What Gunpowder Plot Was

by Samuel Rawson Gardiner

“I should be glad to understand what your friend driveth at about the Fifth of November. It was without all peradventure a State plot. I have collected many pregnant circumstances concerning it.

“’Tis certain that the last Earl of Salisbury[8] confessed to William Lenthall it was his father’s contrivance; which Lenthall soon after told one Mr. Webb (John Webb, Esq.), a person of quality, and his kinsman, yet alive.

“Sir Henry Wotton says, ’twas usual with Cecil to create plots that he might have the honour of the discovery, or to such effect.

“The Lord Monteagle knew there was a letter to be sent to him before it came. (Known by Edmund Church, Esq., his confidant.)

“Sir Everard Digby’s sons were both knighted soon after, and Sir Kenelm would often say it was a State design to disengage the king of his promise to the Pope and the King of Spain to indulge the Catholics if ever he came to be king here; and somewhat to his[9] purpose was found in the Lord Wimbledon’s papers after his death.

“Mr. Vowell, who was executed in the Rump time, did also affirm it so.

“Catesby’s man (George Bartlet) on his death-bed confessed his master went to Salisbury House several nights before the discovery, and was always brought privately in at a back door.”

Father Gerard, it is true, does not lay very great stress on this evidence; but neither does he subject it to the criticism to which it is reasonably open. What is to be thought, for instance, of the accuracy of a writer, who states that ‘Sir Everard Digby’s two sons were both knighted soon after,’ when, as a matter of fact, the younger, Kenelm, was not knighted till 1623, and the elder, John, not till 1635? Neither Sir Kenelm’s alleged talk, nor that of Wotton and Vowell, prove anything. On the statement about Catesby I shall have something to say later, and, as will be seen, I am quite ready to accept what is said about Monteagle. The most remarkable allegation in the paper is that relating to the second Earl of Salisbury. In the first place it may be noted that the story is produced long after the event. As the words imply that Lenthall was dead when they were written down, and as his death occurred in 1681, they relate to an event which occurred at least seventy-six years before the story took the shape in which it here reaches us. The second Earl of Salisbury, we are told, informed Lenthall that the plot was ‘his father’s contrivance,’ and Lenthall told Webb. Are we quite sure that the story has not been altered in the telling? Such a very little change would be sufficient. If the second Earl had only said, “People talked about my father having contrived the plot,” there would be nothing to object to. If we cannot conceive either Lenthall or Webb being guilty of ‘leaving the story better than they found it,’—though Wood, no doubt a prejudiced witness, says that Lenthall was ‘the grand braggadocio and liar of the age in which he lived’[10]—our anonymous and erudite friend who perpetrated that little blunder about the knighthood of Sir Everard Digby’s sons was quite capable of the feat. The strongest objection against the truth of the assertion, however, lies in its inherent improbability. Whatever else a statesman may communicate to his son, we may be sure that he does not confide to him such appalling guilt as this. A man who commits forgery, and thereby sends several innocent fellow creatures to torture and death, would surely not unburden his conscience to one of his own children. Maxima debetur pueris reverentia. Moreover the second Earl, who was only twenty-one years of age at his father’s death, was much too dull to be an intellectual companion for him, and therefore the less likely to invite an unprecedented confidence.

It is not only on the reception of second-hand evidence that I find myself at variance with Father Gerard. I also object to his criticism as purely negative. He holds that the evidence in favour of the traditional story breaks down, but he has nothing to substitute for it. He has not made up his mind whether Salisbury invented the whole plot or part of it, or merely knew of its existence, and allowed its development till a fitting time arrived for its suppression. Let me not be misunderstood. I do not for an instant complain of a historian for honestly avowing that he has not sufficient evidence to warrant a positive conclusion. What I do complain of is, that Father Gerard has not started any single hypothesis wherewith to test the evidence on which he relies, and has thereby neglected the most potent instrument of historical investigation. When a door-key is missing, the householder does not lose time in deploring the intricacy of the lock, he tries every key at his disposal to see whether it will fit the wards, and only sends for the locksmith when he finds that his own keys are useless. So it is with historical inquiry, at least in cases such as that of the Gunpowder Plot, where we have a considerable mass of evidence before us. Try, if need be, one hypothesis after another—Salisbury’s guilt, his connivance, his innocence, or what you please. Apply them to the evidence, and when one fails to unlock the secret, try another. Only when all imaginable keys have failed have you a right to call the public to witness your avowal of incompetence to solve the riddle.

At all events, this is the course which I intend to pursue. My first hypothesis is that the traditional story is true—cellar, mine, the Monteagle letter and all. I cannot be content with merely negativing Father Gerard’s inferences. I am certain that if this hypothesis of mine be false, it will be found to jar somewhere or another with established facts. In that case we must try another key. Of course there must be some ragged ends to the story—some details which must be left in doubt; but I shall ask my readers to watch narrowly whether the traditional story meets with any obstacles inconsistent with its substantial truth.