What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence, John Gerard [ebook reader with android os TXT] 📗

It is moreover apparent that if in recent times historians have forgotten that such a view was ever held, or consider it too preposterous for serious discussion, this is not because fuller knowledge of the details of the conspiracy have discredited it. The official version of the story has remained in possession of the field, and it has gradually been assumed that this must substantially be true. In consequence, as it seems, writers of history, approaching the subject with this conviction, have failed to remark many points suggested even by the documentary evidence at our disposal, and still more emphatically by the recorded facts, which cannot but throw grave doubt upon almost every particular of the traditional account, while making it impossible to believe that, as to what is most essential, the Plot was in reality what has for so long been supposed. That long before the "discovery" the Plot must have been, and in fact was, known to the government; that this knowledge was artfully dissimulated, in order to make political capital out of it; that for the same purpose the sensational circumstances of its discovery were deliberately arranged; and that there are grave reasons for suspecting the beginnings of the desperate enterprise, as well as its catastrophe, to have been dexterously manipulated for State purposes;--such are the conclusions, the evidence for which will now be considered.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] Gunpowder Plot Book, 129. Printed in Archæologia, xii. 202*.

[100] R.O. Roman Transcripts (Bliss), No. 86, December 10th, 1605 (Italian).

[101] Mr. Jardine writes (Criminal Trials, ii. p. 235), "The True and Perfect Relation ... is certainly not deserving of the character which its title imports. It is not true, because many occurrences on the trial are wilfully misrepresented; and it is not perfect, because the whole evidence, and many facts and circumstances which must have happened, are omitted, and incidents are inserted which could not by possibility have taken place on the occasion. It is obviously a false and imperfect relation of the proceedings; a tale artfully garbled and misrepresented, like many others of the same age, to serve a State purpose, and intended and calculated to mislead the judgment of the world upon the facts of the case." Of the Discourse he speaks in similar terms. (Ibid., p. 4.)

[102] R.O. Dom. James I. xix. 94. Printed by Jardine, Criminal Trials, ii. 120 (note).

[103] Answere to certaine Scandalous Papers, scattered abroad under colour of a Catholic Admonition. (Published in January, 1605-6.)

[104] Traditional Memoirs, 36. Of this writer Lord Castlemaine says, "He was born before this plot, and was also an inquisitive man, a frequenter of company, of a noted wit, of an excellent family, and as Protestant a one as any in the whole nation."

[105] Court of King James (1839), i. 102.

[106] Stonyhurst MSS., Anglia, v. 67.

[107] E.g., in the Advocate of Conscience Liberty (1673), p. 225.

[108] History of Mary Queen of Scots and James I., p. 334. Bishop Kennet, in his Fifth of November Sermon, 1715, boldly declares that Sanderson speaks not of Cecil the statesman, but of Cecil "a busy Romish priest" (and, he might have added, a paid government spy). The assertion is utterly and obviously false.

[109] Memoirs, p. 22.

[110] History of England, Royal House of Stuart, p. 27.

[111] General History of England, iii. 757.

[112] History of His Own Times, i. 11.

[113] Church History, Book X. § 39.

[114] Antipathie of the English Lordly Prelacie, to the regall Monarchie and Civill Unity, p. 151.

[115] A Short View of the English History, p. 296.

[116] Note to Fuller's Church History, x. § 39, and to the Student's Hume.

[117] Illustrations, iii. 172.

[118] Parker and Co. This author says of Cecil and his rival Raleigh, "Both were unprincipled men, but Cecil was probably the worst. He is suspected not only of having contrived the strange plot in which Raleigh was involved, but of being privy to the proceedings of Catesby and his associates, though he suffered them to remain unmolested, in order to secure the forfeiture of their estates" (p. 338).

[119] Criminal Trials, ii. 68.

[120] History of England, i. 254, note.

[121] Catholique Apology, p. 412.

[122] Hist. Prov. Angl. S.J., p. 310.

[123] Condition of Catholics under James I., p. 100.

[124] R.O. Dom. James I., lxxxi. 70, August 29th, 1615.

[125] A Plain and Rational Account of the Catholick Faith, Rouen, 1721, p. 197.

[126] Certamen utriusque Ecclesiæ, James I.

[127] The author of the English Protestants' Plea (1621) says: "Old stratagems and tragedies of Queene Elizabeth's time must needs be renewed and playde againe, to bring not only the Catholikes of England, but their holy religion into obloquy" (p. 56).

Peter Talbot, Bishop of Dublin, in the Polititian's Catechisme (1658) writes: "That Cecil was the contriver, or at least the fomenter of [the Plot,] was testified by one of his own domestick Gentlemen, who advertised a certain Catholike, by name Master Buck, two months before, of a wicked designe his Master had against Catholikes" (p. 94).

