Considering that the king had been led to distrust the Catholics through
the two lately discovered plots in which some of their number had taken
part, the best policy for those who remained loyal, and these were by
far the majority, would have been to have taken every opportunity of
displaying their faithfulness to their sovereign, and, for those whose
position so entitled them, to present themselves as often as they
conveniently could at his Court, even if their welcome was somewhat
cold. Digby chose to follow an exactly opposite course. He went to Court
on James's accession and received knighthood, and then he returned to
the country, only visiting London occasionally, and then not going to
Court. Like his fellow-Catholics, he at first entertained hopes that the
new king was about to exhibit toleration, and as much as any of them was
he disappointed and embittered as time speedily began to prove the
contrary. One cause of Sir Everard Digby's disgust at the aspect of
affairs, early in James the First's reign, may have been that, as a
courtier, he had expected much from the Queen's being a Catholic,[82]
and that not only did no apparent good come of it, but her example gave
the greatest discouragement, as well as grave scandal, to such of her
subjects as professed her own religion. Indeed, all that can safely be
said of her Catholicism, is that she was[83] "a Catholic, so far, at
least, as her pleasure-loving nature allowed her to be of any religion
at all." Nevertheless, "she took great delight in consecrated,"--or, as
Catholics would say, blessed or sacred--"objects." She had allowed
herself to be crowned by[84] "a Protestant Archbishop; but when the time
arrived for the reception of the Communion, she remained immovable on
her seat, leaving the King to partake alone." "Enthusiastic Catholics
complained that she had no heart for anything but festivities and
amusements, and during the rest of her life she attended the services of
the church sufficiently to enable the Government to allege that she was
merely an enemy of Puritanical strictness." On one occasion, the
king,[85] "with some difficulty," had actually "induced her to receive
the Communion with him at Salisbury, but she had been much vexed with
herself since, and had refused to do it again. On Christmas Day she had
accompanied him to Church, but since then he found it impossible to
induce her to be present at a Protestant service. At one time Sir
Anthony Standen, a Catholic, was employed by James on a mission to some
of the Italian States, and he brought home with him some objects of
devotion, as a present from the Pope to the Queen of England. These
delighted her; yet, when the king heard of them, they were returned to
the Pope through the Nuncio in Paris."
[82] In his _History of the Catholic Church in Scotland_, translated
by Father H. Blair, Canon Bellesheim says (Vol. iii. p. 347) that
she was probably received into the Church in 1600. But Father Forbes
Leith, in his _Narrative_ (pp. 272 _seq_.) gives an authority
stating it to have taken place in 1598.
See also a very interesting article on "Anne of Denmark," by the
Rev. J. Stevenson, in _The Month_, Vol. 16 (xxxv.) pp. 256-265.
[83] _History of England_, from 1603-42. By S. R. Gardiner, Vol. i.
p. 142. Also Degli Effetti to Del Bufalo, June 13/23, 16/26; Persons
to Aldobrandino, September 18/28, _Roman Transcripts_, R.O.
[84] _History of England_, Gardiner, Vol. i, p. 116. Also Degli
Effetti to Del Bufalo, Aug. 11, 1/11, _Roman Transcripts_, R.O.
[85] _History of England_, Gardiner, Vol. i. p. 142.
Now to any good Catholic, especially to an exceedingly zealous convert
in his first fervour, like Sir Everard Digby, a Protestant king might be
tolerable, provided he treated his Catholic subjects properly; but a
court presided over by a queen, herself a convert, who was a most
indifferent Catholic, if not an apostate,[86] would be odious in the
extreme. It was difficult enough, in any case, to make many simple
Catholics understand that there was anything very wrong in avoiding
persecution by putting in an occasional appearance at the Protestant
churches, without joining in the service, if they heard mass when they
could, and went regularly to confession and communion; but the
difficulty was immensely increased when they heard that the greatest
lady in the land, who was herself a Catholic, did that very thing.
Again, the country-gentlemen of high estate, Sir Everard Digby among
them, suffered fines and penalties for their faith; yet here was the
Catholic queen herself, contently living in the greatest luxury, and
yielding on the most important points of her religion, in order to
obtain it.[87] No wonder, therefore, that Sir Everard Digby absented
himself from Court, however impolitic it may have been in him to do so.
