[A] The word “censure” here means, formed an opinion of his lordship’s part. From Lat. censeo, I think.
Now, strangely enough, in the day of public trial of these men, the learned Attorney-General forgot in one particular the aforesaid clear and express Injunctions of his Majesty’s principal Secretary of State.
For, if he be correctly reported, Sir Edward Coke then said: — [136]
“The last consideration is concerning the admirable discovery of this treason, which was by one of themselves,
who had taken the oath and sacrament, as hath been said, against his own will; the means was by a dark and doubtful letter sent to my Lord Mounteagle.”[A] (The italics are mine.)
[A] “Truth will out!”
Now, regard being had (1) to what Salisbury bade Coke not say; and (2) to what Coke as a matter of fact did say, I infer, first, that it was one of the conspirators who revealed the Plot; because of just scruples that his conscience had, well-nigh at the eleventh hour, awakened in his breast: that, secondly, not only so, but that the Government, through Salisbury, Suffolk, Coke, and probably Bacon, strongly suspected as much: that, thirdly, this was the explanation not only of their comparatively mild treatment of the Gunpowder conspirators themselves,[137] but also, I hold, of the subsequent comparatively mild treatment of the recusants generally throughout the country.[138]
For had the Government stripped all English Papists of their lands and goods and driven them into the sea, Humanity scarcely could have complained of injustice or harshness, regard being had to the devilish wholesale cruelty of the Gunpowder Plot.
Contrariwise, the entire action of the Government resembles the action of a man in whose hand the stick has broken whilst he is in the act of administering upon a wrong-doer richly deserved chastisement.
For, indisputably, the Government abstained from following after, and from reaping the full measure of, their victory (to have recourse to a more dignified figure of speech) either on grounds of principle, policy — or both.