Garnet made a long defence at the bar; and on the question of equivocation he defended himself with much subtilty. He declared that the church of Rome condemned lying; but he justified equivocation, which, he said, was “to defend the use of certain propositions. For a man may be asked of one, who hath no authority to interrogate or examine, concerning something which belongeth not to his cognizance who asketh, as what a man thinketh, &c. So then no man may equivocate when he ought to tell the truth, otherwise he may.” When he was reminded that he had denied that he had written to Tesmond alias Greenwell, or sent messages to him, he said he would not have denied his letters if he had known that the lords had seen them; but supposing that they had not been seen he did deny them, and that he might lawfully do so. This has been confirmed by the papers in the State Paper Office. There is amongst these papers an original letter, in Garnet’s own hand, to Mrs. Vaux, in which he acknowledged that he was so pressed by the testimony of two witnesses who overheard the conversation between Hall and himself, that he was, at length, determined to confess all rather than stand the torture or trial by witnesses.
Garnet endeavoured to shelter himself from the guilt of the plot, under the plea, that the treason was revealed to him under the seal of confession. At first he endeavoured to deny that he was acquainted with any particulars; but being forced from this subterfuge, he admitted his knowledge, but contended that he was bound to conceal all that he knew. He acknowledged also that he had concealed the treason with Spain. “Only,” says he, “I must needs confess, I did conceal it after the example of Christ, who commands us, when our brother offends to reprove him, for if he do amend we have gained him.” With respect to the Powder Treason he acknowledged, that Greenwell came to him in great perplexity in consequence of what Catesby had intimated. He consented to hear it, provided the fact of his doing so should not be revealed to Catesby, or to any other person. Greenwell then revealed the whole plot. He confessed that he was greatly distressed on the subject, “and sometimes prayed to God that it should not take effect.” On being questioned why he did not reveal the conspiracy he stated that, “he might not disclose it to any, because it was matter of secret confession, and would endanger the lives of divers men.” Cecil said, “I pray you, Mr. Garnet, what encouraged Catesby that he might proceed, but your resolving him in the first proposition? What warranted Faukes, but Catesby’s explication of Garnet’s arguments? As appears infallibly by Winter’s confession, and by Faukes, that they knew the point had been resolved to Mr. Catesby, by the best authority.” It was evident, therefore, that he did not merely conceal the matter; but that he was an active instigator of the conspiracy.[22]
With respect to Garnet’s knowledge of the conspiracy, it is perfectly clear that the matter was not merely revealed in confession, but that he was one of the actors therein. Nor was the plea of confession consistent with some of his own declarations during his examinations. He admitted, that the treason was mentioned to him in the way of consultation, as a thing not yet executed; and moreover Greenwell did not implicate himself; he merely told of others, and consequently the seal of confession would not have been broken, even if Garnet had revealed the whole to the government. He chose, however, on his trial, to adopt this line of defence, namely, that he was not at liberty to disclose anything which was revealed to him in sacramental confession. One of the lords asked him if a man should confess to-day, that he intended to kill the king to-morrow with a dagger, whether he must conceal the matter? Garnet replied that he must conceal it. Parsons, the jesuit, maintains the same opinion. Speaking of Garnet, he remarks, that nothing was proved, “but that the prisoner had received only a simple notice of that treason, by such a means as he could not utter and reveal again by the laws of Catholic doctrine, that is to say, in confession, and this but a very few days before the discovery, but yet never gave any consent, help, hearkening, approbation, or co-operation to the same; but contrariwise sought to dissuade, dehort, and hinder the designment by all the means he could. He, dying for the bare concealing of that, which, by God’s, and the church’s ecclesiastical laws, he could not disclose, and giving no consent or co-operation to the treason itself, should have been accounted rather a martyr than a traitor.”—See an answer to Sir Edward Coke’s Reports, 4to. 1606.
It is remarkable that in a treatise published A.D. 1600, on auricular confession, a case is put to this effect; namely, whether if a confederate discover, in confession, that he or his companions have secretly deposited gunpowder under a particular house, and that the prince will be destroyed unless it is removed, the priest ought to reveal it. The writer replies in the negative, and fortifies his opinion by the authority of a bull of Clement VIII., against violating the seal of confession. This treatise was published at Louvain. Bishop Kennet remarks on this treatise, in his Sermon, November 5th, 1715, that it appeared “as if the writer had already looked into the cellar and had surveyed the powder, and had heard the confessions of the conspirators.”
