proceedings of the other plotters, who had either gathered at Dunchurch
for the hunting-match, or had fled from London to join them, and a
proclamation was issued for the arrest of Percy, Catesby, Rokewood,
Thomas Winter, Edward[10] Grant, John and Christopher Wright, and
Catesby's servant, Robert Ashfield. They were charged with assembling in
troops in the counties of Warwick and Worcester, breaking into stables
and seizing horses. Fawkes, too, was on that day subjected to a fourth
examination. Not very much that was new was extracted from him. He
acknowledged that his real name was Guy Fawkes, that--which he had denied
before--he had received the sacrament not to discover any of the
conspirators, and also that there had been at first five persons privy to
the plot, and afterward five or six more "were generally acquainted that
an action was to be performed for the Catholic cause, and saith that he
doth not know that they were acquainted with the whole conspiracy." Being
asked whether Catesby, the two Wrights, Winter, or Tresham, were privy,
he refused to accuse any one.
[10] Properly "John."
That Fawkes had already been threatened with torture is known, and it may
easily be imagined that the threats had been redoubled after this last
unsatisfactory acknowledgment. On the morning of the 8th, however, Waad,
who was employed to worm out his secrets, reported that little was to be
expected. "I find this fellow," he wrote, "who this day is in a most
stubborn and perverse humour, as dogged as if he were possessed.
Yester-night I had persuaded him to set down a clear narration of all his
wicked plots from the first entering to the same, to the end they
pretended, with the discourses and projects that were thought upon
amongst them, which he undertook [to do] and craved time this night to
bethink him the better; but this morning he hath changed his mind and is
[so] sullen and obstinate as there is no dealing with him."
The sight of the examiners, together with the sight of the rack,[11]
changed Fawkes' mind to some extent. He was resolved that nothing but
actual torture should wring from him the names of his fellow-plotters,
who so far as was known in London were still at large.[12] He prepared
himself, however, to reveal the secrets of the plot so far as was
consistent with the concealment of the names of those concerned in it.
His fifth examination, on the 8th, the last before the one taken under
torture on the 9th, gives to the inquirer into the reality of the plot
all that he wants to know.
[11] In _The King's Book_ it is stated that Fawkes was shown the
rack, but never racked. Probably the torture used on the 9th was
that of the manacles, or hanging up by the wrists or thumbs.
[12] The principal ones were either killed or taken at Holbeche on
that very day.
"He confesseth," so the tale begins, "that a practice was first broken
unto him against his majesty for the Catholic cause, and not invented or
propounded by himself, and this was first propounded unto him about
Easter last was twelvemonth, beyond the seas in the Low Countries, by an
English layman,[13] and that Englishman came over with him in his company
into England, and they two and three more[14] were the first five
mentioned in the former examination. And they five resolving to do
somewhat for the Catholic cause (a vow being first taken by all of them
for secrecy), one of the other three[15] propounded to perform it with
powder, and resolved that the place should be (where this action should
be performed and justice done) in or near the place of the sitting of the
Parliament, wherein Religion had been unjustly suppressed. This being
resolved, the manner of it was as followeth:
"First they hired the house at Westminster, of one Ferres, and having
his house they sought then to make a mine under the Upper House of
Parliament, and they began to make the mine in or about the 11 of
December, and they five first entered into the works, and soone after
took an other[16] to them, having first sworn him and taken the sacrament
for secrecy; and when they came to the wall (that was about three yards
thick) and found it a matter of great difficulty, they took to them an
other in like manner, with oath and sacrament as aforesaid;[17] all which
seven were gentlemen of name and blood, and not any was employed in or
about this action (no, not so much as in digging and mining) that was not
a gentleman.
[13] Thomas Winter.
[14] Catesby, Percy, and John Wright.
[15] _I.e._, Catesby. In a copy forwarded to Edmondes by Salisbury
(Stowe MSS. 168, fol. 223) the copyist had originally written
"three or four more," which is altered to "three."
[16] Christopher Wright.
[17] Robert Winter.
