Chapter Eleven.
According to that Beginning.
“Carry him forth and bury him. Death’s peace
Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier
Sits silent, or says only these few words—
Let him who is without sin ’mongst ye all
Cast the first stone.”
Dinah Mulock.
A great crowd had assembled near Whitehall, and was lining Charing Cross and the Tiltyard below, on the morning of that 13th of February, when Sir Henry Bromley and his guard, with the prisoners in their midst, marched down the street to the Palace. Among them were Temperance Murthwaite and Rachel, and near them was Mrs Abbott. The crowd was deeply interested in the prisoners, especially the two priests.
“There is a Provincial!” said a respectable-looking man who stood next to Rachel.
“Ay, and there goeth a young Pope!” returned Temperance, grimly, in allusion to Hall.
“They bear a good brag, most of ’em,” said the man. “Would we were rid of ’em all, neck and crop!” said another.
“Pack ’em off to the American plantations!” suggested a third.
“If I dwelt there, I shouldn’t give you thanks,” replied the first.
“Find some land where nought dwelleth save baboons and snakes, and send ’em all there in a lump,” was the response.
“What think you, Rachel?” demanded Mrs Abbott, who was not often silent for so long at once.
“Why, they’re men, just like other folks!” was Rachel’s contribution.
“Did you think they’d have horns and tails?” said Temperance.
“Well, nay, not justly that,” answered Rachel: “but I reckoned they’d ha’ looked a bit more like wastrels (scoundrels). Yon lad’s none so bad-looking as many a man you may meet i’ th’ street. And th’ owd un’s meterly (middling), too. Happen (perhaps) they aren’t any o’ the worst.”
“Why, maid,” said the man who had first spoken, “that’s Father Garnet, the head of all the Jesuits in this country; there isn’t a craftier fox in all England than he.”
“Well, I shouldn’t ha’ thought it,” saith Rachel.
“Faces tell not alway truth,” said Temperance.
“He’s good eyes, though,” remarked Mrs Abbott, “though they be a bit heavy, as though he’d had a poor night’s rest.”
“He’s one o’ them long, narrow faces,” said the man; “I never trust such. And a long nose, too—just like a fox.”
“Ay, I’ll be bound he’s a fause (cunning) un,” commented Rachel.
“His mouth’s the worst thing about him,” said Temperance.
“It’s a little un,” observed Rachel.
“Little or big, it’s a false one,” answered Temperance. “There’s a prim, fixed, sanctimonious look about it that I wouldn’t trust with anything I cared to see safe.”
“Eh, I’d none trust one o’ them—not to sell a pound o’ butter,” said Rachel. “And by th’ same token, Mrs Temperance, I mun be home to skim th’ cream, or Charity’ll take it off like a gaumless (stupid) lass as hoo (she) is. Hoo can do some things, well enough, but hoo cannot skim cream!”
“Go, good maid, if thou canst win out of this crowd, but methinks thou shalt have thy work cut out to do so.”
“Eh, she will,” said Mrs Abbott. “And mind you, Rachel! if you pull yourself forth, you’ll find your gown in rags by the time you’re at home. I do hope, neighbour, you deal not with Simpkinson, in the Strand; that rogue sold me ten ells of green stamyn, and charged me thirty shillings the ell, and I vow it was scarce made up ere it began a-coming to bits. I’ll give it him when I can catch him! and if I serve not our Seth out for dinting in the blackjack last night, I’m a Dutch woman, and no mistake! Black jacks are half-a-crown apiece, and so I told him; but I’ll give him a bit more afore I’ve done with him; trust me. There is no keeping lads in order. The mischievousness of ’em’s past count. My husband, he says, ‘Lads will be lads,’—he’s that easy, if a mouse ran away with his supper from under his nose, he’d only call after it, ‘Much good may it do thee.’ Do you ever hear mice in your house, Mrs Murthwaite! I’m for ever and the day after plagued wi’ them, and I do wish those lads ’ud make theirselves a bit useful and catch ’em, instead o’ dinting in black jacks. But, dear heart, you’ll as soon catch the mice as catch them at aught that’s useful. They’ll—”
“My mistress,” said Mrs Abbott’s next neighbour, “may I ask if your husband be a very silent man?”
