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.