“For the precedent circumstances; you must understand this man hath been in England this twenty years, and from the very first hour he set foot in England hath been a notorious traitor, because he came in contrary to a statute made the year before his coming in, Anno 27º. of our late sovereign of happy memory, whereby it was made high treason for any Priest that had received Orders from any authority derived from the See of Rome beyond the seas, which I beseech your Lordships to observe; for of Queen Mary's Priests nothing was spoken in the law.” (And the reason hereof is given in the former ——[418] chapter, but here it is apparent, that this treason so earnestly urged, was merely matter of religion, as in all former martyrs.) “Contrary to which statute this prisoner came in, and by consequence at that very instant was a traitor. But he will say, this is a new law; these laws were never heard of before Luther's days; this law is a cruel law, a bloody law, prohibiting men to exercise their function, to gain souls to God; and that their religion is the old religion, where ours is the new and confined in England, where on the contrary side their religion is universal and embraced of the greatest part of this Christian world. And thus for the maintenance of their rotten religion, do they seek to disgrace our gospel and do calumniate just laws with title of cruelty. But to this I answer,” saith he, “that if our religion be as ancient as Luther, it is more ancient than the Jesuits are.[419] Albeit it neither be contained in those narrow limits of place, nor bounds of time, which they feignedly imagine, having been ever since the time of Christ [pg 231] and His Apostles. For we do not deny but Rome was the Mother Church and had thirty-two virginal Martyrs for her Popes a row; and so continued till in succeeding ages it brought in a mass of errors and idle ceremonies. But you will ask, where our Church lurked before Luther's coming for some hundreds of years. But I say it makes no great matter where it was, so that I be certain it was; for as a wedge of gold, if it be mixed with a mass of other metal,” &c. (By your leave, Mr. Attorney, if I know not where the true Church is, I cannot be of it: if I be not of it, I cannot be saved: and if this be no matter to you, yet to God's children it is a great matter. And your simile of the wedge is lame of all the feet: for the Church if it be invisible to all men is gone, “quia ore fit confessio ad salutem,”[420] and so Christ had no true servants on earth; but this is like your dream before that the true Church could degenerate into errors, and yet those coming in, no man being able to name the time, the place, nor the person, that did alter any substantial point of faith. But can Mr. Attorney think that Christ our Lord would put His candle under a bushel, which He had lighted with so great labour? And that which He saith no man will do, as being an idle and foolish thing, yet will Mr. Attorney have the Wisdom of God to do? But good Mr. Attorney, give me leave to believe Christ our Lord before you; and therefore that the city could not be hid which Christ had built upon a hill. And so your imagined gold is turned into alchymy, and passeth away in smoke; but if the material wedge of gold be hid, men say you know where to find it, if you will but search your coffers with half the pains you took to find out this invisible wedge of gold. Pardon me for this digression, I could not well let such false follies pass without a word or two; but I will not trouble the reader any more, but leave it to others: neither should I or any other have had need to admonish Mr. Attorney, if Father Garnett had been [pg 232] suffered to speak at large, as he was often of set purpose interrupted. But let us proceed in Mr. Attorney his speech.) “For as a wedge of gold, if it be dissolved and mixed with a mass of brass or other metal, it doth not lose its nature, but remaineth gold still, although we cannot determine in what part of the mass it is contained, but the touch-stone will find that out; so though our Church hath ever been since Christ His time in the world, yet being mixed and covered with innovations and errors we cannot tell in what part it was.” (This is the truest word in all Mr. Attorney his speech, but presently linked with the contrary, for he saith:) “And I dare say it is now more extended than theirs is, for we have all England, all Scotland, all Germany, all Denmark, a great part of France, all Poland, and some part of Italy. Now as for the statute which they call a bloody and cruel statute, I will make it apparent to be the mildest law, the sweetest law, the law most full of mercy and pity,” (It is a great pity it were not executed upon Mr. Attorney:) “that ever was enacted by any Prince so