“I’m sure o’ that,” said the man who followed him.
“Eh, bless you, they all talk and chatter at our house while I can’t slip a word in,” was the lady’s answer.
“That’s why she has so many to let go out o’ door,” remarked the last speaker.
“I thought so,” observed the neighbour, “because I have marked that men and women do mostly wed with their contraries.”
“Why, what mean you?” inquired Mrs Abbott, turning round to look him in the face.
“That my way lieth down this by-street,” said he, working himself out of the crush into Channon Row, “and so I bid you all good-morrow.”
Temperance Murthwaite laughed to herself, as she let herself in at the door of the White Bear, while Mrs Abbott hurried into the Angel with a box on the ear to Dorcas and Hester, who leaned upon the gate watching the crowd.
“Get you in to your business!” said she. “Chatter, chatter, chatter! One might as well live in a cage o’ magpies at once, and ha’ done with it. Be off with the pair of ye!”
Garnet’s admissions in answer to the questions put to him were few and cautious. He allowed that for twenty years he had been the Superior of the English Jesuits, but denied any knowledge of the negotiations with Spain, carried on before the death of Queen Elizabeth. As to Fawkes, he had never seen him but once in his life, at the previous Easter. Questioned about White Webbs, he flatly denied that he ever was there, or anywhere near Enfield Chase “since Bartholomewtide.” He was not in London or the suburbs in November. The Attorney-General was very kind to the prisoner, and promised “to make the best construction that he could” of his answers to the King; but Sir William Wade was not the man to accept the word of a Jesuit, unless it should be the word “Guilty.” He accused Garnet of wholesale violation of the Decalogue in the plainest English, and coolly told him that he could not believe him on his oath, since the Pope could absolve him for any extent of lying or equivocation. It was plainly no easy matter to beguile Sir William Wade.
The next day, February 14th, Garnet and Hall were removed to the Tower of London, where the former found himself, to his satisfaction, lodged in “a very fine chamber,” next to that of his brother priest. Here, as he records in a letter to his friends, he received the best treatment, being “allowed every meal a good draught of excellent claret wine,” as well as permitted to send for additional sack out of his own purse for himself and the keeper: and he was suffered to vegetate as he thought proper, with only one sorrow to vex his soul—Sir William Wade.
Sir William Wade, the Lieutenant of the Tower, constituted himself the torment of poor Garnet’s life. He was perpetually passing through his room, or at the furthest, loitering in the gallery beyond. Sometimes he treated the prisoner as beneath contempt, and would not utter a word to him; at other times he sat down and regaled him with conversation of a free and easy character. The scornful silence was bad enough, but the conversation was considerably worse. Whatever else Garnet was, he was an English gentleman, as his letters testify; and Sir William Wade was not. He was, on the contrary, one of those distressing people who pride themselves on being outspoken, and calling a spade a spade, which they do in the most vulgar and disagreeable manner. He favoured the prisoner with his unvarnished opinion of the Society to which he belonged, and with unsavoury anecdotes of its members, mingled with the bitterest abuse: and the worthy knight was not the man to spare his adjectives when a sufficient seasoning of them would add zest to a dish of nouns. At other times Sir William dipped his tongue in honey, and used the sweetest language imaginable. It is manifest from the manner in which Garnet mentions him, that the smallest of his trials was not Sir William Wade.
Mr Garnet’s first act, on being inducted into these comfortable quarters in his Majesty’s Tower, was to bribe his keeper to wink at his peccadilloes. A few cups of that supernumerary sack, and an occasional piece of silver, were worth expending on the safe carriage of his letters and other necessities which might in time arise. He made affectionate inquiries as to the keeper’s domestic relations, and discovered that he was blessed with a wife and a mother. To the wife he despatched a little of that excellent sack, and secured permission for his letters to be placed in the custody of the mother, who dwelt just outside the walls. But he was especially rejoiced when, a few days after his incarceration, the keeper sidled up to him, with a finger on his lips and a wink in his eye, and beckoned him to a particular part of the room, where with great parade of care and silence he showed him a concealed door between his own cell and that of Hall, intimating by signs that secret communications might be held after this fashion, and he, the keeper, would take care to be conveniently blind and deaf.