[86] In her _Queens of England_, Miss Strickland gives her authority
for the statement that Queen Ann died "in edifying communion with
the Church of England."
[87] Her practical concealment of her religion may have been chiefly
on her husband's account. Father Abercromby, S.J., who received her
into the Church, wrote that James I. said to her:--"Rogo te, mea
uxor, si non potes sine hujusmodi (sacerdote) vivere, utaris quam
poteris, secretissime, alias periclitabitur corona nostra."
Bellesheim's Hist., p. 453.
In his country home, at Gothurst, he brooded, with much impatience, over
the wrongs of his co-religionists, nor can it have been a pleasant
reflection that at any moment his beautiful house might be broken into
by pursuivants, who would hunt every recess and cupboard in it, in
search of a priest, or of what Anglicans then denominated
"massing-stuff." Should they suspect that the most richly carved pieces
of oak-work concealed a hiding-place, the "officers of justice" would
ruthlessly shatter them to pieces with axe or crowbar; his wife's
private rooms would not be safe from the intrusion of the pursuivants,
or the bevy of rough followers who might accompany them; and, if his
house were filled with guests, even were they Protestants, it would none
the less necessarily be given up to the intruders for so long a time as
they might choose to remain. The invasion would be as likely to be made
by night as by day; no notice would be given of its approach, and, as
its result, not only might the domestic chaplain be carried off a
prisoner, with his face to a horse's tail and his legs tied together
beneath its girths, but Sir Everard himself would be liable to be taken
away in the same humiliating position, on a charge of High Treason.
The fine which Catholics had to pay must have been sufficiently annoying
even to a rich man like Sir Everard Digby, and this annoyance would be
greatly increased by the knowledge that to poorer men it meant ruin, as
well as by the remarks of his less wealthy Catholic friends that "after
all, to him it was a mere nothing."
The present was bad enough, and worse things were expected in the
future. Most of us know the fears with which we hear that a Prime
Minister of opposite politics to our own is going to bring in a bill, in
the coming session, directed against our personal interests; even the
coming budget of a Chancellor of the Exchequer on our own side of the
House, in a very bad year, is anticipated with serious misgivings.
Imagine, therefore, the terrors of the Catholics whose lives would
already have been rendered unendurable, had the laws existing against
them been put into full force, when they not only observed a rapidly
increasing zeal among magistrates and judges in their proceedings
against Romish recusants, but heard, on what appeared to be excellent
authority, that additional, and most cruel, legislation against them was
to be enacted in the Parliament shortly to be opened.
One of the most remarkable features in Sir Everard Digby's character was
his extreme susceptibility to the influence of others; and, for this
reason, what may seem, at first sight, an undue proportion of a volume
devoted to his biography, must necessarily be allotted to a description
of the friends, and more especially one particular friend, under whose
influence he fell; and, if my readers should sometimes imagine that I
have forgotten Sir Everard Digby altogether, or if they should feel
inclined to accuse me of writing Catesby's life rather than Digby's, I
can assure them that I am guiltless on both counts. For the moment,
however, I must beg them to prepare themselves for an immediate and long
digression, or rather an apparent digression, and warn them that it will
be followed by many others.
To an impetuous man, zealous to the last degree, but not according to
knowledge, few things are more dangerous than an intimate friend of
similar views and temperament. Exactly such a friend had Sir Everard
Digby. Here is a description of him by one who knew him well.[88] He
"grew to such a composition of manners and carriage, to such a care of
his speech (that it might never be hurtful to others, but taking all
occasions of doing good), to such a zealous course of life, both for the
cause in general, and for every particular person whom he could help in
God's service, as that he grew to be very much respected by most of the
better and graver sort of Catholics, and of Priests, and Religious also,
whom he did much satisfy in the care of his conscience; so that it might
plainly appear he had the fear of God joined with an earnest desire to
serve Him. And so no marvel though many Priests did know him and were
often in his company. He was, moreover, very wise and of great judgment,
though his utterance was not so good. Besides, he was so liberal and apt
to help all sorts, as it got him much love. He was of person above two
yards high, and, though slender, yet as well proportioned to his height
as any man one should see. His age (I take it) at his death was about
thirty-five, or thereabouts. And to do him right, if he had not fallen
into"--one particular and exceedingly "foul action and followed his own
judgment in it (to the hurt and scandal of many), asking no advice but
of his own reasons deceived and blinded under the shadow of zeal; if, I
say, it had not been for this, he had truly been a man worthy to be
highly esteemed and prized in any commonwealth."
