Young as he was, Sir Everard Digby's acquaintance was large and varied,
and Gothurst was a very hospitable house. Its host's tastes enabled him
thoroughly to enjoy the society of his ordinary country neighbours,
whose thoughts chiefly lay in the direction of sports and agriculture;
but he still more delighted in conversing with literary and
contemplative men, and when his guests combined all these qualities, he
was happiest. One such, who frequently stayed at Gothurst, is thus
quaintly described by Father Gerard.[31] Roger Lee "was a gentleman of
high family, and of so noble a character and such winning manners that
he was a universal favourite, especially with the nobility, in whose
company he constantly was, being greatly given to hunting, hawking, and
all other noble sports. He was, indeed, excellent at everything, &c." In
short, he appears to have been exactly the kind of man to make a
congenial companion for Sir Everard.[32]
[31] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cxxxvi.
[32] I write of Sir Everard and Lady Digby; but it is improbable
that he had received knighthood at the period treated of in this
chapter.
So intimate was he at Gothurst, even during the life of Lady Digby's
father, who had died at the time of which I am about to write, that, on
his visits there, he frequently took with him a friend, who, like
himself, was an intelligent, highly-educated, and agreeable man, of good
family, fond of hawking, hunting, and other sports, and an excellent
card-player.
Both Lee and his companion were Catholics, and, as I explained in the
last chapter, Sir Everard Digby, although brought up a Protestant, was
"Catholickly inclined, and entertained no prejudice whatever against
those of the ancient faith"; indeed, in one of his conversations with
Lee he went so far as to ask him whether he thought his friend would be
a good match for his own sister, observing that he would have no
objection to her marrying a Catholic; "for he looked on Catholics as
good and honourable men." Considering the pains, penalties, and
disabilities to which recusants, as they were called, were then exposed,
this meant very much more than a similar remark would mean in our times.
And not only was he unprejudiced, for he took a keen interest in the
religion of Catholics, and the three men talked frequently on that
subject, the speakers being usually Lee and Digby, the friend putting in
a word occasionally, but for the most part preferring to stand by as a
listener.
None of Lady Digby's family were Catholics;[33] her father had been an
ardent Protestant, and possibly, as is not uncommonly the case, the long
conversations about Catholicism would have more interest to one who had
been brought up in an extreme Protestant atmosphere, than to those who
had been accustomed to mix among people of both religions. At any rate,
it is pretty evident that the young wife often sat by while her husband
and his guests talked theology, and that she had gradually begun to form
her own ideas upon the subject.
[33] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cl.
In considering life at a hospitable country house, nearly three hundred
years ago, it is well to try to realise the difference between the
conditions under which guests can now be obtained and those then
existing. Visitors, and letters to invite them, are now conveyed by
railway, and our postal arrangements are admirable; then, the public
posts were very slow and irregular, many of the roads were what we
should call mere cart-tracks, and it took weeks to perform journeys
which can now be accomplished in twenty-four hours.
Our present system of filling our country houses just when we please,
and then taking a quiet time alone, or visiting at other country houses,
or betaking ourselves to some place for amusement, was impossible early
in the seventeenth century; at that period, the only chance of seeing
friends, except those living close at hand, was to receive them whenever
they found it convenient to come, and to make country houses, as it
were, hotels for such acquaintances who chanced to be passing near them
on their journeys. People who were on visiting terms not uncommonly rode
or drove up to each other's houses, without special invitation; and,
even when invited, if the distance were great, owing to the condition of
the roads and the frequent breakdowns in the lumbersome vehicles, it
rarely could be foreseen when a destination would be reached. Yet a
welcome was generally pretty certain, for, before the days of
newspapers, to say nothing of circulating libraries, hosts and hostesses
were not hypercritical of the guests who might come to relieve their
dulness, and the vestiges still remaining of the feudal hospitality of
the baron's great halls made them somewhat liberal and unfastidious as
to the social standing of those whom they received; nor was it very rare
for unknown travellers, who asked leave to take a short rest at a
strange house, to meet with a cordial welcome and liberal entertainment.