This was a comfort indeed, for the imprisoned priests could now mutually forgive each others’ sins. There was a little cranny in the top of the door, which might be utilised for a mere occasional whisper; but when a regular confession was to be made, the door of communication could be opened for an inch or two. The one drawback was that the vexatious door insisted on creaking, as if it were a Protestant door desirous of giving warning of Popish practices. But the Jesuits were equal to the difficulty. When the door was to be shut, the unemployed one either fell to shovelling coals upon the fire, or was suddenly seized with a severe bronchial cough, so that the ominous creak should not be heard outside. The comfort, therefore, remained; and heartily glad were the imprisoned Jesuits to have found this means of communication by the kind help of their tender-hearted keeper.
Alas, poor Jesuits! They little knew that they were caught in their own trap. The treacherous keeper drank their sack, and pocketed their angels, but their letters rarely went further than my Lord of Salisbury’s desk; and in a convenient closet unseen by them, close to the creaking door, Mr Forset, a Justice of the Peace, and Mr Locherson, Lord Salisbury’s secretary, were listening with all their ears to their confidential whispers, and taking thereby bad “coulds” which they subsequently had to go home and nurse. It was fox versus fox. As soon as the door was closed under cover of cough or coals, the hidden spies came quickly forth, and in another chamber wrote down the conversation just passed for the benefit of his Majesty’s Judges.
Benighted Protestants were evidently Messrs Forset and Locherson, for the “Catholic practice” of auricular confession was to them a strange and perplexing matter. They innocently record that “the confession was short, with a prayer in Latin before they did confess to each other, and beating their hands on their breasts.” The Confiteor was succeeded by the whispered confession, in such low tones that scarcely anything reached the disappointed spies. Hall made his confession first, and Garnet followed. The subsequent conversation was in louder tones, though still whispered. Garnet informed his fellow-conspirator that he was suspicious of the good faith of some one whose name the spies failed to hear—to which frailty he allowed that he was very subject; that he had received a note from Thomas Rookwood, who told him of Greenway’s escape, and from Gerard, who therefore was evidently in safety, though “he had been put to great plunges;” that he believed Mrs Anne was in the Town, and would let them hear from their friends; that the keeper had accepted an angel, and sundry cups of sack for himself and his wife, and taken them very kindly,—recommending similar treatment on Hall’s part; that Garnet was very much afraid he should be driven to confess White Webbs, but if so, he would say that he “was there, but knew nothing of the matter.” Then Hall made a remark lost by the spies, to which Garnet answered, with a profane invocation—too common in all ranks at that day—“How did they know that!” If he were pressed as to his treasonable practices before the Queen’s death, he would admit them, seeing that he held a general pardon up to that time. Garnet bemoaned himself concerning Sir William Wade, and expressed his annoyance at the persistent questioning of the Court touching White Webbs.
“I think it not convenient,” said he, “to deny that we were at White Webbs, they do so much insist upon that place. Since I came out of Essex I was there two times, and so I may say I was there; but they press me to be there in October last, which I will by no means confess, but I shall tell them I was not there since Bartholomewtide.”
He expressed his apprehension lest the servants at White Webbs should be examined and tortured, which might “make them yield to some confession;” a fear which made him more resolute to admit nothing concerning the place. He was also very much afraid of being asked about certain letters which Lord Monteagle had written.
“But in truth I am well persuaded,” he concluded, “that I shall wind myself out of that matter; and for any former business, I care not.”
Just as Garnet whispered these words, footsteps were heard approaching the chamber.
“Hark you, hark you, Mr Hall!” cried Garnet in haste; “whilst I shut the door, make a hawking and a spitting.”
Mr Hall obediently and energetically cleared his throat, under cover of which Garnet closed the door, and presented himself the next moment to the edified eyes of Sir William Wade in the pious aspect of a priest telling his beads.
Another conference through the door was held on the 25th of February, wherein Garnet was heard to lament to Hall that he “held not better concurrence”—namely, that he did not use diligence to tell exactly the arranged falsehoods on which the two had previously agreed. The poor spies found themselves in difficulties on this occasion through “a cock crowing under the window of the room, and the cackling of a hen at the very same instant.” Hall, however, was heard to undertake a better adherence to his lesson. It is more than once noted by the spies that in these conferences the prisoners “used not one word of godliness or religion, or recommending themselves or their cause to God; but all hath been how to contrive safe answers.”