injuriously provoked as she was. And if I prove not this, then let the world say that Garnett is an honest man. And to prove this, we must remember that Pius or rather Impius Quintus, the Pope, in the eleventh year of our late Queen deceased, sent over a Bull of Excommunication against Her Majesty, discharging all her subjects from their allegiance, whereupon arose the insurrection in the North, and other rebellions, for which divers were apprehended and executed. And here we may observe the misery of Popish Catholics, who if they do obey the Bulls of the Pope are apprehended and hanged as traitors; and if they do not obey them, are by the Pope excommunicated and cursed. But to go forward: from this excommunication also proceeded that the Popish Catholics refused to come to our churches; so that the reason of refusal is not religion, but the Pope's Bull, which now being not of force, there is no doubt but that they both may and will come to [pg 233] our churches.” (False.) “Then after the suppression of the rebels in the North, the Popish Catholics being thought too weak to make a party, then did the Pope give them a toleration ‘rebus sic stantibus et donec commoda executio Bullæ fieri posset.’[421] Then to make a party of Popish Catholics against the Queen, was sent in Campion and a crew of Priests with him, that laboured to pervert Her Majesty's subjects and draw them to bloody practices, which Her Majesty sought to prevent, and withal out of her singular clemency made a law, and that the fullest of pity that could be devised, to wit, That they should keep themselves there (beyond the seas), and not to come into her dominions under pain of high treason. Now tell me I pray you, was this law made to spill their blood?” (Yes, either to spill the Blood of Christ by the loss of souls, if the Priests came not in, or if they did, then theirs.) “No, it was made to save their blood, by keeping them there, which by coming hither would be spilt in bloody practices” (which were fathered upon them, that it might not seem to be cause of religion.) “Then comes in Garnett in the twenty-seventh year of the Queen. His purpose was to prepare the way against the great compounded navy, which may well be called a compounded navy, because it consisted of the ships of all nations in Christendom, that either they could beg, hire, or borrow. He came in, I say, to be the forerunner of this navy. The Pope was the inciter and the Spaniards the actors; and this great navy was overthrown, not so much by our power, as by themselves, their own ships severing and scattering them. So that we may well apply those verses to our late sovereign, which Claudian sung to his Emperor Theodosius:
O nimium dilecta Deo, cui militat æther,
Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti.[422]
“But was this a sufficient warning to the Romish Catholics to desist from their treasonable practices? No, for when they saw that open invasion served not their turn, they took themselves to private treacheries; insomuch that I dare boldly say” (but not truly) “there passed no four years without some one or other treason. For shortly after came Patrick Collyn, sent from Father Holt and Father Sherwood, two Jesuits, to kill the Queen. Shortly after cometh Lopez to poison the Queen, incited likewise by the instigation of the Jesuits.” (This Lopez was a Jew, the Queen's physician, living in London, a rich man, and knew no Jesuit in the world, nor was acquainted with any Catholics in England that I know of.) “After him came Yorke and Williams from Father Holt, who likewise had plotted to kill the Queen. Not long after him comes Squire, sent by Father Walpole from Spain, to poison Her Majesty.” And here Mr. Attorney desired licence to advertise the Lords that each of these treasons were accompanied with some devilish book. “As for example, the plot of Patrick Collyn was accompanied with the book of Philopater written by Cresswell the Jesuit, their ledger in Spain. Then cometh Squire with his plot, and this was accompanied with another most pernicious book written by Dolman, alias Persons, their great ledger[423] in Rome. And now we are come to the Spanish treason, which was in the forty-fourth year of our late sovereign. And that you may know there was a Spanish treason, you shall understand that Thomas Winter, and Father Greenway, alias Tesimond, the Jesuit, went over commended by Garnett to offer their obedience and service to the King of Spain, and to promise him their assistance, when time should serve for advancement of his title to the crown of England, and withal to entreat him to send them an army, to be conveyed hither by the galleys of Spinola; which army, if it were great, should land in Kent; if it were small, it might land at [pg 235] Milford Haven; that they should