There is, however, evidence still more notable. On the same day, December 4th, on which Bates made his declaration, Cecil wrote a most important letter to one Favat,[368] who had been commissioned by King James to urge the necessity of obtaining evidence without delay against the priests. This document is valuable as furnishing explicit testimony that torture was employed with this object. "Most of the prisoners," says the secretary, "have wilfully forsworn that the priests knew anything in particular, and obstinately refuse to be accusers of them, yea, what torture soever they be put to."
He goes on, however, to assure his Majesty that the desired object is now in sight, particularly referring to a confession which can be none other than that of Bates, but likewise cannot be that afterwards given to the world; for it is spoken of as affording promise, but not yet satisfactory in its performance.
"You may tell his Majesty that if he please to read privately what this day we have drawn from a voluntary and penitent examination, the point I am persuaded (but I am no undertaker) shall be so well cleared, if he forbear to speak much of this but few days, as we shall see all fall out to the end whereat his Majesty shooteth."
It seems clear, therefore, that the famous declaration of Bates, like those of Faukes and Winter, tends to discredit the story which in particulars so important rests upon such evidence.
It may be farther observed that if the confession of Bates, as officially preserved, were of any worth, it would have helped to raise other issues of supreme importance. Thus its concluding paragraph runs as follows:
"He confesseth that he heard his master, Thomas Winter, and Guy Fawkes say (presently upon the coming over of Fawkes) that they should have the sum of five-and-twenty thousand pounds out of Spain."
This clearly means that the King of Spain was privy to the design, for a sum equivalent to a quarter of a million of our money could not have been furnished by private persons. The government, however, constantly assured the English ambassadors abroad of the great satisfaction with which they found that no suspicion whatever rested upon any foreign prince.
iv. Robert Winter.
There are various traces of foul play in regard of this conspirator in particular, which serve to shake our confidence as to the treatment of all. Robert Winter was the eldest brother of Thomas, and held the family property, which was considerable. Whether this motive, as Mr. Jardine suggests, or some other, prompted the step, certain it is that the government in their published history falsified the documents in order to incriminate him more deeply. Faukes, in the confession of Nov. 17th, mentioned Robert Keyes as amongst the first seven of the conspirators who worked in the mine, and Robert Winter as one of the five introduced at a later period. The names of these two were deliberately interchanged in the published version, Robert Winter appearing as a worker in the mine, and Keyes, who was an obscure man of no substance, among the gentlemen of property whose resources were to have supported the subsequent rebellion. Moreover, in the account of the same confession sent to Edmondes by Cecil three days before Faukes signed it (i.e., Nov. 14th), the same transposition occurs, Keyes being explicitly described as one of those "who wrought not in the mine," although, as we have seen, he is one of the three who alone make any mention of it.
Still more singular is another circumstance. About November 28th, Sir Edward Coke, the attorney-general, drew up certain farther notes of questions to be put to various prisoners.[369] Amongst these we read: "Winter to be examined of his brother. For no man else can accuse him." But a fortnight or so before this time the Secretary of State had officially informed the ambassador in the Low Countries that Robert Winter was one of those deepest in the treason, and, to say nothing of other evidence, a proclamation for his apprehension had been issued on November 18th. Yet Coke's interrogatory seems to imply that nothing had yet been established against him, and that he was not known to the general body of the traitors as a fellow-conspirator.