During Garnet’s imprisonment in the Tower, if his gaolers may be trusted, his consumption of that extra sack was not regulated by the rules of the Blue Ribbon Army. They averred that he was “indulgent to himself” in this particular, and “daily drank sack so liberally as if he meant to drown sorrow.”
On the 26th, Garnet knew that one of his apprehensions was verified, when he was confronted with poor James Johnson, who had borne the torture so bravely, and who now admitted that the prisoner thus shown to him was the man whom he had known at White Webbs as Mr Mease, the supposed brother of his mistress, Mrs Perkins. He confessed that he had seen him many times. After this, it was useless to deny White Webbs any longer. Hall was examined on the same day; but being ignorant of the evidence given by Johnson, he audaciously affirmed that he had not visited White Webbs, and knew of no such place.
That evening, Garnet gave a shilling to his keeper, with a request to have some oranges brought to him. This fruit, first introduced into England about 1568, was at that time very cheap and plentiful, about eighteen-pence the hundred being the usual price. Sir William Wade, lounging about the gallery as usual, met the keeper as he came out of the cell with the money in his hand.
“What would the old fox now?” demanded he.
“An ’t please you, Sir, Mr Garnet asked for oranges.”
“Oh, come! he may have an orange or two—he can’t do any harm with them without he choke himself, and that should spare the King the cost of a rope to hang him,” said shrewd Sir William.
But he was not quite shrewd enough, for it never occurred to his non-Jesuitical mind that one of those innocent oranges was destined to play the part of a traitorous inkstand by the Reverend Henry Garnet.
A large sheet of paper, folded letter-wise, came out of the prison in the keeper’s hand an hour later. It was addressed to the Reverend Thomas Rookwood, and contained only—in appearance—the following very unobjectionable words. They were written in ink, at the top of the first page:—
“Let these spectacles be set in leather, and with a leather case, or let the fould be fitter for the nose.—Yours for ever, Henry Garnett.”
Who could think of detaining so innocent a missive, or prevent the poor prisoner from obtaining a pair of comfortable spectacles? But when the sheet of paper was held to the fire, a very different letter started out, in faint tracings of orange-juice:—
“This bearer knoweth that I write thus, but thinks it must be read with water. The papers sent with bisket-bread I was forced to burn, and did not read. I am sorry they have, without advise of friends, adventured in so wicked an action.—I must needs acknowledge my being with the two sisters, and that at White Webbs, as is trew, for they are so jealous of White Webbs that I can no way else satisfy. My names I all confesse but that last... I have acknowledged that I went from Sir Everard’s to Coughton... Where is Mrs Anne?”
A few days later, on the 2nd of March, after a careful reconnoitre to avoid the ubiquitous Sir William, Garnet applied his lips to the cranny in the door.
“Hark you! is all well? Let us go to confession first, if you will.”
The spies, ensconced in secret, confess that they heard nothing of Hall’s confession, but that Garnet several times interrupted it with “Well, well!”
Garnet then made his own confession, “very much more softlier than he used to whisper in their interloqucions.” It was short, but unless the spy was mistaken, “he confessed that he had drunk so extraordinarily that he was forced to go two nights to bed betimes.” Then something was said concerning Jesuits, to which Garnet added—
“That cannot be; I am Chancellor. It might proceed of the malice of the priests.”
The conversation on this occasion was brought to a hasty close by Garnet’s departure to read or write a letter; Mr Hall being requested to “make a noise with the shovel” while he was shutting the door.
The second letter to Mr Thomas Rookwood followed this interview. It was equally short in its ostensible length, and piously acknowledged the receipt of two bands, two handkerchiefs, one pair of socks, and a Bible. Beneath came the important postscript “Your last letter I could not read; the pen did not cast incke. Mr Catesby did me much wrong, and hath confessed that he asked me the question in Queen Elizabeth’s time of the powder action, and I said it was lawfull: all which is most untrew. He did it to draw in others. I see no advantage they have against me for the powder action.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 242.)
Garnet added that his friend might communicate with him through letters left in charge of the keeper’s mother; but he begged him not to pay a personal visit unless he could first make sure that the redoubtable Wade was absent.