bring with them a round sum of money, and in the meantime to bestow some annual pensions upon certain discontented persons here; and that they for their part would prepare two thousand horses, which in such attempts were like to be the greatest want. This motion being made to the King, they were brought unto him; from him they were directed to the Duke of Lerma, who received them gracefully, and finally for their answer they were referred to the Conde de Miranda, who assured them the King his master liked very well of their motion and would be ready to further them in their just request, and would henceforward account the English as his own Castilians. With this resolution Thomas Winter and Greenway returned, expecting the next summer the arrival of their navy. And here were not wanting the books I mentioned before; but what books? They had no books indeed; but that want was supplied with two Breves or Bulls, as we call them, and they were most pernicious and treacherous, which by God's providence came lately to light. The first was directed ‘Principibus et Nobilibus Catholicis totius Regni Anglicani.’[424] The tenour of this first was an admonition that ‘postquam contigerit miseram fœminam e vitâ excedere,’ ”[425] &c. Here you may mark this foul-mouthed monster that calleth our dread sovereign of happy memory, “miseram fœminam;” being one of the most renowned of Princes. (Here the reader indeed hath cause to mark a foul mouth, that durst call the Vicegerent of God Himself a foul-mouthed monster; nor will he mark that the Bull speaking only of the time after the Queen's death, was not to accompany the army, which, if any such were intended, was to come at a certain prefixed time; yea, it rather showeth the Pope would have nothing attempted in her lifetime.) “But well,” saith he, “what followeth in the Bull? Marry, when it shall happen that miserable woman [pg 236] shall depart this life, they shall not admit of any other to succeed in her place, ‘quâcumque propinquitate sanguinis niteretur,’[426] except that first they promise not only to tolerate the Catholic religion, but also do bind themselves by oath to maintain it and no other: and this to deprive King James from his rightful inheritance” (nay, rather to move him to be Catholic, and so to get him also a much greater kingdom in Heaven). “To exclude him therefore cometh this roaring Bull, that warned them also to give notice of her sickness or death, as soon as may be, when it should happen, to his Legate in Flanders. And so accordingly presently upon her indisposition, Christopher Wright was despatched with letters of commendation from Garnett the Jesuit, as appeared by a confession then produced and read. And here, my Lords, let me observe another circumstance very markable; that these peculiar traitors were severally commended by Garnett the Jesuit, as for example, Thomas Winter went over: wherefore? For treason; and yet was he commended by Garnett the Jesuit. Christopher Wright went over: wherefore? For treason; and yet was he likewise commended by Garnett the Jesuit. Guy Faulks was sent over: wherefore? For treason—that is, to solicit and deal with Owen, that Spinola and Sir William Stanley might draw their forces near to the sea-side, that when the time served they might come over with the more expedition: and yet he also is commended by Garnett the Jesuit. Sir Edward Baynham was sent over to acquaint the Pope with this business, when the blow should be given” (By this known untruth the rest may be judged of the better:) “which Edward Baynham was a fit messenger between the Pope and the devil; and yet he had also letters of commendation from Garnett the Jesuit. So that hereby it is apparent that Garnett was not only privy, but consenting to their several practices. Now when King James was settled in this kingdom, and received of all, then did Garnett burn the Bull. But out of [pg 237] that Bull did Catesby infer that it was lawful for him to entertain any practice against our sovereign that now is; for, said he, it is as lawful for us to expel him and cast him out now, seeing by experience he doth persecute religion, as by the Breve it was lawful to resist him and reject, when we did but fear he would not favour Catholics.” (True it is Mr. Catesby did argue thus; but was answered by Father Garnett, that the case was not like before and after admission, and that we must not by ourselves attempt anything, the Pope now commanding to be quiet.) “The other Bull was to the Archpriest and his associates, commending their patience and longanimity, and willing them to counsel all sorts of lay people to be forward in execution of the Pope's command. Well then, out of these circumstances, I infer that Garnett was not only privy, but an author and actor in this treason.