[128] A writer, signing himself "Architect," in an article describing the old palace of Westminster (Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1800, p. 627), having occasion to mention the Gunpowder Plot, observes: "This Plot is now pretty well understood not to have been hatched by the Papists, but by an inveterate foe of the Catholicks of that day, the famous minister of James.... All well-informed persons at present laugh at the whole of this business."

THE history of the Gunpowder Plot prior to its discovery, as related with much circumstantiality by the government of the day, has, in all essential particulars, been accepted without demur by the great majority of modern writers. We have already seen that those who lived nearer to the period in question were less easily convinced; it remains to show that the internal evidence of the story itself is incompatible with its truthfulness.

The point upon which everything turns is the secret, and therefore dangerous, character of the conspiracy, which, as we are told, completely eluded the vigilance of the authorities, and was on the very verge of success before even a breath of suspicion was aroused, being balked only by a lucky accident occurring at the eleventh hour, in a manner fitly described as miraculous.

On the other hand, however, many plain and obvious considerations combine to show that such an account cannot be true. It is not easy to believe that much which is said to have been done by the conspirators ever occurred at all. It is clear that, if such things did occur, they can by no possibility have escaped observation. There is evidence that the government knew of the Plot long before they suddenly "discovered" it. Finally, the story of the said "discovery," and the manner in which it took place, is plainly not only untrue, but devised to conceal the truth; while the elaborate care expended upon it sufficiently indicates how important it was held that the truth should be concealed.

There are, moreover, arguments, which appear to deserve consideration, suggesting the conclusion that the Plot was actually set on foot by the secret instigation of those who designed to make it serve their ends, as in fact it did. For our purpose, however, it is not necessary to insist greatly upon these. It will be enough to show that, whatever its origin, the conspiracy was, and must have been, known to those in power, who, playing with their infatuated dupes, allowed them to go on with their mad scheme, till the moment came to strike with full effect; thus impressing the nation with a profound sense of its marvellous deliverance, and winning its confidence for those to whose vigilance and sagacity alone that deliverance appeared due.

That we may rightly follow the details of the story told to us, we must in the first place understand the topography of the scene of operations, which, with the aid of the illustrations given, will not be difficult.

The old House of Lords was a chamber occupying the first floor of a building which stood about fifty yards from the left bank of the Thames, to which it was parallel, the stream at this point running almost due north. Beneath the Peers' Chamber, on the ground floor, was a large room, which plays an important part in our history. This had originally served as the palace kitchen, and though commonly described as a "cellar" or a "vault" was in reality neither, for it stood on the level of the ground outside, and had a flat ceiling, formed by the beams which supported the flooring of the Lords' apartment above.[131] It ran beneath the said Peers' Chamber from end to end, and measured 77 feet in length, by 24 feet 4 inches in width.

At either end, the building abutted upon another running transversely to it; that on the north being the "Painted Chamber," probably erected by Edward the Confessor, and that on the south the "Prince's Chamber," assigned by its architectural features to the reign of Henry III. The former served as a place of conference for Lords and Commons,[132] the latter as the robing-room of the Lords. The royal throne stood at the south end of the House, near the Prince's Chamber.Originally the Parliament Chamber and the "cellar" beneath it were lighted by large windows on both sides; subsequently, houses raised against it blocked these up, and the Lords were supplied with light by dormers constructed in the roof. The walls of their apartment were then hung with tapestry, representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Although precise information on the point is not easy to obtain, it would appear that this did not occur till a period later than that with which we are concerned.[133]

Such was the position to be attacked. As a first step, the conspirators resolved to hire a house in the immediate neighbourhood, to serve them as a base of operations. Thomas Percy was selected to appear as the principal in this part of the business, for, being one of the king's pensioners, he had frequently to be in attendance at Court, and might naturally wish to have a lodging close at hand. The house chosen was one, or rather a part of one,[134] standing near the Prince's Chamber, and on the side towards the river.

In treating for the lease of this tenement Percy seems to have conducted himself in a manner altogether different from what we might have expected of one whose object required him, above all, to avoid attracting notice. He appears, in fact, to have made the greatest possible ado about the business. The apartments were already let to one Ferrers, who was unwilling to give them up, and Percy eventually succeeded in his purpose, after not only "long suit by himself," but also "great intreaty of Mr. Carleton, Mr. Epsley, and other gentlemen belonging to the Earl of Northumberland."[136] These gentlemen were never said to have been privy to the Conspiracy, and one of them, the well-known Dudley Carleton, afterwards Viscount Dorchester, was not only at this time secretary to Sir Thomas Parry, the Ambassador in France, but was "patronised" by Cecil himself.[137]

Neither does the house appear to have been well suited to serve the purposes for which it was taken. Speed tells us,[138] and he is confirmed by Bishop Barlow of Lincoln,[139]