The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 23

Garnet, at Coughton, appears to have urged the recital of the same words for "the intention" of the "confounding" of the anti-popish "politics,"

and the "frustration" of the "knavish tricks" of James at the forthcoming Parliament. If Garnet did so, then he must have known that James and his _Parliament_ would be in _existence_ to work mischief! _And this once more proves that he knew the Plot would be squashed and finally swept away._

CHAPTER LVI.

Soon after Catesby, Rookwood, and Grant had been injured by the exploded gunpowder at Holbeach House (as has been already mentioned in Chapter LIV.), Robert Winter, the Master of Huddington, deeming discretion the better part of valour, quitted the ill-fated mansion of Stephen Littleton.

Now, it so fell out that Robert Winter met with Stephen Littleton, the Master of Holbeach, in a wood about a mile from Holbeach. And for no less than two months these two high-born gentlemen were wandering disguised up and down the country. Having plenty of money with them, the fugitives bribed a farmer near Rowley Regis, in Staffords.h.i.+re, a tenant of Humphrey Littleton, cousin to Stephen Littleton, to grant them harbourage.

On New Year's Day the rebels came very early in the morning to the house of one Perkes, in Hagley. After an extraordinary adventure there (an account of which may be read in Jardine's "_Criminal Trials_," vol. ii., pp. 90-93), at about eleven of the clock one night, Humphrey Littleton conveyed the two hunted delinquents to Hagley House, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, the mansion wherein dwelt his widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. John Littleton,[158] a Protestant lady, to whose children the place apparently belonged.

Mrs. Littleton was herself either in, or on the way to, London at this time, so the two traitors were harboured without the lady's knowledge or consent.

By the treachery, however, of the man-cook at Hagley, or rather, in justice it should be said, by his diligent zeal in the service of his sovereign lord the King, Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured by the lawful authorities, and forthwith conveyed to the Tower of London.

Now, some time during these two months of the wanderings of these two gentlemen, with whose efforts to elude the vigilance of the law of the land Humphrey Littleton had connived, this same Humphrey Littleton repaired to Father Edward Oldcorne, probably at Hindlip, in order to be resolved in respect of certain doubts which he (Humphrey Littleton) said had entered into his mind as to whether or not the Gunpowder Treason Plot were or were not morally lawful.

Now, although an English Roman Catholic gentleman, it is certain that Humphrey Littleton, like a great many more of his co-religionists before and since, was by no means perfect. Inasmuch as, first, we hear tell of "a love-begot" boy of his (if Virtue's pure ears can pardon the phrase), who was to become a page of Robert Catesby, in the event of Catesby's going in command of that company of horse to Flanders to fight, with James's permission, in behalf of the Spanish Archdukes, whereof we have already heard. And, secondly, Humphrey Littleton was plainly deemed by the astute Edward Oldcorne to be what we should nowadays style "a dangerous fellow,"

who was capable, from various motives, of propounding a question of that sort in order to entrap. That is to say, in order wantonly to cause mischief, whatever might be the tenour or purport of Oldcorne's answer--mischief among either Catholics or Protestants.[159]

We will, however, let Father Oldcorne tell his own tale as to what took place on the occasion of this momentous visit to him by Humphrey Littleton. For the great casuist's own words are contained in his holograph Declaration of the 12th day of March, 1605-6, written by him when a prisoner in the Tower, and which I beheld in the Record Office, London, on the 5th of October, 1900.[160]

CHAPTER LVII.

GUNPOWDER PLOT BOOKS--Vol. II., No. 202.

"The voluntarie declaration of Edward Oldcorne alias Hall Jesuite 12 Mar. 1605 [_i.e._, 1605-6].

A.

"Mr. Humfrey Litleton[A] telling me that after Mr. Catesbie saw him self and others of his Companie burnt w^{th} powder, and the rest of the compnie readie to fly from him, that then he began to thinke he had offended G.o.d in this action, seeing soe bad effects follow of the same.

[Footnote A: I do not know the exact point of time when Humphrey Littleton thus spoke to Father Oldcorne, except that it was certainly after the fatal 5th of November, 1605.]

B.

