Tyrone. Queen Elizabeth was dead, and the son of Mary Stuart sat on the
English throne. Tyrone made a complete surrender of his estates, pledged
himself to enter into alliance with no foreign power against England, and
even undertook to promote the introduction of English laws and customs
into any part of Ireland over which he had influence. In return Tyrone
received from the King the restoration of his lands and his title by
letters-patent, and a free pardon for his campaigns against England. He
was brought to London to be presented to King James, and was treated with
great courtesy and hospitality. This aroused much anger among some of the
older soldiers and courtiers in London, who did not understand why an
Irish rebel should be treated as if he were a respectable member of
society. Sir John Harrington expressed his opinions very freely in
letters which are still preserved. "I have lived," he wrote, "to see that
damnable rebel Tyrone brought to England, honored, and well liked. Oh!
what is there that does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters? I
adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, ate horseflesh in
Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who
did harass their lives to destroy him; and now doth Tyrone dare us, old
commanders, with his presence and protection."
When Tyrone returned to his own country he found that the reign of peace
and reconciliation between England and Ireland was as far off as ever.
Tyrone had believed it was fortunate for him to have made terms of peace
in King James' reign and not in Elizabeth's. But he soon found that his
hopes of a better time coming were premature. James no doubt thought it
good policy to secure the allegiance of a man like Tyrone by apparently
generous concessions. But he had no idea of adopting any policy toward
Ireland other than the old familiar policy of striving to reduce her to
the conditions of an English province, with English laws, customs,
costumes, and religion.
The King appears to have set his mind on the complete suppression of the
national religion by the enforcement of the sternest penal laws against
Catholics. He was determined also to blot out whatever remained of the
old Brehon laws, still dear to the memories of the people, and still
cherished among the sacred traditions of the country. When King James
succeeded to the throne he promised the Irish that they should have the
right of practising their religion, at least in private; but he soon
recalled his promise, and made it clear that those who would retain the
protection of the new ruling system must abjure the faith of their
fathers. Those who were put into the actual government of the country saw
that this policy could not be carried out without much resistance, and
therefore decreed the complete disarmament of all Irish retainers who
still acknowledged the leadership of the chieftains. One of the greatest
of these chieftains, O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel, was called upon to
conform openly to the English Church, under pain of being proceeded
against as a traitor.
The state of things he found existing on his return to Ireland would
naturally have driven Tyrone into rebellion, and the rulers of the
country appear to have made up their minds that he must be planning some
such rising. Tyrconnel was naturally regarded as an enemy of the same
order, and the policy of the ruling powers was to anticipate their
designs and condemn them in advance. Tyrone and Tyrconnel were
accordingly proclaimed traitors to the King. The two earls determined
that, as immediate insurrection had no chance of success, there was no
safety for them but in prompt escape from the country.
Then followed "the flight of the earls." Tyrone and Tyrconnel, with their
families and many of their friends and retainers, nearly a hundred
persons in all, made their escape in one vessel from the Irish shore,
and for twenty-one days were at the mercy of the sea and of the
equinoctial winds, for they sailed about the middle of September. A story
characteristic of the faith which then filled the hearts of Irish
chieftains is told. Tyrone fastened his golden crucifix to a string and
drew it through the sea at the stern of the vessel, in the hope that the
waves might thus be stilled. In the first week of October they landed on
the shore of France and travelled on to Rouen, receiving nothing but
kindness from the French. When King James heard of their flight he at
once demanded from France the surrender of the earls, but Henry IV
refused to surrender them.
Henry received the exiles with gracious and friendly greeting, but it was
not thought prudent by the earls, any more than by the French King, they
should remain in France at the risk of involving the two countries in
war. The earls, with their families and followers, went into Flanders
and then on to Rome. Pope Paul V gave them a cordial welcome, and made
liberal arrangements for their maintenance, while the King of Spain
showed his traditional sympathy with Ireland by settling pensions on
them. Tyrconnel died soon after, in the Franciscan Church of St. Pietro
di Montorio, and was laid in his grave wrapped in the robe of a
Franciscan friar. Tyrone lived for several years. He was filled in this
later time by a passionate longing to see once more the loved country of
his birth, and he appealed to the English government for permission to
return to Ireland and live quietly there until the end came. His request
was not granted. The English authorities, no doubt, felt good reason to
believe that his return to Ireland would be the cause of profound and
dangerous emotion among the people who loved him and whom he loved so
well.