[88] Father Gerard's _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 56, 57.
Be his attractions and virtues what they might, this man, Robert
Catesby, had not anything like such an unblemished past as his friend,
Sir Everard Digby. He was of an old Warwickshire and Northamptonshire
family--he was the lineal descendant of William Catesby, who was
attainted and executed for high treason after the battle of Bosworth
Field.[89] Robert Catesby's father, who had been an ardent Catholic, had
suffered considerable losses in his estate, and been imprisoned on
account of his religion; but Robert himself, on his father's death,
apostatized, became exceedingly dissolute, and still further
impoverished the family property by his extravagance. Goodman, Bishop of
Gloucester, says of him:[90] "For Catesby, it is very well known that he
was a very cunning, subtle man, exceedingly entangled in debts, and
scarce able to subsist."
[89] Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, p. 506. Jardine's _Criminal Trials_,
Vol. ii. p. 26.
[90] _Court of King James I._, Vol. i p. 103.
Some three or four years before Sir Everard Digby's conversion, Catesby
had returned to the faith of his fathers. Whatever may have been the
love of his God manifested by the reformed reprobate, his hatred of his
queen, and afterwards of his king, was unmeasured. I have no desire to
say anything in disparagement of Catesby's religious fervour; but,
considering that he had once abjured the Catholic faith, it may be no
harm to remark that some people seem to like to profess the religion
hated most by their enemies, and to exhibit zeal for it in proportion to
that shown by their enemies against it. With several of his friends,
Catesby joined the ill-fated conspiracy of the Earl of Essex, in the
course of which he was wounded, taken prisoner, and finally ransomed for
L3000 in all. When fighting for Essex, he greatly distinguished himself
as a swordsman. Later, as I have already said, he was implicated in the
intrigue that sent Christopher Wright and Guy Fawkes to Madrid in the
hope of inducing Philip of Spain to depose James I. A modern Jesuit,
Father J. Hungerford Pollen, has well said of him:[91] "The owner of
large estates in the counties of Northampton, Warwick, and Oxford,
honourably married, with issue to perpetuate the ancient family of which
he was the only representative--such is not the sort of man we should
have thought likely to engage in a desperate adventure, and this
presumption might be further strengthened by the consideration of his
moral qualities. He was brave and accomplished, attractive to that
degree which makes even sober men risk life and fortune to follow where
he should lead, honest of purpose and truthful, and, above all,
exceedingly zealous for religion. These qualities should have, and
would have, insured him from the frightful error into which he fell, had
they not run to excess in more than one direction. Full of the chivalry
that characterised the Elizabethan period, he was also infected with its
worldliness, a failing which ill accorded with the patience every
Catholic had to practice, and, moreover, his force of character carried
him into obstinate adherence to his own views and plans. This it was
that worked such ruin upon himself and all those who came in contact
with him. Happy times may lead such men so to direct their energies,
that the evil side of their character is never displayed, but times of
great temptation often bring out the latent flaw in unexpected ways."
[91] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 1 and 2.
This is admirably put, except, perhaps, on one single point; and it is
one of such importance that I will pause to consider it, especially as
it applies to Sir Everard Digby, almost, if not quite, as much as to
Catesby. In the reign of Elizabeth, it was not chivalry but the decay
and abolition of chivalry and the chivalrous spirit which occasionally
led to deeds which a knight-errant would have despised. As Sir Walter
Scott says:--[92] "the habit of constant and honourable opposition,
unembittered by rancour or personal hatred, gave the fairest opportunity
for the exercise of the virtues required from him whom Chaucer terms a
very perfect gentleman." Again he says:--"We have seen that the abstract
principles of chivalry were, in the highest degree, virtuous and noble,
nay, that they failed by carrying to an absurd, exaggerated, and
impracticable point, the honourable duties which they inculcated."