"And having wrought to the wall before Christmas, they ceased until after
the holidays, and the day before Christmas (having a mass of earth that
came out of the mine) they carried it into the garden of the said house,
and after Christmas they wrought the wall till Candlemas, and wrought the
wall half through; and saith that all the time while the other wrought,
he stood as sentinel, to decry any man that came near; and when any man
came near to the place, upon warning given by him they ceased until they
had notice to proceed from him; and sayeth that they seven all lay in the
house, and had shot and powder, and they all resolved to die in that
place, before they yielded or were taken.
"And, as they were working, they heard a rushing in the cellar, which
grew by one Bright's selling of his coals,[18] whereupon this examinant,
fearing they had been discovered, went into the cellar and viewed the
cellar, and perceiving the commodity thereof for their purpose, and
understanding how it would be letten, his master, Mr. Percy, hired the
cellar for a year for £4 rent; and confesseth that after Christmas twenty
barrels of powder were brought by themselves to a house, which they had
on the bank side in hampers, and from that house removed the powder to
the said house near the Upper House of Parliament; and, presently, upon
hiring the cellar they themselves removed the powder into the cellar, and
covered the same with fagots which they had before laid into the cellar.
[18] This is an obvious mistake, as the widow Skinner was not at
this time married to Bright, but one just as likely to be made by
Fawkes himself as by his examiners.
"After, about Easter, he went into the Low Countries (as he before hath
declared in his former examination) and that the true purpose of his
going over was, lest, being a dangerous man, he should be known and
suspected, and in the mean time he left the key of the cellar with Mr.
Percy, who in his absence caused more billets to be laid into the cellar,
as in his former examination he confessed, and returned about the end of
August, or the beginning of September, and went again to the said house,
near to the said cellar, and received the key of the cellar again of one
of the five,[19] and then they brought in five or six barrels of powder
more into the cellar, which also they covered with billets, saving four
little barrels covered with fagots, and then this examinant went into the
country about the end of September.
[19] Percy.
"It appeareth the powder was in the cellar placed as it was found the 5
of November, when the Lords came to prorogue the Parliament, and sayeth
that he returned again to the said house near the cellar on Wednesday the
30 of October.
"_He confesseth he was at the Earl of Montgomery's marriage, but, as he
sayeth, with no intention of evil, having a sword about him, and was very
near to his Majesty and the Lords there present._[20]
[20] The words in Italics are marked by pen-strokes across them for
omission.
"Forasmuch as they knew not well how they should come by the person of
the Duke Charles, being near London, where they had no forces (if he had
not been also blown up), he confesseth that it was resolved among them
that the same day that this detestable act should have been performed,
the same day should other of their confederacy have surprised the person
of the Lady Elizabeth, and presently have proclaimed her Queen, _to
which purpose a proclamation was drawn, as well to avow and justify the
action, as to have protested against the Union, and in no sort to have
meddled with religion therein, and would have protested also against all
strangers_, and this proclamation should have been made in the name of
the Lady Elizabeth.
"Being demanded why they did not surprise the King's person, and draw him
to the effecting of their purpose, sayeth that so many must have been
acquainted with such an action as it would not have been kept secret.
"He confesseth that if their purpose had taken effect, until they had had
power enough, they would not have avowed the deed to be theirs; but if
their power (for their defence and safety) had been sufficient, they
themselves would then have taken it upon them. They meant also to have
sent for the prisoners in the Tower to have come to them, of whom
particularly they had some consultation.
"He confesseth that the place of rendezvous was in Warwickshire, and that
armour was sent thither, but the particular thereof he knows not.
"He confesseth that they had consultation for the taking of the Lady Mary
into their possession, but knew not how to come by her.
"And confesseth that provision was made by some of the conspiracy of some
armour of proof this last summer for this action.
"He confesseth that the powder was bought by the common purse of the
confederates.
"L. Admiral [Earl of Nottingham] Earl of Salisbury
L. Chamberlain [Earl of Suffolk] Earl of Mar
Earl of Devonshire Lord Chief Justice [Popham][21]
Earl of Northampton
"Attended by Mr. Attorney-General [Coke]."
[21] _G.P.B._, No. 49. In the Stowe copy the names of the
commissioners are omitted, and a list of fifteen plotters added. As
the paper was enclosed in a letter to Edmondes of the 14th, these
might easily be added at any date preceding that.