An answer from the Reverend Thomas consisted, to all appearance, of a simple sheet of writing-paper, enclosing a pair of spectacles in their case, and bearing the few words written outside—“I pray you prove whether the spectacles do fit your sight.” Inside, in orange-juice, was the real communication, from Anne Vaux, wherein she promised to come to the garden, and begged Garnet to appoint a time when she might hope to see him. (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 243.) This seems to show that Garnet was sometimes allowed the liberty of the Tower garden.
On the 5th of March, Hall and Garnet were re-examined, when Hall confessed the truth of the conversations through the door, and Garnet denied them. The same day, the latter wrote a long letter, addressed to Mrs Anne Vaux or any of his friends, giving a full account of his sufferings while in “the hoale” at Hendlip Hall, and of his present condition in the Tower. Remarking that he was permitted to purchase sherry out of his own purse, Garnet adds—
“This is the greatest charge I shall be at, for fire will soon be unnecessary, if I live so long, whereof I am very uncertain, and as careless... They say I was at White Webbs with the conspirators; I said, if I was ever there after the 1st of September, I was guilty of the powder action. The time of my going to Coughton is a great presumption, but all Catholics know it was necessary. I thank God, I am and have been intrepidus, wherein I marvail at myself, having had such apprehension before; but it is God’s grace.”
On the third examination, which was on the 6th of March, both Garnet and Hall confessed White Webbs at last,—the former, that he had hired the house for the meetings of the conspirators, the latter that they had met there twice in the year. Garnet also allowed that Perkins was the alias of the Hon. Anne Vaux, to avoid whose indictment he afterwards said his confession had been made. It is evident, from several allusions in his letters, that Garnet was terribly afraid of torture, and almost equally averse to confronting witnesses. The first was merely human nature; the second speaks ill for his consciousness of that innocence which he repeatedly asserts.
But not yet had the Gunpowder Plot secured its latest or its saddest victim. Soon after Sir Henry Bromley’s departure from Hendlip, Mrs Abington came to London, bringing Anne Vaux with her, and they took lodgings in Fetter Lane, then a more aristocratic locality than now. Here they remained for a few weeks, doing all that could be done to help Garnet, and poor Anne continually haunting the neighbourhood of his prison, and trying to catch glimpses of him, if not to obtain stolen interviews, at the garden gate. But on the 10th of March the authorities interfered, and Anne Vaux was a prisoner of the Tower. Examined on the following day, she deposed that she “kept the house at White Webbs at her own charge;” that she was visited there by Catesby, Thomas Winter, Tresham, and others, but said that she could not remember dates nor further names. She refused to admit that Garnet had been there, but she allowed that she had been among the party of pilgrims to Saint Winifred’s Well, in company with Lady Digby and others whom she declined to name. Lastly, she persisted in saying that she had known nothing of the plot.
She was told—not improbably by Sir William Wade, and if so, we may be sure, not very tenderly—that Garnet had been one of the chief criminals. A few sorrowful lines remain showing the spirit in which she heard it. They were written on the 12th of March.
“I am most sore to here that Father Garnet shoulde be ane wease pryue to this most wicked actione, as himselfe euer cauled it, for that hee made to mee maney greate prostertations to the contrari diuers times sence.
“Anne Vaux.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 201.)
After this, Garnet gave up the fiction of his total ignorance of the conspirators’ object. In his fourth examination, on the 13th of March, he said that on the demise of Queen Elizabeth, he had received a letter from the General of the Jesuits, stating that the new Pope Clement had confirmed the order of his predecessor that no such plot should be set on foot, and that Garnet had accordingly done what in him lay to turn Catesby from the idea. Catesby, however, thought himself authorised by two briefs received by Garnet about twelve months earlier, commanding the Roman Catholics of England not to consent to any successor of Elizabeth who should refuse to submit to Rome. These Garnet had shown to Catesby before destroying them. It is evident from these admissions, not only that Garnet had been privy to the plot from the first, but also that it was known at Rome, and controlled from the Vatican—forbidden when success appeared unlikely, and smiled on as soon as it seemed probable.
Shortly after this, a letter came from Anne Vaux—a letter which sadly reveals the character of its writer, and shows how different life might have been for this poor passionate-hearted woman, had she not been crushed under the iron heel of Rome.
