“It is known to all how those of any blood have loved and served King James. My father knew it to his cost, for he was twice imprisoned for attempting to set free the glorious Queen Mary, the King's mother, and to secure the succession to her children: which intent of his own was so clear to the Ministers of State, that besides imprisonment, to purchase his life of them cost him some thousands of crowns, especially the first time when there were but three accused and he one of them, and of the other two, one lost his life. Of all which King James was mindful when he came from Scotland to be crowned King of England, and my brother at York offered him his service and that of all his house. ‘I am particularly bound,’ said he, ‘to love your blood, on account of the persecution that you have borne for me, and of that his love he there gave him the first pledge by making him a Knight.’ ”[222]
The remaining extract concludes our series of exculpatory letters:
“I send your lordship a copy of the three letters that I wrote to three Councillors of State, that you may see in them how I trusted to my innocence, when I offered to put it to the proof in the two ways which I there proposed to them. Further than this, though the conspirators had been put to death, and I saw that the course proposed by me to the Councillors was not accepted, while the matter was fresh, and I yet in London, I requested of our Fathers that I might present myself in person to the Council of State, which I would have done had they but given me leave; and if the Council would have proceeded against me, not on the score of religion, but for the conspiracy only, which alone was in question, and for which, if they had found me guilty of it, they might have done to me their very worst. This request I can swear that I made and renewed several times to our Fathers, and there are some yet alive who can bear witness to it; but it did not seem good to them to consent to it.”
The matter does not seem to have rested here, unless there is some mistake in a date, for Dr. Lingard[223] quotes from a MS. copy, dated April 17, 1631, an affidavit made by Anthony Smith, a Secular Priest, before the Bishop of Chalcedon, “that in his hearing, Gerard had said in the Novitiate at Liége, that he worked in the mine with the lay conspirators till his clothes were as wet with perspiration as if they had been dipped in water; and that the general condemnation of the Plot was chiefly owing to its bad success, as had often happened to the attempts of unfortunate generals in war.” It would seem as if this were a repetition of the original accusation, in answer to which the letters given above were written. Of the attack on Father Gerard, Dr. Lingard says, “For my own part, upon having read what he wrote in his own vindication, I cannot doubt his innocence, and suspect that Smith unintentionally attributed to him what he had heard him say of some other person.”[224]
XXXIV.
It remains for us only to give an account of the manuscripts that have been used as well in the Narrative of the Powder Plot as in the Autobiography of its author.
Father Christopher Grene, who was English Penitentiary at St. Peter's, died in Rome in 1697.[225] This Father was a most diligent collector of all the documents that related to the history of the persecutions of Catholics in England.[226] He copied volumes [pg ccxlviii] of such documents, several of which are still extant. In one which is preserved at Stonyhurst, entitled by him, Miscellanea de Martyribus et Persecutione in Anglia signanda lit. M. ... incept. anno 1690, he informs us that there were various books called Collectanea in the Archives of the English College at Rome, distinguished by the letters of the alphabet, of the contents of which he gives us an account. At folio 51 we have: “Ex libro Collectaneorum in folio signato lita C in Archo Colli Angl. hoc die 24 Jan. 1689. A relation of ye Gunpowder Treason and of Father Garnett's araignmt and martyrdome, &c., written by Father John Gerard: 'tis ye the original written soon after ye sayd martyrdome. It contains 85 sheetes of paper, and is an excellent work, and should be printed.” After a short analysis of the book, the pages quoted agreeing with the Stonyhurst MS. of the Narrative, we have, “A p. 176 in eod. libro Collectan. C una relatione del P. Filippo Bemondo[227] della sua Missione in Inghilta,” &c. The last page of the Stonyhurst MS., bearing the endorsement, “A Relation of ye Gunpowder Treason, ye execution, &c. Also of F. Garnett's arrayment,” is numbered 176. The first page bears in Father Grene's handwriting the inscription, “Of the Gunpowder Treason, written by F. John Gerard, alias Tomson, it is the originall.” We are thus enabled to recognize our manuscript as the commencement of Father Grene's volume C. [pg ccxlix] The subsequent history of the MS. is related in the two following letters, which Dr. Oliver appended to the copy that he made of the Narrative. It is only necessary to add that the Rev. Marmaduke Stone, to whom the second letter is addressed, transferred the Academy of Liége (as it was called after the suppression of the Society), of which he was made President in 1790, to Stonyhurst, in 1794. In 1803 he was appointed Provincial in England by the General of the Society in Russia. In all probability, therefore, the MS. was given by Father Thorpe to Father Stone, at Liége, and by him was brought to Stonyhurst, where it now is.
The following extract is taken from a letter addressed by the Rev. John Thorpe from Rome, August 12, 1789, to Henry, eighth Lord Arundell.
“The collection of ancient papers at the English College here consisted of two sorts. The first belonged to the Stuart family, and was deposited there only after the old Chevalier retired into Italy. Neither Rector nor any other person in the College knew anything of the contents, which were locked up in a strong chamber, of which the keys were kept in the Palace of SS. Apostoli, and everything was carefully removed to that palace several months before the oppression of the Society. The other collection related to ecclesiastical matters, from the time of Henry VIII. to the beginning of the present century; it had been a repository of all papers and letters of many indefatigable men in preserving a faithful remembrance of whatever was interesting to religion during that period. But different removals of these papers, which were very many, had thrown them into disorder. Father Booth can tell in what state he left them. I have before mentioned to your lordship a MS. relating to our British saints, written in the manner of a calendar, in which many curious passages of history frequently occurred. I do not think it had been seen either by Father Alford (who wrote the annals of our British Church up to the year 1180) or by Mr. Wilson, who digested the English Martyrology that was daily read at St. Omer. Other MSS. of this kind were also in the same place, while I lived in the College. Afterwards, when the storm began to blacken over [pg ccl] us, divers attempts were made to put these papers into a place of security; but every means miscarried. They never belonged to the College, and among what are the College archives many very interesting papers remain belonging to the Jesuits. The papers above mentioned were finally destroyed by one accident or another, to prevent further fears of molestation in those days of arbitrary persecution. If anciently there had been any valuable MSS. in the old hospital, they were supposed to have been removed when it was converted to the purpose of a College, because scarce anything more than accounts of pilgrims, house expenses, and like articles, remained under that date, and even these in no regular order. Thus I apprehend that no material intelligence of remote historical facts can be gathered from hence.