Chivalry, therefore, acted as a wholesome check upon the barbarity, the
licentiousness, and the semi-civilisation of the middle ages, and when
it was abolished, the knights and nobles, in spite of all the glamour of
refinement and education in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth, still retained enough of the savage brutality of their
forefathers to be occasionally very dangerous, when the discipline of
chivalry had been withdrawn. "It is needless," says Sir Walter Scott,
"by multiplying examples, to illustrate the bloodthirsty and treacherous
maxims and practices, which, during the sixteenth century, succeeded to
the punctilious generosity exacted by the rules of chivalry. It is
enough to call to the reader's recollection the bloody secret of the
massacre of St Bartholomew, which was kept by such a number of the
Catholic noblemen for two years,[93] at the expense of false treaties,
promises, and perjuries, and the execution which followed on naked,
unarmed, and unsuspecting men, in which so many gallants lent their
willing swords." Now I am not going to enter here upon the question of
Sir Walter Scott's historical accuracy, or its contrary, on this
horrible massacre; but might he not have extended his period "of
treacherous maxims and practices," which "succeeded to the punctilious
generosity exacted by the rules of chivalry," a few years later, and
included, with the Massacre of St Bartholomew, the Gunpowder Plot?
Catesby was quite a man of the type contemplated by Sir Walter Scott,
gallant, charming, zealous, brave to a degree, and even pious, yet with
something of the wild, lawless, and bloodthirsty spirit of the but
partially-tamed savage, which every now and then asserted itself, until
an even later period, unless it was kept under control by some such laws
as those of chivalry. It was not, therefore, chivalry, but the _want_ of
chivalry, which led to the spirit, habits, and actions of Catesby and
the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot.
[92] _Essay on Chivalry._
[93] Where Sir Walter obtained his authority for this statement I do
not know.
I hope this digression--a digression from a digression--may be pardoned.
It is high time that I returned to Robert Catesby in his relations to
Sir Everard Digby.
It was likely enough that Sir Everard Digby should become intimate with
a zealous Catholic landowner in the neighbouring counties of
Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, especially as Catesby's mother's
house, at Ashby St Legers, was little more than twenty miles from
Gothurst; but probably the reason of his seeing so much of him was that
Catesby's first cousin, Tyringham of Tyringham, lived only
three-quarters of a mile from Gothurst, the two estates adjoining each
other, either house lying within a short distance of the high road, on
opposite sides of it.
Once on intimate terms, Sir Everard and Catesby were constantly
together. In speaking of his master, Sir Everard's page, William Ellis,
said in his examination[94]:--"both at London and in the countrie Mr
Robert Catesby hath kept him companie."
[94] S. P. Gunpowder Plot Book, Part I. No. 108.
In this not altogether desirable "companie," Sir Everard Digby spent
much time "in cogitation deep" upon the treatment of his
fellow-religionists and countrymen. Both men were exasperated by the
persecution which was going on around them, by the fickleness of their
king, and by the dangers to which they, their wives, their families--for
Sir Everard, as well as Catesby, had a child now--and their estates were
exposed. Perhaps most irritating of all, to country-gentlemen of high
position, was the then prevalent custom of sub-letting, or farming, the
fines and penalties levyable upon Catholics to men who squeezed every
farthing out of them that was possible. To be persecuted and fined by an
authorized public official was bad enough; but to be pestered and
tormented by a pettifogging private person who had purchased the right
of doing so, as a speculation, must have been almost unendurable. The
subject, however, which Digby and Catesby discussed most would probably
be the severe anti-Catholic legislation which was apprehended from the
new parliament. In this, said Catesby, the great danger lay. His
surmises as to the form it might take would give him and his friend, Sir
Everard, ample scope for contemplation, speculation, and conversation.
The words of Scripture, "Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof," do
not appear to have occurred to their memories.
In periods of trouble and danger, as indeed in all others, men of
different dispositions and temperaments take different views and
different lines of conduct; there are optimists and pessimists, men who
counsel endurance, men who advocate active resistance, men who advise
waiting a little to see what may turn up, and men who urge that not a
moment is to be lost. And so it was among the persecuted Catholics
during the early years of the reign of James I. At the very time that
men like Digby and Catesby were in the deepest depression of hopeless
anxiety, the Spanish Ambassador was congratulating himself because he
fancied he saw symptoms of the king's inclination to become[95] a
convert to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, among those who took
the most gloomy view of the prospect, there were very distinct phases of
thought and action. "England will witness with us," says Father
Gerard,[96] "that the greatest part by much did follow the example and
exhortation of the Religious and Priests that were their guides, moving
them and leading them by their own practice to make their refuge unto
God in so great extremities.... This we found to be believed practically
by most, and followed as faithfully, preparing themselves by more often
frequentation of the Sacraments, by more fervent prayer, and by perfect
resignation of their will to God, against the cloud that was like to
cover them, and the shower that might be expected would pour down upon
them after the Parliament, unto which all the chief Puritans of the land
were called, and only they or their friends selected out of every shire
to be the framers of the laws, which thereby we might easily know were
chiefly intended and prepared against us."
[95] _Roman Transcripts_, Sep. 24th, 1604, P.R.O., _Father H. Garnet
and the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 4.
[96] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 49.
But he says all were not quite so perfect, and of these imperfect there
were two leading divisions. The first[97] "fainted in courage, and, as
St Cyprian noteth of his times, did offer themselves unto the
persecutors before they felt the chief force of the blow that was to be
expected." Sir Everard Digby was not one of these. The second division
were, as Father Gerard might most veraciously say, "much different from
these, and ran headlong into a contrary error. For being resolved never
to yield or forsake their faith, they had not patience and longanimity
to expect the Providence of God, etc." It is to be feared that he may
have noticed this want of patience and longanimity in Sir Everard Digby
and his companions. "They would not endure to see their brethren so
trodden upon by every Puritan," he goes on to say of this class, "so
made a prey to every needy follower of the Court, or servant to a
Councillor, so presented and pursued by every churchwarden and minister,
so hauled to every sessions when the Justices list to meet, so wronged
on every side by the process of excommunication or outlawry, and forced
to seek for their own by law, and then also to be denied by law, because
they were Papists; finally both themselves and all others to be
denounced traitors and designed to the slaughter. These things they
would not endure now to begin afresh after so long endurance, and
therefore began amongst themselves to consult what remedy they might
apply to all these evils," &c., "so that it seems they did not so much
respect what the remedy were, or how it might be procured, as that it
might be sure and speedy--to wit, to take effect before the end of the
Parliament from whence they seemed to expect their greatest harm."
[97] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 50.
Those who followed the latter course may have included some who were in
other respects good Christians; whether they showed the spirit of
Martyrs and Confessors is another question.
Few things discouraged the English Catholics more than the goodwill and
peaceful disposition shown to the new king by foreign Catholic kings and
princes, notwithstanding that one final effort was made on their behalf
by Spain, just as the treaty was being concluded with England for peace
and the renewal of commercial intercourse. Velasco, the constable of
Castile, who negotiated that treaty on behalf of Spain, was visited by
Winter, at Catesby's suggestion, and urged to assist the English
Catholics. Although he promised to speak on their behalf, he made it
clear that his country would make no sacrifice to obtain toleration for
them.[98] So far as he had promised, he kept his word. He told James
that whatever indulgence he might show to them would be regarded by
Philip as a personal act of friendship towards himself, and that they
were prepared to make a voluntary offering annually in the place of the
fines at that time imposed upon them by law; and he laid before him
statistics of the distress to which very many respectable English
families had been reduced by clinging to the faith of their forefathers.
[98] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
James's reply was very decided. On any diplomatic question relating to
the interests of England and Spain he would be ready and glad to confer
with the Spanish representative, but the government of his own subjects
was a domestic matter upon which he could not consent to enter with a
foreigner. Besides this, he informed Velasco that, even were he himself
inclined to better the condition of the Catholics, his doing so would
offend his Protestant subjects to such an extent as to endanger his
throne.