The 9th, the day on which Fawkes was put to the torture, brought news to
the government that the fear of insurrection need no longer be entertained.
It had been known before this that Fawkes' confederates had met on the
5th at Dunchurch on the pretext of a hunting-match,[22] and had been
breaking open houses in Warwickshire and Worcestershire in order to
collect arms. Yet so indefinite was the knowledge of the council that,
on the 8th, they offered a reward for the apprehension of Percy alone,
without including any of the other conspirators.[23] On the evening of
the 9th[24] they received a letter from Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff
of Worcestershire.
[22] Probably, as Father Gerard suggests, what would now be known
as a coursing-match.
[23] _Proclamation Book, R.O._, p. 117.
[24] A late postscript added to the letter to the ambassadors sent
off on the 9th (_Winwood_, ii. 173) shows that before the end of
the day Salisbury had learned even more of the details than were
comprised in the sheriff's letter.
"We think fit," he wrote, "with all speed to certify your Lordships of
the happy success it hath pleased God to give us against the rebellious
assembly in these parts. After such time as they had taken the horses
from Warwick upon Tuesday night last,[25] they came to Mr. Robert
Winter's house to Huddington upon Wednesday night,[26] where--having
entered--[they] armed themselves at all points in open rebellion. They
passed from thence upon Thursday morning[27] unto Hewell--the Lord
Windsor's house--which they entered and took from thence by force great
store of armour, artillery of the said Lord Windsor's, and passed that
night into the county of Staffordshire unto the house of one Stephen
Littleton, Gentleman, called Holbeche, about two miles distant from
Stourbridge, whither we pursued, with the assistance of Sir John Foliot,
Knight, Francis Ketelsby, Esquire, Humphrey Salway, Gentleman, Edmund
Walsh, and Francis Conyers, Gentlemen, with few other gentlemen and the
power and face of the country.
[25] November 5th.
[26] November 6th.
[27] November 7th.
"We made against them upon Thursday morning,[27] and freshly pursued them
until the next day,[28] at which time, about twelve or one of the clock
in the afternoon, we overtook them at the said Holbeche House--the greatest
part of their retinue and some of the better sort being dispersed and
fled before our coming, whereupon and after summons and warning first
given and proclamation in his Highness's name to yield and submit
themselves--who refusing the same, we fired some part of the house and
assaulted some part of the rebellious persons left in the said house, in
which assault one Mr. Robert Catesby is slain, and three others verily
thought wounded to death whose names--as far as we can learn--are Thomas
Percy, Gentleman, John Wright, and Christopher Wright, Gentlemen; and
these are apprehended and taken: Thomas Winter Gentleman, John Grant
Gentleman, Henry Morgan Gentleman, Ambrose Rokewood Gentleman, Thomas
Ockley carpenter, Edmund Townsend servant to the said John Grant,
Nicholas Pelborrow, servant unto the said Ambrose Rokewood, Edward Ockley
carpenter, Richard Townsend servant to the said Robert Winter, Richard
Day servant to the said Stephen Littleton, which said prisoners are in
safe custody here, and so shall remain until your Honours good pleasures
be further known. The rest of that rebellious assembly is dispersed,
we have caused to be followed with fresh suite and hope of their
speedy apprehension. We have also thought fit to send unto your
Honours--according unto our duties--such letters as we have found about
the parties apprehended; and so resting in all duty at your Honours'
further command, we take leave, from Stourbridge this Saturday morning,
being the ixth of this instant November 1605.
"Your Honours' most humble to be commanded,
"RICH. WALSH."
[28] November 8th.
CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE" REFORMS LITERATURE
A.D. 1605
HENRY EDWARD WATTS
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is the most celebrated of Spanish
authors; but his fame rests upon a far more solid basis than merely
that of having written the most readable and tender of humorous
romances. He reformed literature. He tilted at windmills as truly as
ever his hero did, and overthrew the false taste for wordy pomp and
emptiness which was characteristic of his times. It was not only
Spanish literature that felt the impulse of his warm, frank honesty
and insight into life. All Europe was his debtor.
