[370] Ib.
CHAPTER XIV.
Sir Everard appears to have received several kind communications, whilst in the Tower, from Father Gerard, if we may judge from some of his remarks concerning “my brother”in his letters to Lady Digby.
For instance, we find him writing[371]:—“Let my Brother see this, or know its Contents, tell him I love his sweet comforts as my greatest Jewel in this Place”; in another,[372] “I give my Brother many thanks for his sweet comforts, and assure him that now I desire death; for the more I think on God’s mercy the more I hope in my own case: though others have censured our Intentions otherwise than I understood them to be, and though the Act be thought so wicked by those of Judgment, yet I hope that my understanding it otherwise, with my Sorrow for my Error, will find acceptance at God’s hands.” In another he sends a warning to him,[373] “Howsoever my Brother is informed, I am sure they fear him for knowledge of the Plot, for at every examination I am told that he did give the Sacrament to five at one time.”And once again,[374] he says:—“Tell my Brother I do honour him as befits me, but I did not think I could have increased so much, loving him more as his charitable Lessons would make me.”
But if Father Gerard had sent very consoling messages to Sir Everard in his imprisonment; on one occasion—it was within a few days of the trial—he wrote him a formal letter, which he sent to Lord Salisbury and the Duke of Lenox, asking them to give it to Sir Everard and hear what he might say in answer to it. To Salisbury himself he wrote another letter, in the course of which he said[375]:—“Sir Everard Digby can testify for me, how ignorant I was of any such matter”[as the Gunpowder Plot], “but two days before that unnatural parricide should have been practised. I have, for full trial thereof, enclosed a letter unto him, which I humbly beseech may be delivered, &c.”
At the same time he wrote to the Duke of Lenox, “My humble petition therefore is, that a witness be asked his knowledge who is well able to clear me if he will, and I hope he will not be so unjust in this time of his own danger as to conceal so needful a proof being so demanded of him. Sir Everard Digby doth well know how far I was from knowledge of any such matter but two days before the treason was known to all men. I have therefore written a letter unto him, to require his testimony of that which passed between him and me at that time. Wherein, if I may have your lordship’s furtherance to have just trial made of the truth whilst yet he liveth, I shall ever esteem myself most deeply bound, &c., &c.”
This letter to Sir Everard, which, of course, would be read first by Salisbury and Lenox, began:—“Sir Everard Digby,—I presume so much of your sincerity both to God and man, that I cannot fear you will be loath to utter your knowledge for the clearing of one that is innocent from a most unjust accusation importing both loss of life to him that is accused, and of good name also, which he much more esteemeth.”
Then he says that upon some false information, given, he supposes, “by some base fellows, desirous to save their lives by the loss of their honesty,”—this looks as if he suspected some of the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, imprisoned in the Tower—a “proclamation has been issued against myself and my superior”—this would be Father Garnet—“and one other of the Society,”probably Father Oldcorne, “as against three notorious practisers, with divers of the principal conspirators in this late most odious treason of destroying the King’s Majesty and all in the Parliament House with powder. And myself am put in the first place, as the first or chiefest offender therein.”