“To live without you,” she writes to Garnet, “it is not life, but death! Now I see my los. I am and euer will be yours, and so I humbly beseche you to account me. O that I might see you!”
Her second examination took place a few days later, on the 24th of March. She now acknowledged that Tresham Catesby, and Garnet, used to meet at her house at Wandsworth: and that Garnet was wont to say to them, when they were engaged in discussion,—“Good gentlemen, be quiet; God will do all for the best; and we must get it by prayer at God’s hands, in whose hands are the hearts of princes.” The confession was carried to Garnet. Poor frail, loving heart! she meant to save him, and he knew it. He wrote calmly underneath—
“I do acknowledge these meetings.—H. Garnett.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 212.)
Even her very gaolers dealt pitifully with Anne Vaux. “This gentlewoman,” said Lord Salisbury to Garnet, “hath harboured you these twelve years last past, and seems to speak for you in her confessions; I think she would sacrifice herself for you to do you good, and you likewise for her.”
Garnet made no answer.
Letters continued to pass between the cells. A remarkable one was sent to Anne on the 2nd of April, written principally in orange-juice, on the question which she had submitted to Garnet as to her living abroad after her release.
“Concerning the disposal of yourself, I give you leave to go over to them. The vow of obedience ceaseth, being made to the Superior of this Mission: you may, upon deliberation, make it to some there. If you like to stay here, then I exempt you, till a Superior be appointed, whom you may acquaint: but tell him that you made your vow yourself, and then told me; and that I limited certain conditions, as that you are not bound to sin (Note 1) except you be commanded in virtute obedientiae. We may accept no vows, but men may make them as they list, and we after give directions accordingly. Mr Hall dreamed that the General... provided two fair tabernacles or seats for us: and this he dreamed twice.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 245.)
The sentence in italics is terrible. No Protestant ever penned a darker indictment against Popery.
Anne Vaux received this letter, for she answered it at once. She speaks of her “vow of poverty,” and adds—
“Mr Haule his dreame had been a great cumfert, if at the fute of the throne there had bin a place for me. God and you know my unworthenes.—Yours and not my own, Anne Vaux.” (Gunpowder Plot Book, article 246.)
On the following day, Garnet wrote again—eight closely covered pages, in his own hand throughout. I append a few extracts from this pathetic letter.
“My very loving and most dear Sister,—I will say what I think it best for you to do, when it please God to set you at liberty. If you can stay in England, and enjoy the use of the Sacraments as heretofore, it would be best: and then I wish that you and your sister live as before in a house of common repair of the Society, or where the Superior of the Mission shall ordinarily remain: or if this cannot be, then make choice of some one of the Society, as you shall like, which I am sure will be granted you. If you like to go over, stay at Saint Omer, and send for Friar Baldwin, with whom consult where to live: but I think Saint Omer less healthy than Brussels. In respect of your weakness, I think it better for you to live abroad, and not in a monastery. Your vow of obedience, being made to the Superior of the Mission here, when you are over, ceaseth: and then may you consult how to make it again. None of the Society can accept a vow of obedience of any; but any one may vow as he will, and then one of the Society may direct accordingly.”
Garnet proceeds to say that the vow of poverty was to cease in like manner, and might be similarly renewed. “All that which is for annuities” he had always meant to be hers, in the hope that she would afterwards leave it to the Jesuit Mission: but she is at liberty, if she wish it, to alienate a third of this, or if she should desire at any time to “retire into religion,”—i.e., to become a nun—and require a portion, she is to help herself freely. He “thanks God most humbly that in all his speeches and practices he has had a desire to do nothing against the glory of God.” He was so much annoyed by having been misunderstood by the two spies that he “thought it would make our actions much more excusable to tell the truth, than to stand to the torture, or trial by witnesses.” As to his acquaintance with the plot, he sought to hinder it more than men can imagine, as the Pope can tell: how could he have dissuaded the conspirators if he had absolutely known nothing? But he thought it not allowable to tell what he knew. None of them ever told him anything, though they used his name freely—he implies, more freely than truth justified them in doing: “yet have I hurt nobody.” He ordered the removal of certain books which he does not further describe; if they be found, “you can challenge them as your own, as in truth they are.” He will “die not as a victorious martyr, but as a penitent thief:” but “let God work His will.” The most touching words are the last. Up to this point, the spiritual director has been addressing his subject. Now the priest disappears, and the man’s heart breaks out.