Cervantes was an impoverished nobleman, that too common product of
Spain in those days when her American gold fleets had begun to fail
her. In his early manhood he was an author and then a soldier of
fortune in Italy. He fought as a common soldier on one of the Genoese
galleys in the great sea-fight of Lepanto, distinguished himself
there by his heroism, and was three times wounded, crippled in one
arm for life. Later he was captured by Algerian pirates, and was for
five years a slave, ever planning and attempting escapes, a daring,
dashing hero, the life and admiration of his fellow-captives.
After his ransom and return to Spain, Cervantes once more took up
literature, the amusement of his youth. He became a playwright and
romancer. The government gave him a small position as a tax-collector,
but with such good-natured carelessness did he handle this
uncongenial employ that he had repeatedly to make good from his own
pocket the losses he entailed upon the government. Even this
unsatisfactory labor failed the impractical author about the period
of the death of King Philip II (1598). He was imprisoned for debt,
and sank into such abject poverty that he depended on his friends
for bread. How much the gloomy Philip II is satirized in Cervantes'
masterpiece has always been a disputed question.
The accession of the new King, which had been hailed as "the light after
darkness," had little effect on Cervantes' fortunes. Philip III, though
he had some taste for letters, and was not without sprouts of kindliness
in his heart, had been by education and by an over-strict regimen in
youth debased, so that he was even more completely a slave to the
priestly influence than his father had been, without any of his father's
ability or force of character. The Duke of Lerma was "the Atlas who bore
the burden of the monarchy."[1] He was a man, according to Quevedo,
"alluring and dexterous rather than intelligent; ruled by the interested
cunning of his own creatures but imperious with all others; magnificent,
ostentatious; choosing his men only by considerations of his own special
policy or from personal friendship." Under such a man, who ruled the King
at his will, it was not likely that any portion of the royal benevolence
should light on Miguel de Cervantes. Moreover, the crowd of suppliants at
court was very great, their appetite stimulated doubtless by the
flattering reports of the new King's liberal disposition.
[1] The phrase was probably used by Cervantes in irony. It had been
used by others before, and was a common form.
A contemporary writer laments with pathetic zeal and pious indignation
the lot of many famous captains and valiant soldiers, who, after serving
the King all their lives and being riddled with wounds, were not only
pushed aside into corners without any reward, but condemned to see
unworthy men without merit loaded with benefits, merely through enjoying
the favor of some minister or courtier.[2] The Duke of Lerma, as one who
professed a contempt for all letters and learning, was even less likely
to be influenced by Cervantes' literary merits than by his services as a
soldier--services which had now become an old story. Disappointed in his
hopes of preferment, Cervantes had to maintain himself and his family by
the exercise of his pen--writing, as we learn, letters and memorials for
those who needed them,[3] while busy upon his new book.
[2] Fr. Sepulveda, quoted by Navarrete.
[3] And "employed in various agencies and businesses," says
Navarrete, vaguely.
Without the gifts which are in favor at court--unskilled in the arts of
solicitation--we can imagine, with a man of Cervantes' temperament, what
a special hell it must have been--"in suing long to bide." About this
time he seems almost to have dropped out of life. The four years between
1598 and 1602 are the obscurest in his story. We do not know where he
lived or what he did. It was the crisis of the struggle with his
unrelenting evil destiny. The presumption is that he was still in the
South, engaged in his humble occupation of gathering rents, of buying
grain for the use of the fleet, with intervals perhaps of social
enjoyment among such friends as he had made at Seville; among whom is
reckoned the painter Francisco de Pacheco. This was for our hero the
darkest hour before the dawn. For already, according to my calculation,
he must have begun to write _Don Quixote_, being now (1602) in his
fifty-fifth year.[4] He had duly qualified himself, by personal
experience, to tell the story of the adventures of him who sought to
revive the spirit of the ancient chivalry. His own romance was ended. The
pathetic lines of Goethe might seem to be written for his own case:
"Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass,
Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte."[5]
[4] That _Don Quixote_ could not have been written before 1591 is
proved by the mention in chapter vi of a book published in that
year. That it must have been written subsequently to 1596 is proved
by the reference in chapter xix to an incident which was not ended
till September, 1596 (see Navarrete). There are other hints and
allusions in the story which, I think, show that it could scarcely
have been begun while Philip II was alive.
