[A] See Letter to Miss Anne Vaux, dated 2nd March, 1605-6, quoted in Foley, vol. iv., p. 84, where Garnet says: “There is a muttering here of a sermon which either I or Mr. Hall [an alias of Father Oldcorne] made. I fear mine, at Coughton. Mr. Hall hath no great matter, but only about Mr. Abington, though Mr. Attourney saith he hath more.”
Now, I infer that all this tends to demonstrate that Father Henry Garnet felt that a great burden or load had been lifted from his heart in regard to the aforetime perilous, but then practically abortive, Gunpowder Treason Plot. Therefore he must have known, from some source or another, that the Plot would be squashed before Tuesday, November the 5th, had dawned upon a “fallen world,” and all danger from the Plot finally swept away.
Again, in the Mass for All Saints’ Day there is a hymn, one verse of which is: “Take away the faithless people from the boundaries of the faithful, that we may joyfully give due praises to Christ.”
Cardinal Allen had induced the Pope “to indulge” the recital of these words by Catholics for the harmless “intention” of the “Conversion of England.”
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 Staffordshire, a tenant of Humphrey Littleton, cousin to Stephen Littleton, to grant them harbourage.