It would almost seem as if Velasco's endeavours on behalf of the
Catholics had a contrary effect to that which had been intended; for,
instead of granting them the smallest relief, James issued a
proclamation, ordering the judges and magistrates to enforce the penal
laws, and to adopt measures calculated to insure the detection of
Catholic recusants. Before the judges started on their circuits, he
called them together and charged them "to be diligent and severe against
recusants."[99] Accordingly, in the year 1604, about 1000 recusants were
indicted in Yorkshire, 600 in Lancashire, and in the counties of Oxford,
Berks, Gloucester, Monmouth, Hereford, Salop, Stafford, and in Wigorn,
1865.[100] Of Buckinghamshire, Sir Everard Digby's county, I can find no
return. In all, the number of Catholic recusants convicted in the years
1604-5 amounted to 5500. In July, a priest named Sugar was executed at
Warwick, simply and only because he was a priest, and a layman, named
Grissold, for "accompanying and assisting" him.[101] In the Star
Chamber, a man named Pound accused Sergeant Phillips of injustice in
condemning a neighbour of his to death, for no other crime except that
he had entertained a Jesuit. Not only did the lords of the Star Chamber
confirm and approve of this sentence of Sergeant Phillips, but they
condemned Pound himself to lose one ear in London and one "in the
country where he dwelleth," and to be fined L1000, unless he would
impeach those who advised him to make the suit. Fortunately this
tremendous sentence was commuted, at the intercession of the French and
Venetian Ambassadors, to standing for a whole day in the pillory.[102]
[99] Tierney's Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. p. 42.
[100] Dodd and Tierney, Vol. iv., Appendix xiv., pp. xciv., xcv.
[101] _Ib._, Vol. iv. pp. 40, 41.
[102] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
Bancroft had just ascended the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury, full
of zeal against the Papists. He urged his suffragan bishops to select
the more wealthy and earnest among the Catholics, and, after first
trying "sweet" and "kind means," to excommunicate them if they should
refuse to conform. Forty days after their excommunication, the Bishops
were to certify their names in Chancery, and then to sue out a writ _de
excommunicato capiendo_, an instrument which subjected the delinquents
to outlawry, forfeiture, and imprisonment, and deprived them of the
right of recovering debts, of suing for damages, of effecting legal
sales or purchases, and of conveying their properties either by will or
otherwise.[103] Goodman, Bishop of Gloucester, writes[104]:--"The
Spiritual Court did not cease to molest them, to excommunicate them,
then to imprison them; and thereby they were utterly unable to sue for
their own." Nor were the rumours of an approaching increase of
severities, to be enacted in the ensuing parliament, mere exaggerated
fancies. The denunciations of the Chancellor in the Star Chamber, and of
Archbishop Bancroft at St Paul's Cross, confirmed the reports that
sterner legislation against recusants was impending in the coming
session. On the other hand, it is just possible that these official
threats may have been uttered only to terrify the Catholics into
submission, and with no very serious expectation of their fulfilment.
[103] Tierney's Notes to Dodd, Vol. iv. pp. 41, 42.
[104] _Court of King James I._, Vol. i. p. 101.
During those distressing times, Catesby's friends, among whom not the
least was Sir Everard Digby, observed a change in his manner. He looked
anxious and careworn; he was moody and abstracted at one moment,
unusually loquacious and excitable at another. His mysterious absences
from home were another source of uneasiness to those most intimate with
him; so, too, were his large purchases of horses, arms, and gunpowder,
which also attracted the attention of people who were not his friends;
but he took great trouble to inform everybody that he was about to raise
300 horse, to join the English regiment which the Spanish Ambassador had
prevailed upon King James to allow to be levied in England for the
assistance of the Archduke in Flanders.[105]
[105] Jardine's _Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 60-1.
Nevertheless, his friends were not satisfied. If he were really going to
join the army in the Low Countries, why these long delays?
Great as was their intimacy, Catesby was in the condition just described
for many months without confiding the real reason of his activity to Sir
Everard Digby; although it is probable that he warned him to be prepared
for any emergency which might arise for the use of men, arms, and
horses. Both Digby and Catesby were heartily tired of a state of passive
endurance; the tyranny which was crushing the Catholics was daily
increasing, and Sir Everard might very naturally suppose that while
Catesby had no definite plan for resisting it, he wished to be ready in
case foreign powers might come to their assistance, or the whole body of
English Catholics, goaded to desperation, might rise in rebellion
against their oppressors. Freely as he might appear to talk to Digby,
and satisfied as the latter may have felt that he had the confidence of
his friend, Catesby in reality feared to intrust a great secret, which
was absorbing his attention, to the brave but straightforward master of
Gothurst.