His later years in Rome were literally darkened, because his sight, which
had been for some time failing, soon left him to absolute blindness. He
died on July 20, 1616, having lived a life of seventy-six years. Tyrone's
body was laid to rest in the same church which held the body of his
comrade Tyrconnel. Their graves are side by side. A modern writer tells
us that the church which has become the tomb of the two exiled earls
stands "where the Janiculum overlooks the glory of Rome, the yellow
Tiber and the Alban Hills, the deathless Coliseum, and the stretching
Campagna." "Raphael had painted his Transfiguration for the grand altar;
the hand of Sebastiano del Piombo had colored the walls with the
scourging of the Redeemer." The present writer has seen the graves, and
even the merest stranger to the spirit of Irish history must feel
impressed by the story of the two exiles who found their last
resting-place enclosed by such a scene.
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT
A.D. 1605
SAMUEL R. GARDINER
The "Gunpowder Plot" acquires importance from the fact that its
anniversary, November 5th, is still celebrated in England with
fire-crackers, burnings of "Guy Fawkes" scarecrows, and other
patriotic manifestations. Historically the plot, being detected
before its execution, ended in smoke, with no more terrible result
than the execution of the conspirators.
James I, son of the ill-starred Mary of Scotland, succeeded Elizabeth
on the English throne in 1603, and held both England and Scotland
under his sway. The English Catholics had been led to hope that James
would be lenient toward their faith, but in this they were
disappointed, and a few desperate followers of their religion united
in the Gunpowder Plot. More than one attempt has been made to prove
that this really amounted to very little, and was exaggerated by
James' minister, the Earl of Salisbury, to justify the harshness of
the Government toward Catholics.
Father Gerard's book, _What was the Gunpowder Plot?_ is the strongest
argument yet produced in favor of this view; but the fact remains
undenied and undeniable that some sort of plot existed. We present
here the latest summarizing of the matter (1897) by the standard
English historian, Gardiner, confining the account almost wholly to
Fawkes' own confessions.
Before examining the evidence, it will be well to remind my readers what
the so-called traditional story of the plot is, or, rather, the story
which has been told by writers who have in the present century availed
themselves of the manuscript treasures now at our disposal, and which are
for the most part in the Public Record Office. With this object I cannot
do better than borrow the succinct narrative of the _Edinburgh
Review_.[1]
[1] January, 1897, p. 192.
"Early in 1604 the three men, Robert Catesby, John Wright, and Thomas
Winter, meeting in a house at Lambeth, resolved on a Powder Plot,
though, of course, only in outline. By April they had added to their
number Wright's brother-in-law, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes, a
Yorkshire man of respectable family, but actually a soldier of
fortune, serving in the Spanish army in the Low Countries, who was
specially brought over to England as a capable and resolute man.
Later on they enlisted Wright's brother Christopher, Winter's brother
Robert, Robert Keyes, and a few more; but all, with the exception of
Thomas Bates, Catesby's servant, men of family and for the most part
of competent fortune, though Keyes is said to have been in straitened
circumstances, and Catesby to have been impoverished by a heavy fine
levied on him as a recusant.[2]
[2] This is a mistake. The fine of three thousand pounds was
imposed for his part in the Essex rebellion.
"Percy, a second cousin of the Earl of Northumberland, then captain
of the Gentleman Pensioners, was admitted by him into that body
in--it is said--an irregular manner, his relationship to the earl
passing in lieu of the usual oath of fidelity. The position gave him
some authority and license near the court, and enabled him to hire a
house, or part of a house, adjoining the House of Lords. From the
cellar of this house they proposed to burrow under the House of
Lords; to place there a large quantity of powder, and to blow up the
whole when the King and his family were there assembled at the
opening of Parliament. On December 11, 1604, they began to dig in the
cellar, and after a fortnight's labor, having come to a thick wall,
they left off work and separated for Christmas.
