The news of the popular indignation at the Gunpowder Plot must have added greatly to Digby’s sorrows. On Sunday, November 10th,[335] “a solemn thanksgiving was offered in all the churches.”He would hear, too, that on the night of the very day that the explosion was to have taken place, church-bells were ringing, and bonfires were blazing in all directions as a testimony of the public rejoicing at the failure of the plot.[336] Even[337] “the Spanish Ambassador made bonfires, and threw money amongst the people.”
More galling still was the ever-increasing evidence of the horror of the English Catholics and their angry disclaimers of having had anything to do with, or any sympathy for, such a nefarious scheme.
“If, after the discovery,”says Tierney,[338] “the pope himself abstained from issuing a formal condemnation of the conspiracy, Blackwell, at least, his delegate and representative in England, instantly came forward to stigmatize it as a ‘detestable device,’ an ‘intolerable, uncharitable, scandalous, and desperate fact.’ No sooner had the proclamation for the apprehension of the conspirators announced the intelligence that Catholics were implicated in it, than he addressed a letter to the clergy and laity of his flock (Nov. 7), reminding them of the criminality of all forcible attempts against the government, and exhorting them to manifest their respect for the decisions of the church, the clergy by inculcating, the laity by practising, that patient submission to the laws, which alone could ‘please God, mollify man, and increase their merits and their glory in the world to come.’”Reports of this letter would be received by Sir Everard on his arrival in London.
The Archpriest’s manifesto was most opportune; for about the time he was writing it, Ben Jonson, the poet, who had been a Catholic for seven years,[339] was writing to Salisbury that some say they must consult the Archpriest; but that he, Ben Jonson, thinks[340] “they are all so enweaved in it as it will make 500 gent. lesse of the religion within this weeke.”He also got up in the Council Chamber at Whitehall,[341] denounced the plot on behalf of the Catholics of England, and offered his services in hunting down the gang of miscreants that had brought this discredit on his Church.
“Three weeks later,”continues Tierney, the Archpriest “repeated his admonition in still stronger terms. He reminded his people of his former letter, assured them that ‘no violent attempt against the king or his government could be other than a most grievous and heinous offence to God’; and concluded by declaring that, as the pope had already condemned all such unlawful proceedings, so he, by the authority of the pope, now strictly forbad Catholics, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, ‘to attempt any practise or action, tending to the prejudice’ of the throne, or to behave themselves in any manner but such ‘as became dutiful subjects and religious Catholics, to their king, his counsellors, and officers.’”
With a copy of the first of these two letters[342] before me, I am struck by one sentence which lays down a golden rule concerning political plots. “Moreover, our divines do say that it is not lawful for private subjects, by private authority, to take arms against their lawful king, albeit he become a tyrant.”
How bitterly Sir Everard Digby felt the disapproval of the Catholics may be judged from one of his letters to his wife, written in the Tower.[343] “But now let me tell you, what a grief it hath been to me, to hear that so much condemned which I did believe would have been otherwise thought on by Catholicks; there is no other cause but this, which hath made me desire life, for when I came into prison, death would have been a welcome friend unto me, and was most desired; but when I heard how Catholicks and Priests thought of the matter, and that it should be a great sin that should be in the Cause of my end, it called my conscience in doubt of my very best actions and intentions in question: for I knew that my self might easily be deceived in such a business, therefore I protest unto you that the doubts I had of my own good state, which only proceeded from the censure of others, caused more bitterness of grief in me than all the miseries that ever I suffered, and only this caused me wish life till I might meet with a ghostly friend. For some good space I could do nothing, but with tears ask pardon at God’s hands for all my errors, both in actions and intentions in this business, and in my whole life, which the censure of this, contrary to my expectance, caused me to doubt; I did humbly beseech that my death, might satisfie for my offence, which I should and shall offer most gladly to the Giver of Life. I assure you as I hope in God that the love of all my estate and worldly happiness did never trouble me, nor the love of it since my imprisonment did ever move me to wish life. But if that I may live to make satisfaction to God and the world, where I have given any scandal, I shall not grieve if I should never look Living Creature in the face again, and besides that deprivation endure all worldly misery.”[344]
Sir Everard was examined in the Tower several times; first, on two successive days, November 19th and 20th, he was questioned at some length, before Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Northampton, Salisbury, Mar, Dunbar, and Coke. A good deal of his evidence has already been quoted. On the first day, he only admitted that Catesby[345] “did comfort him with future hopes and told him that he doubted not but there would be a course effected for theyr good,” and that it was not until Tuesday, the 5th of November, that “Mr Catesbie acquainted him with the practice of ye treason of ye blowing up the Parlamt. howse,” when he “gave him some inkling what had bin the plott of undermining the Parlament howse, to blow it up; and on Wednesday told him more at large &c.,”naming “who had bin the miners.”
On the following day, however, “he beinge shewed by the Ls his follye and faulte in denyinge that wch was so manyfest and beinge toulde that both Tho. Wynter had speach wh him of the pticulars, concerninge the plot of the powder to blow upp the K. in the Parliament house, and being confronted wth Mr Faucks who charged him to have discoursed wth him thereof abowte a weeke before the 5th of November at his house in Buck.shyer,”he confessed more freely. Fawkes had been tortured,[346] and most likely, when he charged Sir Everard in this way, he did it in order to escape being tortured again. So many of the conspirators were now known by the others to be in the Tower, and each was so much afraid of what the others might have confessed, that they became terrified and confessed freely when examined. Neither of them knew which of his companions had been tortured in order to induce him to incriminate his friends; and each feared that he might, at any moment, be himself laid upon the rack.
FOOTNOTES: