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WHAT GUNPOWDER PLOT WAS
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE RIVER FRONT OF THE HOUSE OCCUPIED BY
WHYNNIARD
_The words 'Prince's Chamber, House of Lords,' in the foreground can
only mean that those buildings are behind the house._]
WHAT GUNPOWDER PLOT WAS
BY
SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L., LL.D.
FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
1897
All rights reserved
WORKS BY SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, D.C.L. LL.D.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of
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WHAT GUNPOWDER PLOT WAS: a Reply to Father Gerard.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HISTORICAL EVIDENCE 1
II. GUY FAWKES'S STORY 17
III. THE LATER DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE 43
IV. STRUCTURAL DIFFICULTIES 77
V. THE DISCOVERY 114
VI. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CATHOLICS 138
VII. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIESTS 173
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
VIEW OF THE RIVER FRONT OF THE HOUSE OCCUPIED
BY WHYNNIARD _Frontispiece_
FROM A PLAN OF THE ANCIENT PALACE OF WESTMINSTER,
BY THE LATE MR. W. CAPON 80
FROM A PLAN OF PART OF WESTMINSTER, 1685 81
FROM A PLAN OF PART OF WESTMINSTER, 1739 82
FROM A PLAN OF WESTMINSTER HALL AND THE HOUSES OF
PARLIAMENT, 1761 83
EAST END OF THE PRINCE'S CHAMBER 88
VIEWS OF THE EAST SIDE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, &C. 89
THE FOUR WALLS OF THE SO-CALLED CELLAR UNDER THE
HOUSE OF LORDS 109
CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES
(_Political events in italics_)
1603. March 24.--_Accession of James I._
June 17.--_James informs Rosny of his intention to remit the
Recusancy fines._
July 17.--_James assures a deputation of Catholics that the fines
will be remitted._
Aug. 20.--_Parry writes to announce the overtures of the Nuncio in
Paris._
1604. Feb. 22.--_Proclamation banishing priests._
March.--Catesby imparts the design to Winter.
About the beginning of April.--Winter goes to Flanders.
Towards the end of April.--Winter returns with Fawkes.
Early in May.--The five conspirators take an oath, and then receive
the sacrament.
May 24.--Agreement for a lease of part of Whynniard's block of
houses.
June.--(Shortly before midsummer Keyes sworn in and intrusted with
the charge of the powder at Lambeth).
July 7.--_The Royal consent given to a new Recusancy Act._
Aug.--_Executions under the Recusancy Act._
Sept 5.--_Commission appointed to preside over the banishment of
the priests._
Sept. 14.--_The Council recommends that the Act shall not be put in
force against lay Catholics._
Nov. 28.--_Fines required from thirteen Catholics rich enough to pay
20l. a month._
About Dec.--Bates sworn.
About Dec. 11.--The five conspirators begin to dig the mine.
Before Christmas.--The diggers having reached the wall of the House
of Lords, suspend their work.
1605. Jan.--The day cannot be fixed.--John Grant and Robert Winter sworn.
About Jan. 18.--Work resumed.
Jan.--Christopher Wright and Keyes brought to join in the work.
About Feb. 2.--Wall of House of Lords excavated halfway through.
Feb. 10.--_James orders that the Recusancy Act be fully executed._
March, before Lady Day.--The conspirators begin to work a third time,
but finding that the 'cellar' is to let, hire it, and having
moved the powder into it, disperse.
Oct. 26.--Monteagle receives the letter.
27.--Ward informs Winter.
28.--Winter informs Catesby.
30.--Tresham returns to London.
31.--Winter summons Tresham.
Nov. 1.--Meeting of Tresham with Catesby and Winter.
2.--Winter meets Tresham at Lincoln's Inn.
3.--Meeting behind St. Clement's.
4.--Percy goes to Sion. Fawkes taken.
5.--Flight of the conspirators.
6.--Arrival at Huddington at 2 P.M.
7.--Arrival at Holbeche at 10 P.M.
8.--Capture at Holbeche.
WHAT GUNPOWDER PLOT WAS
CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL EVIDENCE
In 'What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story tested by
Original Evidence,'[1] Father Gerard has set forth all the difficulties
he found while sifting the accessible evidence, and has deduced from his
examination a result which, though somewhat vague in itself, leaves upon
his readers a very distinct impression that the celebrated conspiracy
was mainly, if not altogether, a fiction devised by the Earl of
Salisbury for the purpose of maintaining or strengthening his position
in the government of the country under James I. Such, at least, is what
I gather of Father Gerard's aim from a perusal of his book. Lest,
however, I should in any way do him an injustice, I proceed to quote the
summary placed by him at the conclusion of his argument:--
"The evidence available to us appears to establish principally two
points: that the true history of the Gunpowder Plot is now known to
no man, and that the history commonly received is certainly untrue.
"It is quite impossible to believe that the Government were not
aware of the Plot long before they announced its discovery.
"It is difficult to believe that the proceedings of the
conspirators were actually such as they are related to have been.
"It is unquestionable that the Government consistently falsified
the story and the evidence as presented to the world, and that the
points upon which they most insisted prove upon examination to be
the most doubtful.
"There are grave reasons for the conclusion that the whole
transaction was dexterously contrived for the purpose which in fact
it opportunely served, by those who alone reaped benefit from it,
and who showed themselves so unscrupulous in the manner of
reaping."
No candid person, indeed, can feel surprise that any English Roman
Catholic, especially a Roman Catholic priest, should feel anxious to
wipe away the reproach which the plot has brought upon those who share
his faith. Not merely were his spiritual predecessors subjected to a
persecution borne with the noblest and least self-assertive constancy,
simply in consequence of what is now known to all historical students to
have been the entirely false charge that the plot emanated from, or was
approved by the English Roman Catholics as a body, but this false belief
prevailed so widely that it must have hindered, to no slight extent, the
spread of that organisation which he regards as having been set forth
by divine institution for the salvation of mankind. If Father Gerard has
gone farther than this, and has attempted to show that even the handful
of Catholics who took part in the plot were more sinned against than
sinning, I, for one, am not inclined to condemn him very harshly, even
if I am forced to repudiate alike his method and his conclusions.
Erroneous as I hold them, Father Gerard's conclusions at least call for
patient inquiry. Up to this time critics have urged that parts at least
of the public declarations of the Government were inconsistent with the
evidence, and have even pointed to deliberate falsification. Father
Gerard is, as far as I know, the first to go a step farther, and to
argue that much of the evidence itself has been tampered with, on the
ground that it is inconsistent with physical facts, so that things
cannot possibly have happened as they are said to have happened in
confessions attributed to the conspirators themselves. I can only speak
for myself when I say that after reading much hostile criticism of
Father Gerard's book--and I would especially refer to a most able review
of it, so far as negative criticism can go, in the _Edinburgh Review_ of
January last--I did not feel that all difficulties had been removed, or
that without further investigation I could safely maintain my former
attitude towards the traditional story. It is, indeed, plain, as the
_Edinburgh Review_ has shown, that Father Gerard is unversed in the
methods of historical inquiry which have guided recent scholars. Yet,
for all that, he gives us hard nuts to crack; and, till they are
cracked, the story of Gunpowder Plot cannot be allowed to settle down in
peace.
It seems strange to find a writer so regardless of what is, in these
days, considered the first canon of historical inquiry, that evidence
worth having must be almost entirely the evidence of contemporaries who
are in a position to know something about that which they assert. It is
true that this canon must not be received pedantically. Tradition is
worth something, at all events when it is not too far removed from its
source. If a man whose character for truthfulness stands high, tells me
that his father, also believed to be truthful, seriously informed him
that he had seen a certain thing happen, I should be much more likely to
believe that it was so than if a person, whom I knew to be untruthful,
informed me that he had himself witnessed something at the present day.
The historian is not bound, as the lawyer is, to reject hearsay
evidence, because it is his business to ascertain the truth of
individual assertions, whilst the lawyer has to think of the bearing of
the evidence not merely on the case of the prisoner in the dock, but on
an unrestricted number of possible prisoners, many of whom would be
unjustly condemned if hearsay evidence were admitted. The historian is,
however, bound to remember that evidence grows weaker with each link of
the chain. The injunction, "Always leave a story better than you found
it," is in accordance with the facts of human nature. Each reporter
inevitably accentuates the side of the narrative which strikes his
fancy, and drops some other part which interests him less. The rule laid
down by the late Mr. Spedding, "When a thing is asserted as a fact,
always ask who first reported it, and what means he had of knowing the
truth," is an admirable corrective of loose traditional stories.
A further test has to be applied by each investigator for himself. When
we have ascertained, as far as possible, on what evidence our knowledge
of an alleged fact rests, we have to consider the inherent probability
of the allegation. Is the statement about it in accordance with the
general workings of human nature, or with the particular working of the
nature of the persons to whom the action in question is ascribed? Father
Gerard, for instance, lavishly employs this test. Again and again he
tells us that such and such a statement is incredible, because, amongst
other reasons, the people about whom it was made could not possibly have
acted in the way ascribed to them. If I say in any of these cases that
it appears to me probable that they did so act, it is merely one
individual opinion against another. There is no mathematical certainty
on either side. All we can respectively do is to set forth the reasons
which incline us to one opinion or another, and leave the matter to
others to judge as they see fit.
It will be necessary hereafter to deal at length with Father Gerard's
attack upon the evidence, hitherto accepted as conclusive, of the facts
of the plot. A short space may be allotted to the reasons for rejecting
his preliminary argument, that it was the opinion of some
contemporaries, and of some who lived in a later generation, that
Salisbury contrived the plot in part, if not altogether. Does he
realise, how difficult it is to prove such a thing by any external
evidence whatever? If hearsay evidence can be taken as an argument of
probability, and, in some cases, of strong probability, it is where some
one material fact is concerned. For instance, I am of opinion that it is
very likely that the story of Cromwell's visit to the body of Charles I.
on the night after the King's execution is true, though the evidence is
only that Spence heard it from Pope, and Pope heard it, mediately or
immediately, from Southampton, who, as is alleged, saw the scene with
his own eyes. It is very different when we are concerned with evidence
as to an intention necessarily kept secret, and only exhibited by overt
acts in such form as tampering with documents, suggesting false
explanation of evidence, and so forth. A rumour that Salisbury got up
the plot is absolutely worthless; a rumour that he forged a particular
instrument would be worth examining, because it might have proceeded
from some one who had seen him do it.
For these reasons I must regard the whole of Father Gerard's third
chapter on 'The Opinion of Contemporaries and Historians' as absolutely
worthless. To ask Mr. Spedding's question, 'What means had they of
knowing the truth?' is quite sufficient to condemn the so-called
evidence. Professor Brewer, Lodge, and the author of the 'Annals of
England,'[2] to whose statements Father Gerard looks for support, all
wrote in the nineteenth century, and had no documents before them which
we are unable to examine for ourselves. Nor is reliance to be placed on
the statements of Father John Gerard, because though he is a
contemporary witness he had no more knowledge of Salisbury's actions
than any indifferent person, and had far less knowledge of the evidence
than we ourselves possess. Bishop Talbot, again, we are told, asserted,
in 1658, 'that Cecil was the contriver, or at least the fomenter, of
[the plot],' because it 'was testified by one of his own domestic
gentlemen, who advertised a certain Catholic, by name Master Buck, two
months before, of a wicked design his master had against Catholics.'[3]
Was Salisbury such an idiot as to inform his 'domestic gentleman' that
he had made up his mind to invent Gunpowder Plot? What may reasonably be
supposed to have happened--on the supposition that Master Buck reported
the occurrence accurately--is that Salisbury had in familiar talk
disclosed, what was no secret, his animosity against the Catholics, and
his resolution to keep them down. Even the Puritan, Osborne, it seems,
thought the discovery 'a neat device of the Treasurer's, he being very
plentiful in such plots'; and the 'Anglican Bishop,' Goodman, writes,
that 'the great statesman had intelligence of all this, and because he
would show his service to the State, he would first contrive and then
discover a treason, and the more odious and hateful the treason were,
his service would be the greater and the more acceptable.'[4] Father
Grene again, in a letter written in 1666, says that Bishop Usher was
divers times heard to say 'that if the papists knew what he knew, the
blame of the Gunpowder Treason would not be with them.' "In like
manner," adds Father Gerard, citing a book published in 1673, "we find
it frequently asserted, on the authority of Lord Cobham and others, that
King James himself, when he had time to realise the truth of the matter,
was in the habit of speaking of the Fifth of November as 'Cecil's
holiday.'"[5]
Lord Cobham (Richard Temple) was created a peer in 1669, so that the
story is given on very second-hand evidence indeed. The allegation about
Usher, even if true, is not to the point. We are all prepared now to say
as much as Usher is represented as saying. The blame of the Gunpowder
Treason does not lie on 'the papists.' It lies, at the most, on a small
body of conspirators, and even in their case, the Government must bear a
share of it, not because it invented or encouraged the plot, but
because, by the reinforcement of the penal laws, it irritated ardent and
excitable natures past endurance. If we had Usher's actual words before
us we should know whether he meant more than this. At present we are
entirely in the dark. As for the evidence of Goodman and Osborne, it
proves no more than this, that there were rumours about to the effect
that the plot was got up by Salisbury. Neither Osborne nor Goodman are
exactly the authorities which stand high with a cautious inquirer, and
they had neither of them any personal acquaintance with the facts. Yet
we may fairly take it from them that rumours damaging to Salisbury were
in circulation. Is it, however, necessary to prove this? It was
inevitable that it should be so. Granted a Government which conducted
its investigations in secret, and which when it saw fit to publish
documents occasionally mutilated them to serve its own ends; granted,
too, a system of trial which gave little scope to the prisoner to bring
out the weakness of the prosecution, while it allowed evidence to be
produced which might have been extracted under torture, and what was to
be expected but that some people, in complete ignorance of the facts,
should, whenever any very extraordinary charge was made, assert
positively that the whole of the accusation had been invented by the
Government for political purposes?
Once, indeed, Father Gerard proffers evidence which appears to bring the
accusation which he has brought against Salisbury nearer home. He
produces certain notes by an anonymous correspondent of Anthony Wood,
preserved in Fulman's collection in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford.
"These remarkable notes, he tells us,[6] have been seen by Fulman,
who inserted in the margin various questions and objections, to
which the writer always supplied definite replies. In the following
version this supplementary information is incorporated in the body
of his statement, being distinguished by italics."[7]
The paper is as follows:--
"I should be glad to understand what your friend driveth at about
the Fifth of November. It was without all peradventure a State
plot. I have collected many pregnant circumstances concerning it.
"'Tis certain that the last Earl of Salisbury[8] confessed to
William Lenthall it was his father's contrivance; which Lenthall
soon after told one Mr. Webb (_John Webb, Esq._), a person of
quality, and his kinsman, yet alive.
"Sir Henry Wotton says, 'twas usual with Cecil to create plots that
he might have the honour of the discovery, or to such effect.
"The Lord Monteagle knew there was a letter to be sent to him
before it came. (_Known by Edmund Church, Esq., his confidant._)
"Sir Everard Digby's sons were both knighted soon after, and Sir
Kenelm would often say it was a State design to disengage the king
of his promise to the Pope and the King of Spain to indulge the
Catholics if ever he came to be king here; and somewhat to his[9]
purpose was found in the Lord Wimbledon's papers after his death.
"Mr. Vowell, who was executed in the Rump time, did also affirm it
so.
"Catesby's man (_George Bartlet_) on his death-bed confessed his
master went to Salisbury House several nights before the discovery,
and was always brought privately in at a back door."