"Early in January they began at the wall, which they found to be
extremely hard, so that, after working for about two months,[3] they
had not got more than half way through it. They then learned that a
cellar actually under the House of Lords, and used as a coal cellar,
was to be let; and as it was most suitable for their design, Percy
hired it as though for his own use. The digging was stopped, and
powder, to the amount of thirty-six barrels, was brought into the
cellar, where it was stowed under heaps of coal or firewood, and so
remained, under the immediate care of Guy Fawkes,[4] till, on the
night of November 4, 1605--the opening of Parliament being fixed for
the next day--Sir Thomas Knyvet, with a party of men, was ordered to
examine the cellar. He met Fawkes coming out of it, arrested him, and
on a close search found the powder, of which a mysterious warning had
been conveyed to Lord Monteagle a few days before. On the news of
this discovery the conspirators scattered, but by different roads
rejoined each other in Warwickshire, whence, endeavoring to raise the
country, they rode through Worcestershire, and were finally shot or
taken prisoners at Holbeche in Staffordshire."
[3] Off and on, a fortnight at the end of January and beginning of
February, and then again probably for a very short time in March.
[4] Fawkes was absent part of the time.
It is this story that I now propose to compare with the evidence. First
of all, let us restrict ourselves to the story told by Guy Fawkes himself
in the five examinations to which he was subjected previously to his
being put to the torture on November 9th, and to the letters,
proclamations, etc., issued by the Government during the four days
commencing with the 5th. From these we learn, not only that Fawkes'
account of the matter gradually developed, but that the knowledge of
the Government also developed; a fact which fits in very well with the
"traditional story," but which is hardly to be expected if the Government
account of the affair was cut-and-dried from the first.
Fawkes' first examination took place on November 5th, and was conducted
by Chief Justice Popham and Attorney-General Coke. It is true that only a
copy has reached us, but it is a copy taken for Coke's use, as is shown
by the headings of each paragraph inserted in the margin in his own hand.
It is therefore out of the question that Salisbury, if he had been so
minded, would have been able to falsify it. Each page has the signature
(in copy) of "Jhon Jhonson," the name by which Fawkes chose to be known.
The first part of the examination turns upon Fawkes' movements abroad,
showing that the Government had already acquired information that he had
been beyond sea. Fawkes showed no reluctance to speak of his own
proceedings in the Low Countries, or to give the names of persons he had
met there, and who were beyond the reach of his examiners. As to his
movements after his return to England, he was explicit enough so far as
he was himself concerned, and also about Percy, whose servant he
professed himself to be, and whose connection with the hiring of the
house could not be concealed.
Fawkes stated that after coming back to England he "came to the lodging
near the Upper House of Parliament," and "that Percy hired the house of
Whynniard for £12 rent, about a year and a half ago"; that his master,
before his own going abroad, _i.e._, before Easter, 1605, "lay in the
house about three or four times." Further, he confessed "that about
Christmas last," _i.e._, Christmas, 1604, "he brought in the night-time
gunpowder [to the cellar under the Upper House of Parliament]."[5]
Afterward he told how he covered the powder with fagots, intending to
blow up the King and the Lords; and, being pressed how he knew that the
King would be in the House on the 5th, said he knew it only from general
report, and by the making ready of the King's barge; but he would have
"blown up the Upper House whensoever the King was there."
[5] The words between brackets are inserted in another hand.
He further acknowledged that there was more than one person concerned in
the conspiracy, and said he himself had promised not to reveal it, but
denied that he had taken the sacrament on his promise. Where the promise
was given he could not remember, except that it was in England. He
refused to accuse his partners, saying that he himself had provided the
powder, and defrayed the cost of his journey beyond sea, which was only
undertaken "to see the country, and to pass away the time." When he went,
he locked up the powder and took the key with him, and "one Gibbons'
wife, who dwells thereby, had the charge of the residue of the house."
