Gunpowder Plot Books — No. 177.
“The voluntarie declaration of Ambrose Rokewood esquier. 21 Janu. 1605 [1606]
“I doe acknowledge that uppon thursday morninge beeing the 7th of November 1605 my selfe and all the other gentlemen (as I doe remember) did confesse or sinnes to one Mr. Hamonde Preeste, at Mr. Robert Wintour his house, and amonges other my sinnes I did acknowledge my error in concealing theire intended enterprise of pouder agaynste his Matie and the State, having a scruple in conscience, the facte seeminge to mee to bee too bluddye, hee for all in generall gave me absolution without any other circumstances beeing hastned by the multitude that were to come to him.
“Ambrose Rookewoode.
“Exr p. Edw. Coke
W. Ward.”
(Endorsed)
“... pouder
xxth of January 1605.
hamond
Declaration of Ambrose
Rookewoode of his own hand.”
CHAPTER XLI.
Now, regard being had to the fact that this kneeling young Penitent was, with his own lips, avowing the commission in desire and thought of “murder most foul as at the best it is”[A] (and “we know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him”[B]), by confessing to a fellow-creature a wilful and deliberate transgression against that “steadfast Moral Law which is not of to-day nor yesterday, but which lives for ever”[C] (to say nothing of his avowal of the commission in act and deed of the crime of sacrilege,[D] in taking a secret, unlawful oath contrary to the express prohibitions of a visible and audible Institution which that Priest and that Penitent