“Howsoever I shall die a thief, yet you may assure yourself your innocence is such, that but if you die by reason of your imprisonment, you shall die a martyr. (From this point the letter is in Latin.) ‘The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.’ Farewell, my ever beloved in Christ, and pray for me.” (Domestic State Papers, James the First, volume 20, article 11.)
Yet a few words were to be written before the end. The execution of Hall, which took place at Worcester on the 7th of April, unnerved Garnet as nothing else had done. He wrote, a fortnight later, to her who was his last and had always been his truest friend—a few hurried, incoherent words, which betray the troubled state of his mind.
“It pleaseth God daily to multiply my crosses. I beseech Him give me patience and perseverance to the end. I was, after a week’s hiding, taken in a friend’s house, where our confessions and secret conferences were heard, and my letters taken by some indiscretion abroad;—then the taking of yourself;—after, my arraignment;—then the taking of Mr Greenwell;—then the slander of us both abroad;—then the ransacking anew of Erith and the other house;—then the execution of Mr Hall;—and now, last of all, the apprehension of Richard and Robert: with a cipher, I know not of whose, laid to my charge, and that which was a singular oversight, a letter in cipher, together with the ciphers—which letter may bring many into question.
“‘The patience of Job ye have heard, and have seen the end of the Lord,—that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’ Blessed be the name of the Lord! (These quotations are in Latin)—Yours, eternally, as I hope, H.G.”
“21st April—I thought verily my chamber in Thames Street had been given over, and therefore I used it to save Erith; but I might have done otherwise.”
At the end of the letter is a symbolic sketch. The mystic letters I.H.S. within a circle, are surmounted by a cross, and beneath them is a heart pierced by three nails. Underneath is written, in Latin—“God is (the strength) of my heart, and God is my portion for ever.”
So end the last words which passed between the unhappy pair.
In his sixth examination, four days later, Garnet admitted that as often as he and Greenway had met, he had asked concerning the plot, “being careful of the matter;” and that “in general” he had inquired who was to be chosen protector after the explosion; Greenway having answered that this “was to be deferred until the blow was passed, and then the protector to be chosen out of the noblemen that should be saved.” This completely settles the question as to Garnet’s guilty knowledge of the plot before he received Digby’s letter. Greenway is here shown to be Garnet’s informant; whereas the letter was addressed to Garnet himself, and the occasion on which he received it was the last time that he ever saw Greenway!
A few days before his execution, the prisoner received a visit from three Deans, who essayed to converse with him upon various points of doctrine. Garnet, however, declined any discussion, on the ground that “it was unlawful for him.” He was asked whether he thought that he should die a martyr.
“I a martyr!” exclaimed Garnet, with a deep sigh. “Oh, what a martyr should I be! God forbid! If, indeed, I were really about to suffer death for the sake of the Catholic religion, and if I had never known of this project except by the means of sacramental confession, I might perhaps be accounted worthy of the honour of martyrdom, and might deservedly be glorified in the opinion of the Church. As it is, I acknowledge myself to have sinned in this respects and deny not the justice of the sentence passed upon me.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he added with apparent earnestness, “Would to God that I could recall that which has been done! Would to God that anything had happened rather than that this stain of treason should hang upon my name! I know that my offence is most grievous, though I have confidence in Christ to pardon me on my hearty penitence: but I would give the whole world, if I possessed it, to be able to die without the weight of this sin upon my soul.”
The 1st of May had been originally fixed for the execution, but it was delayed until the 3rd. To the last moment, when he received notice of it, which was on the 29th of April, Garnet fully expected a reprieve. He “could hardly be persuaded to believe” in approaching death. Yet even then, on the very night before his execution—if we may believe the testimony of his keepers—he drank so copiously that the gaoler thought it necessary to inform the Lieutenant, who came to see for himself, and was invited, in thick and incoherent accents, to join Garnet in his potations. Sir William Wade was not the man to allow such a fact to rest in silence; and Garnet is neither the first nor the last whose words have been better than his actions.
