak to Claude, and to grant them, or obtain for them all the faculties we have here; for so he earnestly desireth, and is scrupulous. I gave unto two of them, that pa.s.sed by me, all we have; and I think it sufficient in law; for being here, they were my subjects, and we have our faculties also for Ireland, for the most part. I pray you procure them a general grant for their comfort."

The letter and the _post scriptum_ are alike unsigned. The letter and the _post scriptum_ are still in existence, and, I believe, are preserved in London in the archives of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster.

I am indebted for my copy to the work ent.i.tled, "_A True Account of the Gunpowder Plot_," by "Vindicator" (Dolman), 1851--taken from Tierney's Edition of "_Dodd's Church History_."

The Claude referred to in the _post scriptum_ is Father Claude Aquaviva, the then General of the Jesuits, who lived in Rome.

(Irish Catholics will not fail to notice the interest this afflicted, much-tried Englishman took in their case on the 21st October, 1605.)

Father Gerard says in his "_Narrative of the Plot_," p. 269: "Father Oldcorne his indictment was so framed that one might see they much desired to have withdrawn him within the compa.s.s of some partic.i.p.ation in this late Treason; to which effect they first did seem to suppose it as likely that he should send letters up and down to prepare men's minds for the insurrection."

Again; respecting Ralph Ashley, the Jesuit lay-brother and servant of Father Oldcorne, Gerard says, on p. 271: "Ralph was also indicted and condemned upon supposition that he had carried letters to and fro about this conspiracy."

_Now, my deliberate conjectures are these: That Edward Oldcorne had indeed sent "Letters" which his servant Ralph Ashley had carried concerning "this conspiracy." That one of those Letters was sent and carried to Henry Garnet. And another to William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle._

On the 12th of March, 1605-6, Father Garnet, when a prisoner in the Tower of London, before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, Sir Edward c.o.ke, Sir William Waade (Lieutenant of the Tower), and John Corbett, "confessed that Father Parsons wrote to him certain letters last summer [_i.e._, 1605]

_which he received about Michaelmas last_, wherein he requested this examinat to advertise him what plotts the Catholiques of England had then in hand; _whereunto for that this examinat was on his journey he made no answere_."

Yea, indeed, this was a part of the truth, no doubt. _But the remainder of the truth, I suggest, was that the Plot of Plots Garnet had learned, a few days after the aforesaid Michaelmas, was being a.s.suredly squashed by Edward Oldcorne._