There was nothing out of the common, therefore, in guests so well known
at Gothurst as Roger Lee and his favourite companion riding up to that
house unexpected, yet certain of being gladly received; but, on a
certain occasion, they were both disappointed on reaching its arched and
pillared doorway, at being told that their host had gone to London. The
kind and graceful reception given by their hostess, however, did much to
make up for his absence.
The long, if rather low rooms, with their wide, mullioned windows, the
good supply, for those times, of books, and the picturesque grounds,
with the river flowing through them, made Gothurst a charming house to
stay at, and Sir Everard's man-cook[34] no doubt made the creature
comforts all that could be desired. For those who cared for sport, there
was plenty of agreeable occupation, for there were hawks and hounds and
well-filled stables. The young hostess, who had been brought up among
men who spent their lives in country amusements, could converse about
horses, dogs, and hunting if required; most probably, too, she often
carried a hawk on her wrist; and, as she shared her husband's tastes for
literature and serious reflection, she could suit herself to almost any
company.
[34] Even his under-cook was a man. Cal. Sta. Pa. Dom., 1603-10, p.
266.
Her two guests were prepared to talk about any topic that might seem
most pleasing to their hostess, and it was soon clear that she wished to
renew the conversations about religion which she had listened to with so
much attention when her friends had been last in her house in the
company of her husband. They were no less ready to discuss the same
subject with her, and the more she listened to them, the more she
questioned them, and the more she thought over their replies to her
difficulties, doubts, and objections, the more inclination did she feel
towards the creed they professed. She was well aware that her husband,
at the very least, had a high respect for it; that he already admitted
the truth of a great part of it, and that, in discussing it with Lee and
his friend, he had propounded arguments against it rather as those of
others than as his own; and when, after considerable solitary reflection
while her visitors were out of doors, she felt very nearly assured that
the Almighty could not approve of people professing a variety of creeds;
that of several religions, all teaching different doctrines, only one
could be right; that if God had revealed a right religion, he must have
ordained some one body of men to teach it, and that there was only one
body which seemed to have any claim to such tremendous authority, and
that the Roman Catholic Church. These thoughts made her earnestly wish
to talk the matter over with one of its priests, and consult him on the
question of her own position in respect to so all-important a subject.
To meet with a priest was not easy in those times. Such priests as there
were in England rarely, if ever, declared themselves, except to
Catholics or would-be Catholics; for to make such a declaration, in this
country, amounted to self-accusation of the crime of High Treason. Her
two guests were Catholics, and would undoubtedly know several priests,
and where they could be found; but to reveal their names or their
whereabouts would be dangerous, both to those priests and to themselves,
and Lady Digby felt some hesitation in interrogating them on such
points. At last, rather than place one of her husband's favourite
companions in a position which might be unwelcome or even compromising,
she determined to consult, not Roger Lee, but the friend he had brought
with him. When she had delicately and nervously told him of her wish to
see a priest, she was far from reassured by observing that he was with
difficulty repressing a smile.[35] Could it be that he thought her a
silly woman, hurriedly contemplating a change of religion on too scanty
consideration? Or was the finding of a priest so difficult a thing just
then as to make a wish to attempt it absurd? His expression, however,
soon changed, and he told her, gravely enough, that he thought her
desire might very possibly be fulfilled; at any rate, he promised to
speak to Roger Lee about it. "In the meantime," he added, "I can teach
you the way to examine your conscience, as I myself was taught to do it
by an experienced priest." She was inclined to smile, in her turn, at
such an offer from a mere sportsman; so, thanking him, she allowed the
subject to drop.
[35] _Life of Gerard_, p. cli.
He had not left her very long before Roger Lee entered the room, and, as
he immediately told her that he had heard of her wish to have some
conversation with a priest, it was clear that his friend had lost no
time in informing him of it. Her surprise may be imagined when Lee
proceeded to tell her that his companion was himself a priest!
At first she refused to believe it.[36] "How is it possible he can be a
priest?" she asked, "has he not lived rather as a courtier? Has he not
played cards with my husband, and played well too, which is impossible
for those not accustomed to the game? Has he not gone out hunting, and
frequently in my hearing spoken of the hunt, and of hawks in proper
terms, without tripping, which no one could but one who has been trained
to it?"
[36] _Life of Father John Gerard_; p. cli.
She gave many other reasons for disbelieving that he could be a cleric;
and, finally, only accepted the fact on Roger Lee's reiterated and
solemn assurances.
"I pray you," she then said, "not to be angry with me, if I ask further
whether any other Catholic knows him to be a priest but you. Does ...
know him?"
"Yes," replied Lee, "and goes to confession to him."
Then she asked the same question concerning several other Catholics
living in the county, or the adjoining counties--among others, a lady
who lived about ten miles from Gothurst.
"Why," said Lee, "she not only knows him as a priest, but has given
herself, and all her household, and all that she has, to be directed by
him, and takes no other guide but him."
At this, she admitted that she was thoroughly satisfied. Whereupon Lee
remarked of his friend--
"You will find him, however, quite a different man when he has put off
his present character."
"This," wrote the priest himself, who was Father John Gerard, second son
of[37] Sir Thomas Gerard,[38] a Lancashire Knight, and an ancestor of
the present Lord Gerard. "This she acknowledged the next day, when she
saw me in my soutane and other priestly garments, such as she had never
before seen. She made a most careful confession, and came to have so
great an opinion of my poor powers, that she gave herself entirely to my
direction, meditated great things, which, indeed, she carried out, and
carries out still."
[37] This Sir T. Gerard was committed to the Tower on an accusation
"of a design to deliver Mary Queen of Scots out of her
confinement."--_Burke's Peerage_, 1886, p. 576.
[38] _Life of Gerard_, p. clii.
I can fancy certain people, on reading all this, saying, "How very
underhand!" I would ask them to bear in mind that for Father Gerard to
have acted otherwise, and to have gone about in "priestly garments,"
under his own name, would have been the same thing as to have gone to
the common hangman and to have asked him to be so obliging as to put the
noose round his neck, and then to cut him down as quickly as possible in
order that he might relish to the full the ghastly operation of
disembowelling and quartering. To this it may be replied that to conceal
his identity might be all very well, but that it was quite another thing
to stay at the house of a friend under that concealment, and, in the
character of a layman and a guest, to decoy his host's wife from her
husband's religion, in that host's and husband's absence, thus betraying
his friendship and violating his hospitality.
My counter-reply would be, that his host had frequently discussed
religious questions with both himself and Lee, and had shown, at least,
a very friendly feeling towards Catholics in general and their religion;
that, as has already been proved, he had in so many words declared
himself free from any objection to the marriage of his own sister with a
Catholic; nay, that he wished to see her[39] "married well, and to a
Catholic, for he looked on Catholics as honourable men;" and that Lady
Digby had determined to become a Catholic after due consideration and
without any unfair external influence. As to his revealing his priestly
character to her and exercising his priestly functions on her behalf, it
must be observed that she had expressed a particular wish to see and to
converse with a priest, without any such action on her part having been
suggested to her by either Gerard or Lee, and that, if Gerard had
continued to conceal his own priesthood, she would have simply been put
to the trouble, and possibly the dangers, of searching for some other
priest. If it be further objected that he ought at least to have waited
until her husband's return, I must so far repeat myself as to point out
that a man who had stated that he would have no objection whatever to
his sister's being married to a Catholic, might be fairly assumed to
have no objection to finding himself also married to a Catholic. Again,
since Lady Digby was convinced that her soul would only be safe when in
the fold of the Church, it would be natural that she should not like to
admit of any delay in her reception into it. This being the case, the
guests had their duties to their hostess, as well as to their host. It
is unnecessary to enter here into the question whether wives should
inform their husbands, and grown-up sons and daughters their parents,
before joining the Roman Catholic Church; I may, however, be allowed to
say that I believe it to be the usual opinion of priests, as well as
laymen, as it certainly is of myself, that in most cases, although
possibly not absolutely in every case, their doing so is not only
desirable, but a duty, provided no hindrance to the following of the
dictates of their consciences will result from so doing. Where it would
have such an effect, our Lord's teaching is plain and unmistakeable--"He
that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."