On the 3rd of May, he was drawn on a hurdle to the west end of Saint Paul’s Churchyard, where the first conspirators had suffered, and where the scaffold was again set up. His conduct on the scaffold was certainly not that of a martyr, nor that of a penitent thief: the impenitent thief appeared rather to be his model. Advised by the attendant Deans of Saint Paul’s and Winchester to “prepare and settle himself for another world, and to commence his reconciliation with God by a sincere and saving repentance,” Garnet answered that he had already done so. He showed himself very unwilling to address the people; but being strongly urged by the Recorder, he uttered a few sentences, the purport of which was that he considered all treason detestable; that he prayed the King’s pardon for not revealing that of which he had a general knowledge from Catesby, but not otherwise; that he never knew anything of the design of blowing up the Parliament House. The Dean of Winchester reminded him that he had confessed that Greenway told him all the circumstances in Essex. “That was in secret confession,” said Garnet, “which I could by no means reveal.” The Dean having reminded him that he had already allowed the contrary, the Recorder was about to read his written confessions to the people—a course commanded by the King if Garnet should deny his guilt upon the scaffold: but Garnet stopped this conviction from his own mouth, by telling the Recorder that he might spare himself that trouble; he would stand to the confessions he had signed, and acknowledge himself justly condemned for not having declared his general knowledge of the plot. He then spoke of Anne Vaux, and denounced as slander all the injurious reports concerning his relations with her: then he asked what time would be permitted him for prayer. He was told that he should choose his own time, and should not be interrupted. Kneeling down at the foot of the ladder, Garnet proceeded to his devotions in such a manner as to show that they were to him the purest formalities: as the words fell from his lips, he was gazing at the crowd, listening to the attendants, sometimes even replying to remarks they made. When he rose from his knees, he was urged once more to confess his guilt in plain terms. He answered that he had no more to confess; his guilt had been exaggerated. As he undressed for execution, he said in a low voice to those nearest to him, “There is no salvation for you, unless you hold the Catholic faith.” Their reply was that they were under the impression they did hold it. “But the only Catholic faith,” responded Garnet, “is that professed by the Church of Rome.” Having ascended the ladder, he addressed the people. He expressed in these closing words his grief that he had offended the King, and that he had not used more diligence in preventing the execution of the plot; he was sorry that he had dissembled with the Lords of the Council, and that he did not declare the truth until it was proved against him: “but,” he said, “I did not think they had such sure proofs against me”! He besought all men “not to allow the Catholics to fare worse for his sake,” and bade the latter keep out of sedition. Then he crossed himself, and added—“Jesus Maria! Mary, mother of grace, mother of mercy! Save me from mine enemies, and receive me in the hour of death. In Thine hands I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth!” Crossing himself once more, he added—always in Latin—“By this sign of the cross, may all evil things be dispersed. Plant Thy cross, Lord, in mine heart!” But his last words were, “Jesus Maria! Mary, mother of grace!” Then the ladder was drawn away, and Henry Garnet, the conspirator and liar, stood before that Lord God of truth who will by no means clear the guilty. By express command of the King, the after-horrors of a traitor’s death were omitted.
Three months after that sad close of life, the Tower gates opened again—this time to release a prisoner. The Hon. Anne Vaux was bidden to go whither she would. Whither she would!—what a mockery to her to whom all the earth and the heavens had been made one vaulted grave—who had no home left anywhere in the world, for her home had been in the heart of that dead man. To what part of that great wilderness of earth she carried her bitter grief and her name of scorn, no record has been left to tell us, except one.
Thirty years later, in 1635, a Jesuit school for “Catholic youths of the nobility and gentry” was dispersed by authority. It was at Stanley, a small hamlet about six miles to the north-east of Derby, a short distance from the Nottingham road. The house was known as Stanley Grange, and it was the residence of the Hon. Anne Vaux.
So she passes out of our sight, old and full of days, true to the end to the faith for which she had so sorely suffered, and to the memory of the friend whom she had loved too well.
“O solitary love that was so strong!”
Let us leave her to the mercy of Him who died for men, and who only can presume to sit in judgment on that faithful, passionate, broken heart.
Note 1. This word is plainly sin, though Mr Lemon in his copy tried to read it him—an interpretation which he was obliged to abandon.