Father Gerard, it is true, does not lay very great stress on this
evidence; but neither does he subject it to the criticism to which it is
reasonably open. What is to be thought, for instance, of the accuracy of
a writer, who states that 'Sir Everard Digby's two sons were both
knighted soon after,' when, as a matter of fact, the younger, Kenelm,
was not knighted till 1623, and the elder, John, not till 1635? Neither
Sir Kenelm's alleged talk, nor that of Wotton and Vowell, prove
anything. On the statement about Catesby I shall have something to say
later, and, as will be seen, I am quite ready to accept what is said
about Monteagle. The most remarkable allegation in the paper is that
relating to the second Earl of Salisbury. In the first place it may be
noted that the story is produced long after the event. As the words
imply that Lenthall was dead when they were written down, and as his
death occurred in 1681, they relate to an event which occurred at least
seventy-six years before the story took the shape in which it here
reaches us. The second Earl of Salisbury, we are told, informed Lenthall
that the plot was 'his father's contrivance,' and Lenthall told Webb.
Are we quite sure that the story has not been altered in the telling?
Such a very little change would be sufficient. If the second Earl had
only said, "People talked about my father having contrived the plot,"
there would be nothing to object to. If we cannot conceive either
Lenthall or Webb being guilty of 'leaving the story better than they
found it,'--though Wood, no doubt a prejudiced witness, says that
Lenthall was 'the grand braggadocio and liar of the age in which he
lived'[10]--our anonymous and erudite friend who perpetrated that little
blunder about the knighthood of Sir Everard Digby's sons was quite
capable of the feat. The strongest objection against the truth of the
assertion, however, lies in its inherent improbability. Whatever else a
statesman may communicate to his son, we may be sure that he does not
confide to him such appalling guilt as this. A man who commits forgery,
and thereby sends several innocent fellow creatures to torture and
death, would surely not unburden his conscience to one of his own
children. _Maxima debetur pueris reverentia._ Moreover the second Earl,
who was only twenty-one years of age at his father's death, was much too
dull to be an intellectual companion for him, and therefore the less
likely to invite an unprecedented confidence.
It is not only on the reception of second-hand evidence that I find
myself at variance with Father Gerard. I also object to his criticism as
purely negative. He holds that the evidence in favour of the traditional
story breaks down, but he has nothing to substitute for it. He has not
made up his mind whether Salisbury invented the whole plot or part of
it, or merely knew of its existence, and allowed its development till a
fitting time arrived for its suppression. Let me not be misunderstood. I
do not for an instant complain of a historian for honestly avowing that
he has not sufficient evidence to warrant a positive conclusion. What I
do complain of is, that Father Gerard has not started any single
hypothesis wherewith to test the evidence on which he relies, and has
thereby neglected the most potent instrument of historical
investigation. When a door-key is missing, the householder does not lose
time in deploring the intricacy of the lock, he tries every key at his
disposal to see whether it will fit the wards, and only sends for the
locksmith when he finds that his own keys are useless. So it is with
historical inquiry, at least in cases such as that of the Gunpowder
Plot, where we have a considerable mass of evidence before us. Try, if
need be, one hypothesis after another--Salisbury's guilt, his
connivance, his innocence, or what you please. Apply them to the
evidence, and when one fails to unlock the secret, try another. Only
when all imaginable keys have failed have you a right to call the public
to witness your avowal of incompetence to solve the riddle.
At all events, this is the course which I intend to pursue. My first
hypothesis is that the traditional story is true--cellar, mine, the
Monteagle letter and all. I cannot be content with merely negativing
Father Gerard's inferences. I am certain that if this hypothesis of
mine be false, it will be found to jar somewhere or another with
established facts. In that case we must try another key. Of course there
must be some ragged ends to the story--some details which must be left
in doubt; but I shall ask my readers to watch narrowly whether the
traditional story meets with any obstacles inconsistent with its
substantial truth.
Before proceeding further, it will be well to remind my readers what the
so-called traditional story 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 Reviewer.[11]
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.[12] 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 labour, 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,[13]
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,[14] 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, endeavouring to raise the country, they
rode through Worcestershire, and were finally shot or taken
prisoners at Holbeche in Staffordshire.
It is this story that I now propose to compare with the evidence. When
any insuperable difficulties appear, it will be time to try another key.
To reach the heart of the matter, let us put aside for the present all
questions arising out of the alleged discovery of the plot through the
letter received by Monteagle, and let us take it that Guy Fawkes has
already been arrested, brought into the King's presence, and, on the
morning of the 5th, is put through his first examination.