[39] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cli.
Some Protestants are under the impression that a conversion like Lady
Digby's, in which she consulted, and was received into the Church by, a
"priest in disguise" is "just the sort of thing that Roman Catholics
like." There could be no greater mistake! It is just what they do not
like. The secrecy of priests in the reign of James I. was rendered
necessary by persecution: so was that of the laity in housing and
entertaining them: so also were the precautions to conceal the fact that
mass was said in private houses, and that rooms were used as chapels.
Now I would not pretend for a moment that such a condition of things was
wholesome for either priests, Jesuits, laymen, or laywomen. There are
occasions on which secrecy may be a dire necessity, but it is, at best,
a necessary evil, and its atmosphere is unnatural, cramping, dangerous,
and demoralising, although the persecution producing it may lead to
virtue, heroism, and even martyrdom. The persecutions of the early
Christians by the Romans gave the Church hundreds of saints and martyrs;
yet surely those persecutions did not directly tend to the welfare of
Christianity; and I suppose that the authorities of the established
Church in this country would scarcely consider that Anglicanism would be
in a more wholesome condition if every diocese and cure were to be
occupied by a bishop or priest of the Church of Rome under the authority
of the Pope, although the privations of the dispossessed Anglican
clergy, and the inconveniences of the Anglican laity, might be the means
of bringing about many individual instances of laudable self-denial,
personal piety, and religious zeal. On the same principle, I think that
a Catholic student, with an elementary knowledge of the subject, when
approaching the history of his co-religionists in England during the
reign of James I., would have good grounds for expecting that, while
many cases of valiant martyrdom and suffering for the faith would
embellish the pages he was about to read, those pages would also reveal
that the impossibility of priests and religious living a clerical life,
and the necessity of their joining day by day in the pursuits and
amusements of laymen--laymen, often, of gaiety and fashion, if nothing
more--had led to serious irregularities in discipline; that the frequent
intervals without mass, or any other religious service or priestly
assistance, had had the effect of rendering the laity deficient in the
virtues which religious exercises and sacraments are supposed to
inculcate; that the constant and inevitable practice of secrecy and
concealment had induced a habit of mind savouring of prevarication, if
not of deception, and that in the embarrassing circumstances and among
the harassing surroundings of their lives, clergy as well as laity had
occasionally acted with neither tact nor discretion. No one is more
alive to the sufferings or the injustices endured by English Catholics
in the early part of the seventeenth century, or more admires the
courage and patience shown by many, if not most, of those who bore them,
than myself; and it is only in fairness to those sufferers, and with a
desire to look at their actions honestly, and, as much as may be,
impartially, that I approach the subject in this spirit. I have laid the
more emphasis on the dangers of secrecy, be it ever so unavoidable or
enforced, because of their bearing upon a matter which will necessarily
figure largely in the forthcoming pages.
Lady Digby had no sooner been received into the Church than she became
exceedingly anxious for the conversion of her husband, but news now
arrived which made her anxious about him on another account. A messenger
brought the tidings that Sir Everard was very seriously ill in London,
and Lady Digby at once determined to start on the journey of some
forty-five or fifty miles in order to nurse him. Her guests volunteered
to go to him also, and they were able to accomplish the distance, over
the bad roads of that period, much more rapidly than she was.
I will let Father Gerard give an account of his own proceedings with
Digby for himself.[40] "I spoke to him of the uncertainty of life, and
the certainty of misery, not only in this life, but especially in the
next, unless we provided against it; and I showed him that we have here
no abiding city, but must look for one to come. As affliction often
brings sense, so it happened in this case, for we found little
difficulty in gaining his goodwill.
