There can be no doubt that the issue of the Gunpowder Plot was eminently calculated to work such an effect; and even more would seem to have been anticipated from it than was actually realized, for the secretary, we are told, promised King James that in consequence of it not a single Jesuit should remain in England.
In the accounts supplied to us as to the manner of the "discovery," we obtain much interesting information from the utterances of the government itself. In studying these we cannot fail to notice an evident effort to reconcile two conflicting interests. On the one hand, that the king and the nation should be properly impressed with a sense of their marvellous deliverance, it was essential to represent the catastrophe as having been imminent, which could not be unless the preparations for it had been altogether unsuspected; and it was likewise desirable to magnify the divine sagacity of the monarch, which had been the instrument of Providence to avert a disaster otherwise inevitable. On the other hand, however, it should not be made to appear that those to whose keeping the public safety was intrusted had shown themselves culpably negligent or incompetent; and it had therefore to be insinuated that, after all, they were not without "sufficient advertisement" of danger, and even of danger specifically connected with the actual conspirators, and directed against the Parliament. But, again, lest such information should appear suspiciously accurate, the actual plotters had to be merged in a larger body of their co-religionists, and their design to be represented in vague and general terms. At the time, no doubt, this was effective enough. Now however that we know, by the light of subsequent investigations, who exactly were engaged, and what was in hand, it is possible to estimate these declarations at their true value.[231]
Except with the aid of such an explanation as this, it seems impossible to understand the endless inconsistencies and contradictions of the official narrative. This we have in four forms, all coming to us on the highest authority, but addressed to different audiences, and hopelessly at variance upon almost every point. One is that given to the world as the "King's Book,"[232] containing, as Mr. Jardine tells us, the version which it was desired that the general public should accept. A second was furnished by Cecil himself to the ambassadors at Madrid and Brussels, and the Lord Deputy in Ireland,[233] and a third to the ambassador at Paris.[234] We have likewise the minute of November 7th, already mentioned as perhaps intended for the information of the Privy Council, which, although it has seemingly served as the basis of the story told in the "King's Book," contradicts that story in various not unimportant particulars.
We shall afterwards have to examine in some detail the divergencies of these several narratives: at present we are concerned only with the intimation which they afford of a previous knowledge of the Plot on the part of the government. In the "King's Book"—which was not only to be disseminated broadcast at home, but to be translated and spread abroad, and, moreover, to be suited to the taste of its supposed author—the preternatural acuteness of the monarch is extolled in terms of most preposterous flattery, and his secretary is represented as altogether incredulous of danger, and unwilling to be convinced even by his royal master's wonderful interpretation of the mysterious warning. Nevertheless, not only is mention parenthetically introduced of the minister's "customable and watchful care of the king and State, boiling within him," of his laying up these things in his heart, "like the Blessed Virgin Mary," and being unable to rest till he had followed the matter farther,—but it is dexterously intimated that, for all his hardness of belief, he was sufficiently well informed before the warning came to hand, and that "this accident did put him in mind of divers advertisements he had received from beyond the seas, wherewith he had acquainted as well the king himself, as divers of his Privy Councillors, concerning some business the Papists were in, both at home and abroad, making combination amongst them for some combination against this Parliament time," their object being to approach the king with a petition for toleration, "which should be delivered in some such order, and so well backed, as the king should be loth to refuse their requests; like the sturdy beggars craving alms with one open hand, but carrying a stone in the other, in case of refusal."
As prepared for the Privy Council, the account, though substantially the same, was somewhat more explicit. The secretary was fully aware, so the Lords were told, "that some practices might be doubted," and he "had, any time these three months, acquainted the King, and some of his Majesty's inward Counsellors, that the priests and laymen abroad and at home were full of the papists of this kingdom, seeking still to lay some plot for procuring at this Parliament exercise of their religion."
In his letter to the ambassadors Cecil was able to speak more plainly, for this document was not to meet the eye of James. Accordingly, he not only acknowledges that on seeing the Monteagle letter he at once divined the truth, and understood all about the powder, and moreover reverses the parts played by his Majesty and himself—making the former incredulous in spite of what he himself could urge in support of his opinion—but he goes on to give his previous information a far more definite complexion: "Not but that I had sufficient advertisement that most of these that now are fled [i.e. the conspirators]—being all notorious Recusants—with many others of that kind, had a practice in hand for some stir this Parliament." He, moreover, describes the plotters, in terms already cited, as "gentlemen spent in their fortunes and fit for all alterations."
In view of all this it is quite impossible to believe the account given of themselves by those who were responsible for the public safety, and to suppose that they were not only so neglectful of their duty, but so incredibly foolish, and so unlike themselves, as to permit a gross and palpable peril to approach unnoticed. If, on the other hand, as appears to be certain, the information with which they were supplied were copious and minute, erring by excess far more than by defect, if, instead of lethargy and carelessness, we find in their conduct, at every stage of the proceedings, evidence of the extremest vigilance and of constant activity, and if they held it of prime importance to disguise the facts, and were willing to incur the charge of having been asleep at their posts, rather than let it be thought that they knew what they did, it can scarcely be doubted that the history of the Gunpowder Plot given to the world was in its essential features what they wished it to be.[235]
A practical illustration of the methods freely employed by statesmen of the period will serve to throw fuller light upon this portion of our inquiry. In the service of the government was one Thomas Phelippes,[236] by trade a "decipherer," who was employed to "make English" of intercepted letters written in cipher. His services had been largely used in connection with Mary, Queen of Scots, some of whose letters he thus interpreted, having it in his power, as Mr. Tytler remarks, to garble or falsify them at pleasure.[237] Moreover, to serve the purposes of his masters, as he himself acknowledges,[238] he had upon occasion forged one side of a correspondence, in order to induce the person addressed to commit himself in reply.[239] At the time of the Gunpowder Plot, however, Phelippes had himself fallen under suspicion, on account of a correspondence with Hugh Owen, of whom we shall hear elsewhere. Accordingly, an attempt was made to hoist him with his own petard, and another agent, named Barnes, was employed by Cecil to write a letter, as coming from Phelippes (who was then in England) and carry it to Owen in Flanders in order to draw him out. At Dover, however, Barnes was arrested, being mistaken for another man for whom a watch was being kept. Thereupon, his papers being seized and sent to the Earl of Northampton, who appears not to have been in the secret of this matter, Cecil was obliged to arrest Phelippes at once, as though the letter were genuine, instead of waiting, as he had intended, in order to worm out more.
The story of this complex and crooked business is frankly told by Cecil himself in a letter to Edmondes, English ambassador at Brussels, which, after the above abstract, will be sufficiently intelligible.[240]
"As for Barnes, he is now returning again into Flanders, with many vows and promises to continue to do good service. As he was at Dover with my pass, carrying a letter from Philipps to Owen (of Barnes own handwriting, wherewith I was before acquainted), he was suddenly stayed by order from the Lord Warden, upon suspicion that he was one Acton, a traitor of the late conspiracy.... Whereupon, his papers and letters being sent to my Lord of Northampton, I thought fit not to defer any longer the calling of Philipps into question; which till then I had forborne, hoping by Barnes his means to have discovered some further matter than before I could do."