Another of Catesby's friends was less easy about him than Sir Everard
Digby. Father Garnet, the Provincial of the Jesuits, suspected that some
mischief was brewing, and seized an opportunity, when sitting at
Catesby's own table, of inculcating the duty of patient submission to
persecution. His host, who was his personal friend as well as a great
respecter of his wisdom as a priest, showed considerable irritation.
Instead of treating the Provincial of the Jesuits with his usual
reverence and courtesy, he flushed up and angrily exclaimed[106]:--"It
is to you, and such as you, that we owe our present calamities. This
doctrine of non-resistance makes us slaves. No authority of priest or
pontiff can deprive man of his right to repel injustice."
[106] Lingard, Vol. vii. chap. i.
Another friend and frequent guest of young Sir Everard's, after he
became a Catholic, should be noticed. A younger son of a Worcestershire
family, Thomas Winter had attractions for Digby, in his profound zeal
for the Catholic Church, his scholarship, his knowledge of foreign
languages, his powers of conversation, and his military experiences, as
he had served in Flanders, France, and, says Father Gerard, "I think,
against the Turk." Unlike Catesby, he was "of mean stature, but strong
and comely," and of "fine carriage." He was very popular in society, and
"an inseparable friend to Mr Robert Catesby." In age he was about ten
years older than Sir Everard. Whatever his zeal may have been for the
Catholic Church, he did not always live in the odour of sanctity, and on
one occasion he incurred the grave displeasure of Father Garnet by
conveying a challenge to a duel from John Wright, one of the earliest
conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, to an adversary who had offended
him. The combatants met, and Winter, as Wright's second, measured the
swords of both duellists to ascertain whether they were of equal length;
but the actual encounter was somehow prevented at the last moment.[107]
Father Garnet says that he had a "hard conceit of him."
[107] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n. 41. Garnet's statement.
In dealing with the subject of Digby's friends, certainly his page,
William Ellis, ought not to be forgotten. I have been unable to discover
any details of his birth, except that he was heir to L80 a year--a much
larger income, of course, in those days than in these--"if his father
did him right." He entered Sir Everard's service at the age of
seventeen, about May 1604.[108] How faithful he was to his master will
appear by-and-bye.
[108] S. P. Dom. James I., G. P. Book, Part I., n. 108.
Among Sir Everard's younger friends was Lord Vaux of Harrowden, a cousin
of Catesby's. One reason of the intimacy is thus described by Father
Gerard.[109] "Sir Everard had many serious occasions to come to my Lord
Vaux's; and then in particular, as I have learned since, being come from
his [Digby's] ancient house and chief living, which lay in Rutlandshire,
from whence he could not go unto the house where his wife and family lay
[Gothurst], but he must pass the door of Lord Vaux, his house, which
also made him there an ordinary guest." To harbour priests, and to
defend the Catholic cause was no new thing in the family of Vaux, for,
some twenty or thirty years earlier, Lord Vaux's grandfather had been
imprisoned and fined for sheltering Father Campian in his house.[110]
His grandmother had been a daughter of John Tresham of Rushton, and of
his cousin, Francis Tresham, we shall hear something presently. His
mother and his aunts, Anne and Elizabeth, were most pious Catholics, but
the religious atmosphere in which he was brought up does not seem to
have led him to perfection; for, although as a young man he suffered
imprisonment for his faith,[111] he afterwards had two sons, who bore
the name of Vaux, by Lady Banbury during her husband's lifetime;[112]
and, although he married her after Lord Banbury's death, she never had
another child. Worse still, he left Harrowden and the other family
estates to his illegitimate children, instead of to his brother, who
succeeded him in the title, although his wife, on her side, claimed for
her son that, as he was born during her first husband's lifetime, he had
a legal right to the title of Banbury. Accordingly, this son changed his
surname to Knollys, and once actually sat, as Lord Banbury, in the House
of Lords. As is well known, his descendants went on claiming and
disputing the title until the year 1813, when their right to it was
finally disallowed.