Such is that part of the story told by Fawkes which concerns us at
present. It is obvious that Fawkes, who, as subsequent experience shows,
was no coward, had made up his mind to shield as far as possible his
confederates, and to take the whole of the blame upon himself. He says,
for instance, that Percy had only lain in the house for three or four
days before Easter, 1605, a statement, as subsequent evidence proved,
quite untrue; he pretends not to know, except from rumor and the
preparation of the barge, that the King was coming to the House of Lords
on the 5th, a statement almost certainly untrue. In order not to
criminate others, and especially any priest, he denies having taken the
sacrament on his promise, which is also untrue.
What is more noticeable is that he makes no mention of the mine, about
which so much was afterward heard, evidently--so at least I read the
evidence--because he did not wish to bring upon the stage those who had
worked at it. If indeed the passage which I have placed in square
brackets be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence upon
the mine. He must have made a positive assertion--soon afterward found to
be untrue--that the cellar was hired several months before it really was.
This passage is, however, inserted in a different hand from the rest of
the document. My own belief is that it gives a correct account of a
statement made by the prisoner, but omitted by the clerk who made the
copy for Coke, and inserted by some other person. Nobody that I can think
of had the slightest interest in adding the words, while they are just
what Fawkes might be expected to say if he wanted to lead his examiners
off the scent. At all events, even if these words be left out of account,
it must be admitted that Fawkes said nothing about the existence of a
mine.
Though Fawkes kept silence as to the mine, he did not keep silence on the
desperate character of the work on which he had been engaged. "And," runs
the record, "he confesseth that when the King had come to the Parliament
House this present day, and the Upper House had been sitting, he meant to
have fired the match and have fled for his own safety before the powder
had taken fire, and confesseth that, if he had not been apprehended this
last night, he had blown up the Upper House when the King, Lords,
Bishops, and others had been there, and saith that he spake for [and
provided][6] those bars and crows of iron, some in one place, some in
another, in London, lest it should be suspected, and saith that he had
some of them in or about Gracious Street."[7] Fawkes here clearly takes
the whole terrible design, with the exception of the mine, on his own
shoulders.
[6] Inserted in the same hand as that in which the words about the
cellar were written. It will be observed that the insertion cannot
serve anyone's purpose.
[7] Gracechurch Street.
Commissioners were now appointed to conduct the investigation further.
They were: Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Worcester, Northampton,
Salisbury, Mar, and Popham, with Attorney-General Coke in attendance.
This was hardly a body of men who would knowingly cover an intrigue of
Salisbury's. Worcester is always understood to have been professedly a
Catholic; Northampton was certainly one, though he attended the King's
service, while Suffolk was friendly toward the Catholics; and Nottingham,
if he is no longer to be counted among them,[8] was at least not long
afterward a member of the party which favored an alliance with Spain, and
therefore a policy of toleration toward the Catholics.
[8] On July 20-30, 1605, Father Creswell writes to Paul V that
Nottingham showed him every civility "that could be expected from
one who does not profess our holy religion."
Before five of these commissioners--Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire,
Northampton, and Salisbury--Fawkes was examined a second time on the
forenoon of the 6th. In some way the Government had found out that Percy
had had a new door made in the wall leading to the cellar, and they now
drew from Fawkes an untrue statement that it was put in about the middle
of Lent, that is to say, early in March, 1605.[9] They had also
discovered a pair of brewer's slings, by which barrels were usually
carried between two men, and they pressed Fawkes hard to say who was his
partner in removing the barrels of gunpowder. He began by denying that he
had had a partner at all, but finally answered that "he cannot discover
the party, but"--_i.e._, lest--"he shall bring him in question." He also
said that he had forgotten where he slept on Wednesday, Thursday, or
Friday in the week before his arrest.
[9] The "cellar" was not really hired till a little before Easter,
March 31st.
Upon this James himself intervened, submitting to the Commissioners a
series of questions with the object of drawing out of the prisoner a true
account of himself, and of his relations to Percy. A letter had been
found on Fawkes when he was taken, directed not to Johnson, but to
Fawkes, and this among other things had raised the King's suspicions. In
his third examination, on the afternoon of the 6th, in the presence of
Northampton, Devonshire, Nottingham, and Salisbury, Fawkes gave a good
deal of information, more or less true, about himself; and, while still
maintaining that his real name was Johnson, said that the letter, which
was written by a Mrs. Bostock in Flanders, was addressed to him by
another name "because he called himself Fawkes," that is to say, because
he had acquired the name of Fawkes as an alias.