[40] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cliii.
"He prepared himself well for confession after being taught the way; and
when he learnt that I was a priest, he felt no such difficulty in
believing as his wife had done, because he had known similar cases, but
he rather rejoiced at having found a confessor who had experience among
persons of his rank of life, and with whom he could deal at all times
without danger of its being known that he was dealing with a priest.
After his reconciliation he began on his part to be anxious about his
wife, and wished to consult with us how best to bring her to the
Catholic religion. We both smiled at this, but said nothing at the time,
determining to wait till his wife came up to town, that we might witness
how each loving soul would strive to win the other."
When Digby had recovered and had returned to Gothurst with his wife,
they both paid a visit to Father Gerard at the country house, some
distance from their own home, at which he lived as chaplain. This was
probably Mrs Vaux's house at Stoke Pogis, of which we shall have
something to say a little later. While there, he was taken ill even more
seriously than before. His life became in danger, and the best doctors
in Oxford were sent for to his assistance. They despaired of curing him,
and "he began to prepare himself earnestly for a good death." His poor
young wife, being told that her husband could not recover, began "to
think of a more perfect way of life," in case she should be left a
widow. It may be thought that she might at least have waited to do this
until after the death of her husband, but it is possible, and even
probable, although not mentioned by Father Gerard, that Sir Everard
himself desired her to consider what manner of life she would lead when
he should be gone. She would be a very young widow with a large
property, and Sir Everard would doubtless feel anxious as to what would
become of her.[41] "For some days," says Father Gerard, "she gave
herself to learn the method of meditation, and to find out God's will
with regard to her future life, how she might best direct it to his
glory. This was her resolution, but God had otherwise arranged, and for
that time happily."
[41] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. cliii.
Gerard himself was, humanly speaking, the means of prolonging Digby's
life, for, in spite of the verdict of the great physicians from Oxford,
that nothing could save him, Father Gerard refused to give up all hope,
and persuaded him to send for a certain doctor of his own acquaintance
from Cambridge. "By this doctor, then, he was cured beyond all
expectation, and so completely restored to health that there was not a
more robust or stalwart man in a thousand."
Not very long after he had become a Catholic, Digby was roughly reminded
of the illegality of his position, by a rumour that his friend, Father
Gerard, who had gone to a house to visit, as a priest, a person who was
dying, was either on the point of being, or was actually, in the hands
of pursuivants. This news distressed him terribly. He immediately told
his wife that, if Father Gerard were arrested, he intended to take a
sufficient number of friends and servants to rescue him, and to watch
the roads by which he would probably be taken to London; and that "he
would accomplish" his "release one way or another, even though he should
spend his whole fortune in the venture." The danger of such an attempt
at that period was obvious. Certainly his desire to set free Father
Gerard was most praiseworthy, but whether, had he attempted it in the
way he proposed, he would have benefitted or injured the Catholic cause
in England, may be considered at least doubtful. A rescue by an armed
force would have meant a free fight, probably accompanied by some
bloodshed, with this result, that, if successful, the perpetrators would
most likely have been discovered, and sooner or later very severely
dealt with as aggressors against the officers of the law in the
execution of their duty, and that, if unsuccessful, the greater
proportion of the rescuing party would have met their deaths either on
the field at the time, or on the gallows afterwards. To attempt force
against the whole armed power of the Crown seemed a very Quixotic
undertaking, and the idea of dispersing the whole of his wealth, whether
in the shape of armed force or other channels, in a chimerical effort to
set free his friend, however generous in intent, scarcely recommends
itself as the best method of using it for the good of the cause he had
so much at heart. This incident shows Digby's hastiness and
impetuosity. Fortunately, the report of Father Gerard's arrest turned
out to be false; so, for the moment, any excited and unwise action on
Sir Everard's part was avoided.