[109] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 138.
[110] _Records S.J._, Series i. p. 329.
[111] _Life of Father Gerard_, p. clxxxv.
[112] _Burke's Peerage_, 1872.
But what specially concerns my story is that Sir Everard Digby was
endeavouring to bring about a marriage for this (then) very young Lord
Vaux, with the "Lord Chamberlain his daughter,"[113] as Father Gerard
writes; and, in a footnote, is added "Earl of Suffolk. Erased in Orig."
If this footnote is right, Sir Everard was probably trying to make a
match for the youth with the very girl whom he eventually married, as
Lady Banbury had been Elizabeth Howard, the eldest daughter of Lord
Suffolk. Suffolk was Lord Chamberlain,[114] and curiously enough (when
we consider that he seems to have had negotiations with Sir Everard
Digby with respect to a match between his daughter and Lord Vaux), in
his capacity of Lord Chamberlain, he suspected and led to the discovery
of the gunpowder laid in the cellar beneath the Houses of
Parliament.[115]
[113] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 137.
[114] Gardiner. _History of England_, Vol. x. p. 364.
[115] Gardiner's _History of England_, Vol. i. p. 249.
Sir Everard visited a good deal at the house of Lord Vaux's mother, Mrs
Elizabeth Vaux. This was a house in Buckinghamshire at Stoke Poges, that
had been built by Sir Christopher Hatton,[116] the Lord Chancellor, who
had died childless. It was let for a term of years to Mrs Vaux, and she
not only established Father Gerard in it as her chaplain, but had
hiding-places and other arrangements made, so that he could receive
priests and Catholic laymen, as he might think well, for the good of the
cause of religion. Here Sir Everard was probably thrown a good deal with
Catesby and Tresham, as they were both related to his young host. Lord
Vaux's two aunts, Miss Anne Vaux and Eleanor, the wife of Edward
Brooksby, lived with him and his mother, and Miss Anne was one of those
who had serious misgivings as to the mysterious conduct of her cousin,
Robert Catesby.[117] "Seeing at Winter's and Grant's"--Grant was a
popular Warwickshire squire, a Catholic, and celebrated for his
undaunted courage--"their fine horses in the stable, she told Mr Garnet
that she feared these wild heads had something in hand, and prayed him
to talk to Mr Catesby and to hinder anything that possibly he might, for
if they should attempt any foolish thing, it would redound to his
discredit. Whereupon he said he would talk to Mr Catesby."
[116] It was to this Sir Christopher Hatton, that Sir Everard's
father had dedicated his book _A Dissuasive from taking away the
Livings of the Church_.
[117] _Father H. Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, Pollen, p. 20.
P.R.O., March 11.
Another account of what was probably the same interview was given by
Father Garnet himself, in his examination of March 12th, 1605. [118] "He
sayth that Mrs Vaux came to him, eyther to Harrowden or to Sir Everard
Digby's at Gothurst, and tould this exam{t}. that she feared that some
trouble or disorder was towards [them], that some of the gentlewomen
had demanded of her where they should bestow themselves until the
burst[119] was past in the beginning of the Parliament. And this exam{t}.
asking her who tould her so, she said that she durst not tell who tould
her so: she was [choked] with sorrow."
[118] S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xix. n 40. See _Records S.J._, Vol.
iv. p. 157.
[119] This could not mean the projected "burst" of gunpowder, of
which she could have known nothing, but an attempt of some sort,
about that time, to obtain relief for the Catholics by force of
arms, which she appears to have expected, or rather, to have feared.
An attempt was made, later, to represent the name of Vaux to be the same
as that of Fawkes:--[120] "Mrs Anne Vaux, or Fawkes, probably a relative
of the conspirator;" for which there seems to be no foundation, and
certainly there is none for the base imputation, in the same paragraph,
of immorality between Anne Vaux and Father Garnet. Even the Protestant
historian, Jardine, repudiates this calumny at considerable length.[121]
[120] _Somers Tracts_, Vol. ii. p. 108, footnote.
[121] _Gunpowder Plot_, pp. 176-8.