"If he will not otherwise confess," the King had ended by saying, "the
gentler tortures are to be first used unto him, _et sic per gradus ad ima
tenditur_." To us, living in the nineteenth century, these words are
simply horrible. As a Scotchman, however, James had long been familiar
with the use of torture as an ordinary means of legal investigation,
while even in England, though unknown to the law, that is to say, to the
practice of the ordinary courts of justice, it had for some generations
been used not infrequently by order of the council to extract evidence
from a recalcitrant witness, though, according to Bacon, not for the
purpose of driving him to incriminate himself. Surely, if the use of
torture was admissible at all, this was a case for its employment. The
prisoner had informed the government that he had been at the bottom of a
plot of the most sanguinary kind, and had acknowledged by implication
that there were fellow-conspirators whom he refused to name.
If, indeed, Father Gerard's view of the case, that the government, or at
least Salisbury, had for some time known all about the conspiracy,
nothing--not even the Gunpowder Plot itself--could be more atrocious than
the infliction of torments on a fellow-creature to make him reveal a
secret already in their possession. If, however, the evidence I have
adduced be worth anything, this was by no means the case. What it shows
is that on the afternoon of the 6th all that the members of the
government were aware of was that an unknown number of conspirators were
at large--they knew not where--and might at that very moment be
appealing--they knew not with what effect--to Catholic land-owners and
their tenants, who were, without doubt, exasperated by the recent
enforcement of the penal laws. We may, if we please, condemn the conduct
of the government which had brought the danger of a general Catholic
rising within sight. We cannot deny that, at that particular moment, they
had real cause of alarm. At all events, no immediate steps were taken to
put this part of the King's orders in execution.
Some little information, indeed, was coming in from other witnesses. In
his first examination, on November 5th, Fawkes had stated that in his
absence he locked up the powder, and "one Gibbons' wife who dwells
thereby had the charge of the residue of the house." An examination of
her husband on the 5th, however, only elicited that he, being a porter,
had with two others carried three thousand billets into the vault. On the
6th, Ellen, the wife of Andrew Bright, stated that Percy's servant had,
about the beginning of March, asked her to let the vault to his master,
and that she had consented to abandon her tenancy of it if Mrs.
Whynniard, from whom she held it, would consent. Mrs. Whynniard's consent
having been obtained, Mrs. Bright, or rather Mrs. Skinner--she being a
widow remarried subsequently to Andrew Bright--received two pounds for
giving up the premises.
The important point in this evidence is that the date of March, 1605,
given as that on which Percy entered into possession of the cellar,
showed that Fawkes' statement that he had brought powder into the cellar
at Christmas, 1604, could not possibly be true. On the 7th Mrs. Whynniard
confirmed Mrs. Bright's statement, and also stated that, a year earlier,
in March, 1604, "Mr. Percy began to labor very earnestly with this
examinate and her husband to have the lodging by the Parliament House,
which one Mr. Henry Ferris, of Warwickshire, had long held before, and,
having obtained the said Mr. Ferris' good-will to part from it after long
suit by himself and great entreaty of Mr. Carleton, Mr. Epsley, and other
gentleman belonging to the Earl of Northumberland, affirming him to be a
very honest gentleman, and that they could not have a better tenant, her
husband and she were contented to let him have the said lodging at the
same rent Mr. Ferris paid for it."
Mrs. Whynniard had plainly never heard of the mine; and that the
Government was in equal ignorance is shown by the indorsement on the
agreement of Ferris--or rather Ferrers--to make over his tenancy to
Percy--"The bargain between Ferris and Percy for the bloody cellar, found
in Winter's lodging." Winter's name had been under consideration for some
little time, and doubtless the discovery of this paper was made on, or
more probably before, the 7th. The Government, having as yet nothing but
Fawkes' evidence to go upon, connected the hiring of the house with the
hiring of the cellar, and at least showed no signs of suspecting anything
more.