[268] Rookwood’s Examination, Dec. 2, 1605. S.P.O. Jardine, G. P., p. 106.
[269] P. 108.
[270] Narrative G. P., p. 106.
CHAPTER XI.
It is to be lamented that Catesby, not content with giving an account of the failure of the plot to Sir Everard Digby, added to it a lie. In his examination,[271] Digby stated that Catesby “told him that now was the time for men to stirre in the Catholick cause, for though the sayd Ro. Katesbie had bin disappointed of his first intention, yet there was such a pudder bredd in the State by ye death of the King and the Earle of Salisburie, as if true Catholiques would now stirre, he doubted not but they might procure to them selves good conditions. Wherefore by all the bondes of frendshippe to him self and all which that cause might require at this examts. handes, he urged this examt. to proceede in that businesse as him self and all that companie would do, and as he had great assurance all other Catholiques in those parts would do the like: telling me that there were two gentlemen in the companie, naming the Littletons, that would bring 1000 men the next day.”
The King and Lord Salisbury both killed, and a promise of a thousand men from one family alone!
This was something to start with, even though the parliament had not been destroyed; and in the general “pudder”that had been “bredd,”the Catholics might possibly succeed in obtaining good terms, if not the reins of government. So was Sir Everard persuaded by Catesby, who was not only a traitor to his country, but a deceiver of his friends.
The conspirators assumed that their names would be soon, if not already, known to the Government, as Fawkes would almost certainly be tortured until he revealed them; and, brave as he was, there was no saying whether he would be able to withstand the temptations of putting an end to his agonies on the rack by giving the names of his employers and accomplices.