“But now let us consider other circumstances that are ‘omni acceptione majores.’[427] Your Lordships must understand that Garnett would not be known to any of the actors in these bloody practices, but only to Catesby, being a man ‘vafro et versuto ingenio et profundâ perfidiâ,’[428] so that all we have against him must be chiefly drawn from himself.” (Indeed Mr. Catesby was dead, and never affirmed any such thing, and the rest of the conspirators in their examinations and public speeches affirmed the contrary; so that Mr. Attorney did want proof very much, when he brought in a dead man to be witness, like to them that brought the sleeping soldiers at Christ His sepulchre to be witnesses that his body was stolen whilst they were asleep.) “Well then, this Garnett confesseth that Catesby had in general imparted to him that something would be done by the Catholics, but could not reveal in particular what it was without the consent of two others of his consorts, which Garnett saith he dissuaded him from; but how know we [pg 238] that he did so? Only by his own words, who useth to deal sincerely in nothing that concerneth himself. But I will prove that he did not dissuade them, but did encourage them, even to the Powder Treason itself.” (Here, by the way, I would gladly ask Mr. Attorney how he doth save the accusation recited in the indictment from a false slander, where it is said that Garnett and Greenway did in the beginning meet with Catesby at Queenhithe, and there conclude upon destroying the King and Queen and the Parliament House by powder? How could this be true, seeing that here now long after, and after the gentlemen had concluded as it seems of the matter, and bound one another to secrecy, so that as you see Mr. Catesby could not reveal it to Father Garnett without leave of two others, Father Garnett was all this while ignorant of it: yea, and now also had but a general knowledge of something to be done, from which also he dissuaded them? We may see in this contradiction Father Garnett his innocency; and that Mr. Attorney should be mindful of what he hath said, if he will not say the truth. But let us see how he seeketh to prove by likelihoods, that here Father Garnett, getting some knowledge of the thing in general, did persuade it in particular.) “For Father Garnett,” said he, “confesseth moreover that Mr. Catesby did in general terms propound a case unto him, whether it were not lawful to destroy many enemies assembled together to our ruin, although some innocents must needs be inwrapped in the slaughter. To this Garnett answered that in just war when a town or castle is besieged that could not be taken without battering the walls, and that not to be performed without perishing of some innocents, in that case, if the advantage which redounded to the general good by the death of those enemies were greater than the loss should be by the destruction of those innocents, that then it was lawful. I beseech your Lordships [pg 239] mark here, that Garnett approveth this fact in particular; for this resolution was Catesby's whole ground; and this I prove by Rookwood his confession (which he brought forth), and therein it appeared that when Catesby made the first overture of this matter unto him, he conceived great horror of the fact in respect of the innocents that were to be there, whereunto Catesby answered, that he had advice of the most learned, that it was lawful, not by proposing the case in particular, but in a like.” (Here Mr. Attorney, by his plain proof which he promised, hath proved himself to be guilty of a malicious and false inference, and Father Garnett to be clear from all furtherance to the Plot. For, first, this case was put to Father Garnett before the time this general notice of something in hand was given him by Mr. Catesby: though here Mr. Attorney did maliciously put it after, to make it seem that Father Garnett might gather some light what should be meant by them, hearing now this particular case out of the former general knowledge, which the Attorney saith he had before received. But the general knowledge came after, which I prove by these alleged words of Mr. Attorney. For here he saith, he had resolution in this case before he acquainted Rookwood; and that general knowledge was given after the matter was commenced: for, so he said, there was something in hand, but he could not tell him without leave of two; at which time Father Garnett refused to know the matter, but dissuaded it in general. Now that he proveth also Father Garnett clear from persuasion or consent, I prove by his own words, where he saith that Mr. Catesby persuaded Mr. Rookwood to yield, upon the resolution he had received of the like case, not of the same case; whereby it appears, they first concluded of it amongst themselves, and the rest consented to it, without Father Garnett his knowledge or privity, much less his counsel. Now whereas Mr. Attorney will needs conclude, that because Mr. Catesby did infer the lawfulness of the [pg 240] particular out of the resolution in general, therefore Father Garnett should be guilty of the powder; by the same reason he may prove many Doctors in the Schools, and the most learned writers that are or have been, to be guilty of the same treason; for they deliver the same doctrine in the same case, as it was put to Father Garnett. And as they, being wholly ignorant of the matter, cannot be touched with it, for delivering their true opinion, so Father Garnett, when that case was put, thought of nothing less than that they had any such intent. And afterward when he perceived something in general, that he also laboured to hinder by persuasion: and so no way to be blamed, but much to be commended, if he had his right).
“Then further,” says Mr. Attorney, “Garnett, under pretence of a journey to St. Winifred's Well, and I know not what marriage, retired himself into Warwickshire, which was the rendezvous for all the conspirators, pretending he had no place to abide in until the Parliament.” (It is well known to many Catholics that all the safe lodgings which Father Garnett had about London were lately before discovered, and that was a chief cause of his journey; and it was unfit to take a new house about London, before they might see what laws would be made at the Parliament, which were expected would be such as there would be no abiding there.) “He also made a prayer for the great business about the Parliament time, which was
Gentem[429] auferte perfidam
Credentium de finibus,
Ut Christo laudes debitas
Persolvamus alacriter.”[430]