The proceedings were at length brought to a close; and judgment was demanded against the prisoner. When the clerk of the crown asked what he had to say why judgment should not be given, Garnet replied that “he could say nothing, but referred himself to the mercy of the king and God Almighty.” Judgment was pronounced in the usual form, that the prisoner should be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
On the third of May 1606, the prisoner was executed on a scaffold erected at the west end of St. Paul’s church-yard. Overal, dean of St. Paul’s, with the dean of Winchester, exhorted him to make a plain confession to the world of the offence of which he had been convicted. Garnet desired them not to trouble him, as he came prepared to die, and was resolved what he should do. The recorder asked if he had anything to say to the people before his death, reminding him that it was not the time to dissemble, and that his treasons were manifest to the world. Garnet evidently had no wish to address the crowd; and without refusing the permission, he alleged that his voice was weak, his strength exhausted, and that the people would be unable to hear him, except in the immediate vicinity of the scaffold. To those who stood near, however, he said that the intention was wicked, and the fact would have been cruel, and that he entirely abhorred it. He was reminded that he had confessed his own participation in the plot. It was also stated, that he had acknowledged, under his own hand, that Greenway had asked him who should be protector? and that he had replied that the matter was to be deferred until the blow was actually struck. He confessed that he had erred in not revealing all that he knew of the plot; but he refused to make any further declaration on the scaffold.
He kneeled down at the foot of the ladder; but so distracted was he during his prayer, that he constantly paused and looked about him, as if in expectation of a pardon. He now expressed his sorrow in dissembling with the lords, but justified himself by saying, that he was not aware that they were in possession of such proofs against him. Then exhorting all Romanists to abstain from treasonable practices, he was launched into eternity.
Garnet was viewed as a martyr by his church after his death. Yet he had confessed himself guilty. When asked by some of the lords on his examination, if he approved that the church of Rome should one day declare him a martyr, he cried, Martyrem me, O qualem Martyrem. The church of Rome could not declare him a martyr however, unless they could allege that a miracle had been wrought at his death, or subsequent to it. A miracle therefore was feigned, in order to pave the way into the martyrology. This circumstance I will now relate.
While the body was quartered by the executioner, some drops of blood fell upon the straw with which the scaffold was strewed. A man of the name of Wilkinson, who was present, was anxious to preserve some relic of the deceased, and therefore carried home with him some of the straws sprinkled with Garnet’s blood. These relics were committed to the care of a woman, who preserved them under a glass case. Wilkinson had come over from St. Omer’s on purpose to be present at the execution. It was reported, that the straws which had been carried away by Wilkinson leaped up from the scaffold, or from the basket in which the dissevered head was deposited, upon his person. Some weeks after, on examining the straws, the parties pretended, that they discovered a likeness of Garnet on one of the husks which contained the grain. Wilkinson and several other persons asserted that they perceived a likeness. The matter was soon noised abroad, and the Romanists proclaimed that a miracle had been wrought. It was thought necessary to institute an examination into the matter; and accordingly several witnesses gave their evidence before the archbishop of Canterbury. Some persons had reported, that the head on the ear of corn was surrounded with glory, or with streaming rays; but Griffith, the husband of the woman who had preserved the straw, declared, before the archbishop, that he discovered nothing of the sort, and that the face was no more like Garnet’s than that of any other man who had a beard. Another witness deposed, that he believed that a good artisan could have drawn a better likeness.
The matter, however, was not permitted to be forgotten; and at Rome a print of the straw was published and publicly exhibited. Some months afterwards Garnet was declared to be a martyr by the pope; in which light he is still regarded by Romanists. The miracle was undoubtedly intended to afford the pope an excuse for his beatification, which is the lowest degree of celestial dignity. “This he did,” says Fuller, “to qualify the infamy of Garnet’s death, and that the perfume of this new title might outscent the stench of his treason.”