[5] From _Wilhelm Meister, Lehrjahre_, chapter xii, thus Englished
by Thomas Carlyle:
"Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darksome hours
Weeping and watching for the morrow,
He knew you not, ye unseen Powers."
Never had any man of letters to go through a severer ordeal. At last his
genius found the true path for which it had been beating about so many
years; but not until his prime of life had passed, when even that brave
heart must have been chilled and that gay spirit deadened.
In 1601 Philip III, at the instance of the Duke of Lerma, removed the
court to the old capital of Castile, Valladolid--by nature far better
situated for a metropolis than Madrid, which had been the choice of his
grandfather, Charles V. Thither Cervantes repaired, in 1603, doubtless
with some hope of gleaning some crumbs of the royal favor. He was no more
fortunate with the new King than he had been with the old. Despairing of
place or patronage, he turned, with his brave spirit unquenched as by the
record sufficiently appears, to completing this new thing among books.
_Don Quixote_ was probably finished by the beginning of 1604, though some
further time elapsed, as it seems, before the author had courage to go to
print. His genius had lain fallow for twenty years. He was now old, and
had written nothing, or at least published nothing, since _Galatea_. What
fame was left to him he had earned as a poet among many poets. As an
author, if he was remembered at all, it was in a line wholly different
from that which he now essayed. There is reason to believe that the
manuscript of the new book was in circulation among those who called
themselves the author's friends, as was the custom of the age, before he
found a patron and a publisher.[6] The publisher was got at last in
Francisco Robles, the King's printer, to whom the copyright was sold for
ten years.[7] The patron appeared in the person of the Duque de Bejar, a
nobleman described by a writer of that age--Cristobal de Mesa--as himself
both a poet and a valiant soldier. The choice was not altogether a happy
one, for the Duke of Bejar might be said to have an ancestral claim to be
regarded as a patron of books of chivalries. It was to his great-grandfather
that one of the silliest and most extravagant of the romances had been
dedicated by the author, Feliciano de Silva, who is the writer specially
ridiculed by Cervantes--the very book which is the subject of a parody in
the opening chapter of _Don Quixote_.[8] The Duke of Bejar was noted,
moreover, for his own uncommon affection for the books of chivalries then
in fashion, and it is probable that he at first understood _Don Quixote_
to be one such as he was in the habit of reading. Learning of his
mistake, he refused, it is said, the dedication, and withdrew his
patronage from the author. Then, according to the pleasant story first
told by Vicente de los Rios, was enacted that scene which has been so
favorite a subject with modern artists. Cervantes begged of the Duke to
give him a hearing before deciding against his book; upon which he was
permitted to read a chapter, which the Duke found so much to his taste
that he graciously readmitted the author into his favor and consented to
receive the dedication. There is another tradition which imputes to the
Duke's confessor--an ecclesiastic who must have had a cleaner nose for
heterodoxy than most of his fellows--the original rejection of the
dedication by the Duke, the alteration in its wording, and the subsequent
neglect of the author.[9] The dedication which now does duty at the
opening of the First Part of _Don Quixote_ I have shown to have been
tampered with by someone bearing no good-will to Cervantes.
[6] There are two curious pieces of evidence in proof that _Don
Quixote_ was known before it was printed. In the first edition of
the _Picara Justina_, composed by Francisco de Ubeda--the license
to print which is dated August, 1604--there are some truncated
verses, like those in the beginning of _Don Quixote_, in which _Don
Quixote_ is mentioned by name as already famous (_Catalogo de
Salva_, vol. ii, p. 157). Also in a private letter from Lope de
Vega to his patron, the Duke of Sessa, there is a malignant
allusion to Cervantes, speaking of poets. "There is none so bad as
Cervantes, and none so foolish as to praise _Don Quixote_." The
letter is dated August 4, 1604.
[7] That seems to have been the usual period for which a book was
licensed in that age. The sum which Cervantes received for his
copyright is not recorded.
[8] The Third Part of _Don Florisel de Niquea_ was dedicated to a
former Duque de Bejar. See Salva's _Catalogo_, vol. ii, p. 14.