"I answeared him that an act is not to be condemd or justified upon the good or bad euent that follow^{th} it but upon the ende or object, and the meanes that is used for effecting the same and brought him an example out of the booke of Judges wher the 11 tribs of Israel weare comannded by G.o.d to make warrs upon the trib of Benjamin; and yett the tribe of Benjamin did both in the first and secound battaile overthrow the other 11 tribs. The like said I wee read of Lewis King of france who went to fight against the Turks and to recouer the hoolye Land, but ther he loost the most of his armie, and him self dyed ther of the plague the like wee may say when the xtianes defended Rhoodes against the turks wher the Turkes preuayled and the xtianes weare overthrowne, and yet noe doubt the xtians cause was good and the turks bad and thus I applied it to this fact of Mr.

Catesbie's it is not to be approved or condemned by the euent, but by the propper object or end, and meanes w^{ch} was to be vsed in it; and bycause I know nothinge of thes I will neither approve it or condeme it but leave it to G.o.d and ther owne consciences and in this warie sort I spake to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me, and that he should take noe advantage of my words whither he reported them to Catholiks or Protestants.

"(Signed) Edward Oldcorne.

"Acknowledged before vs

"J. Popham.[A]

Edw. c.o.ke.[B]

W. Waad.[C]

John Corbett."

(The A and B at the left side of the Declaration are c.o.ke's own marks.)

[Footnote A: The Lord Chief Justice of England.]

[Footnote B: Afterwards the celebrated Lord Chief Justice of England, and Editor of "_Littleton's Tenures_." This Humphrey Littleton, mentioned in the Text, was a descendant of Sir John Littleton, Author of the immortal legal work.]

[Footnote C: Lieutenant of the Tower of London.]

CHAPTER LVIII.

We are now come to the crux of this Inquiry.

To every philosophical thinker who takes the trouble to ponder the matter it must be evident that the ethical principles enunciated in the first part of the Declaration, given _in extenso_ in the preceding chapter, are intellectually irrefutable and morally irreproachable; although their obviousness, certainly, will not be palpable to "the man in the street."

The answer of this clear-sighted, strong-headed Yorks.h.i.+reman, is indeed the answer that is the resultant of exact ethical knowledge, that is, of moral science. _For what is science, either in the realms of the intellectual, the moral, the political, or the physical, but "exact knowledge."_

Moreover, these principles are the resultant of abstract moral science, or exact ethical knowledge pure and simple.

Now, "Morality is the science of duty."[161] But, just as it is most mischievous _indiscriminately_ to apply abstract principles of morality, however faultless in themselves, to the complex affairs of individuals and of States, so is it most dangerous to strew broadcast statements of the abstract principles of ethics for the untutored mind of the _merely_ practical man--first of all, to misunderstand; and, secondly, to wrest to his own undoing and that of his equally unfortunate fellow-men.

This is certainly so in the present stage of the world's imperfect education. Though one lives in the hope that sooner or later that "ampler day" may dawn, when, from the least unto the greatest, men shall come to have a happy conscious realization of the truth of the poet's dictum: "_Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas_;"[162] "Happy is he who hath been able to learn the causes of things."

Still, _truth--that which is--is truth_.

_And partial truth is not less true, according to its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth._[A]

[Footnote A: Strategy in war has for its intellectual and moral justification the fact that partial truth is not less true, in its measure and in its degree, than the full orb of truth.]

Furthermore, "Wisdom is justified by all her children;" even although some of those children are tardy in realizing and in expressing their sense of such justification.

Now, although all this stands to reason--nay, because it is true, is even the perfection of reason--it was an enunciation of principles by Father Oldcorne, which it was more than probable would be misinterpreted by two sets of people, the intellectually stupid and the morally malicious.

Nay, it may be allowed that even persons of the highest intelligence and of the utmost good faith--such as, in the last century, the late David Jardine[163]--might easily enough think that Edward Oldcorne deserved condemnation and chiding for thus apparently showing such a marked disposition to look at this grave matter, the moral rightness or wrongness of the Gunpowder Plot, as though it were as purely abstract and scholastic a question as that famous moot of the middle ages: "How many angels can dance on the point of a needle?"[A]

[Footnote A: Oldcorne had special private knowledge that the Plot would never be a Plot _executed_, because (1) he knew Christopher Wright had resolved to reveal it; because (2) he knew that his own personal act had ended the Plot by his penning the Letter.]