What Gunpowder Plot Was

by Samuel Rawson Gardiner

“At my last being before them I told them I thought Greenway knew of this business, but I did not charge the others with it, but that I saw them all together with my master at my Lord Vaux’s, and that after I saw Mr. Whalley,” i.e. Garnet, “and Mr. Greenway at Coughton, and it is true. For I was sent thither with a letter, and Mr. Greenway rode with me to Mr. Winter’s to my master, and from thence he rode to Mr. Abington’s. This I told them, and no more. For which I am heartily sorry for, and I trust God will forgive me, for I did it not out of malice but in hope to gain my life by it, which I think now did me no good.”[285]

This clearly refers not to the confession of December 4, but to that of January 13,[286] in which these matters were spoken of, and it is to be noted that Bates does not acknowledge having spoken falsely, but of having told inconvenient truths.

Bates’s entire silence in this letter as to the confession of December 4 may receive one of two interpretations. Either Greenway was not mentioned in that confession at all—a solution which in the face of Salisbury’s letter to Favat seems to be an impossible one—or else Bates knew that he had at that time made disclosures to which he did not wish to refer. It is, perhaps, not so very unlikely that he compounded for what would in any case be regarded as a great fault by disclosing a smaller one.

Are we, then, shut up to the conclusion that Father Greenway sheltered himself by telling a deliberate lie? I do not see that it is absolutely necessary; though I suppose, under correction, that he might feel himself bound to aver that he had never heard what he had only heard in confession. Is it not, however, possible that Bates in confessing to Greenway did not go into the details of the plot, but merely spoke of some design against the Government with which his master had entrusted him, and that Greenway told him that it was his master’s secret, and he might be content to think that it was in a good cause?[287] As time went on Bates would easily read his own knowledge of the plot into the words he had used in confession, or may even have deliberately expanded his statement to please the examiners. Life was dear, and he may have hoped to gain pardon if he could throw the blame on a Jesuit. Besides, Greenway, as he probably knew, had not been arrested, and no harm would come if he painted him blacker than he was. This is but a conjecture, but if it is anywhere near the mark, it is easy to understand why Bates should not have been eager to call attention to the confession of December 4, when he wrote the letter which has been already quoted.[288] On the other hand Catesby seems to have had no doubt of Greenway’s adherence, as is shown by his exclaiming on the priest’s arrival at Coughton, that ‘here, at least, was a gentleman that would live and die with them.’

In any case, the general attitude of the priests is not difficult to imagine. Not even their warmest advocates can suppose that they received the news of a plot to blow up James I. and his Parliament with quite as much abhorrence as they would have manifested if they had heard of a plot to blow up the Pope and the College of Cardinals. They were men who had suffered much and were exposed at any moment to suffer more. They held that James had broken his promise without excuse. But they had their instructions from Rome to discountenance all disturbances; and we may do them the justice to add that both Garnet and Greenway were shocked when they were informed of the atrocious character of the plot itself; but, at all events, Sir Everard Digby was able to write from prison to his wife:—

“Before that I knew anything of the plot, I did ask Mr. Farmer,” i.e. Garnet, “what the meaning of the Pope’s Brief was; he told me that they were not (meaning priests) to undertake or procure stirs; but yet they would not hinder any, neither was it the Pope’s mind they should, that should be undertaken for the Catholic good. I did never utter thus much, nor would not but to you; and this answer with Mr. Catesby’s proceedings with him and me give me absolute belief that the matter in general was approved, though every particular was not known.”[289]

Whatever may be thought of the value of this statement Garnet’s attitude towards the plot was, on his own showing, hardly one of unqualified abhorrence. Assuming that all that Greenway had informed him of on one particular occasion, when the whole design was poured into his ears, was told under the sanction of the confessional, and that not only the rule of his Church, but other more worldly considerations, prohibited the disclosure of anything so heard, there was all the more reason why he should take any opportunity that occurred to learn the secret out of confession, and so to do his utmost to prevent the atrocious design from being carried into execution. Let us see whether he did so or not, on his own showing.

On June 8 or 9, 1605,[290] Catesby asked Garnet the question whether it was lawful to kill innocent persons, together with nocents, on the pretence that his inquiry related to the siege of a town in war. At first Garnet treated the question as of no other import. “I ... thought it at the first but as it were an idle question, till I saw him, when we had done, make solemn protestation that he would never be known to have asked me any such question so long as he lived.” On this Garnet began to muse within himself as to Catesby’s meaning.

“And,” he continues, “fearing lest he should intend the death of some great persons, and by seeking to draw them together enwrap not only innocents but friends and necessary persons for the Commonwealth, I thought I would take fit occasion to admonish him that upon my speech he should not run headlong to so great a mischief.”

Garnet accordingly talked to him when he met him next, towards the end of June, telling him that he wished him ‘to look what he did if he intended anything, that he must not have so little regard of innocents that he spare not friends and necessary persons to a Commonwealth, and told him what charge we had of all quietness, and to procure the like of others.’ It was certainly rather mild condemnation of a design which, as Garnet understood, would involve considerable loss of life.