Believing that his principal friends, and the priests for whom he felt
the greatest veneration, had either joined in or expressed their
approval of the scheme, Sir Everard began to be half inclined to consent
to it. Was there to be a great enterprise, entailing personal activity
and danger for the good of the Catholic cause, and was he to shrink from
taking part in it? Was he alone, among the most zealous Catholic laymen
of England, to show the white feather in a time of peril? Could he call
himself a man if he trembled at the very thought of bloodshed? Yet, in
truth, the idea of the cold-blooded massacre which was proposed appalled
him; fair fighting he would rather rejoice in, but wholesale
assassination was to the last degree repulsive to his nature. Hesitating
and miserable, he reached Gothurst with his guest without giving any
definite answer to the question whether he would join in the conspiracy.
When they were in the house, Catesby showed him a book justifying
proceedings which he claimed to be similar to the proposed plot. "I
saw," he wrote afterwards to his wife,[159] "I saw the principal point
of the case, judged by a Latin book of M. D., my brother's
father-in-law." What book it may have been we have no means of knowing;
but we do know that the perils of comparing parallel cases are
notorious: and, unfortunately, the production of this book had the
effect of turning the scale, and inducing Digby to join in the infamous
plot.
[159] "Letters of Sir Everard Digby" in _Gunpowder Treason_, p. 177.
Necessary as it is for a biographer of Sir Everard Digby carefully to
consider all the arguments that are likely to have influenced him in
consenting to the Gunpowder Plot, it is all-important to keep before the
mind the cause which, on his own admission,[160] was the first and most
potent of his assent to the conspiracy. This was[161] "the friendship
and love he bare to Catesby, which prevailed so much, and was so
powerful with him, as that for his sake he was ever contented and ready
to hazard himself and his estate."
[160] Speech at his trial.
[161] _Gunpowder Treason_, by Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln, p. 55.
Sir Everard was a man of what may be termed violent friendship. We have
already seen his almost immoderate attachment to Father Gerard. It was
an excellent thing that he should have such a man for a firm friend; but
his feeling towards him was something much more than that. Father Gerard
was "his brother." The Jesuits make a rule of avoiding what they term
"particular friendships," and the great aggression of affection would
certainly not come from Father Gerard's side. And now we find him loving
Catesby to such an extent as to be "ready to hazard himself and his
estate" "for his sake."
There is such a thing as an undue admiration for "the man who thinks as
I do." It proceeds from a combination of pride and weakness. The man in
question is the embodiment of "my" principles, and therefore to be
worshipped, and, holding "my" principles, his decisions, which are
presumably formed upon those principles, must be right, and "my"
adoption of them will save me the trouble of forming any for myself.
Such is the line of argument which men of Sir Everard Digby's type
mentally follow. When, again, some difficulty presents itself,
concerning which they have never thought at all, they argue to
themselves after this fashion. "My friend agrees with me about A, B, and
C, topics on which we are both well informed; therefore I may safely
follow his advice about D, a subject of which I at present know nothing,
but about which, when I have studied it, I may logically assume that I
shall agree with him."
Few men act on principle at first hand. To a vast majority, it is too
invisible, intangible, difficult to define, and difficult to realise, to
serve as either a guide or a support. Yet some of those who are least
able, coolly, logically, and consistently to understand and adhere to a
principle in the abstract, are the most enthusiastic in advocating, the
most vigorous in defending, and the most extravagant in extending to the
most extreme limits, its reflection, or supposed reflection, in the
person and behaviour of a friend; and they are apt, in their devotion to
the friend, to forget the principle. It was thus in the case of Sir
Everard Digby and Robert Catesby. In his friendship with Catesby, Sir
Everard was eager to be one of the most pronounced champions of the
Catholic religion, yet when Catesby acted in direct opposition to the
fundamental principles of that religion, Sir Everard clung to the
visible friend to the neglect of the invisible principle, which,
theoretically, he held to be more precious than life itself.
When one idea takes too forcible possession of the mind, although the
objections to it may collectively be overpowering, if taken one by one,
it is easy to dispose of them, and then to blind the eyes, to stifle the
conscience, and to imagine a glamour of righteousness, unselfishness,
and heroism, in iniquity, self-pleasing, and even cruelty. Digby
experienced this fatal facility. He did not at once consent to Catesby's
request without the least pretence of considering its merits; but he
combatted the objections to it one by one, and thus easily defeated
them. He endeavoured to regard the matter from Catesby's point of view,
and he found the process simple, if not agreeable.
And here let me say that I wish I could honestly represent Sir Everard
as having consented hurriedly to the plot in a hot-headed love of
adventure. The evidence, unfortunately, all points the other way. He was
persuaded with great difficulty by Catesby. He disliked the look of the
whole thing, and he finally consented to it after cool and deliberate
reflection. I admit that he was impulsive; I do not deny that, in this
instance, he may have acted on sudden impulse at particular stages of
his lengthened agony of doubt and indecision, or that, after being too
slow in obeying his first impulse to refuse to hear another word about
the atrocious project, he may have yielded too hurriedly to his later
impulse to throw in his lot with the friend whom he trusted; but I
cannot excuse him on the ground that his adhesion to the conspiracy was
the result of a momentary convulsion of enthusiastic folly.
He objected; he feared the destruction of Catholic peers; he talked over
the pretended opinions of the Jesuit Fathers; he read a so-called
authority in a book shown to him by Catesby; he calculated the chances
of success and failure; he thought over the question of men, money,
arms, and horses; and then, with false conclusions, on false premises,
in a sort of spasm of wrongheadedness, he, who had been depending
excessively on clerical direction--even Jesuits admit that there is such
a thing as being over-directed--suddenly acted, upon a question
involving an enormous issue, without any advice whatever except that of
the man who was tempting him to what, he must have seen, had, _prima
facie_, the colour of a most odious crime. I am not forgetting that
Catesby vaunted Jesuit approval; but what good Catholic would take
clerical advice upon an intricate point at second hand from another
layman? Or, to put it in another form, what prudent man would commit
himself to a lawsuit simply because a friend told him that his lawyer
recommended him to sue an adversary under very similar circumstances?
Digby had good reason for knowing that the Jesuit Father, whose opinion
he most valued--Father Gerard--would strongly object to what was
proposed; but he fancied that he himself knew better what was for the
good of the Church; so, after meekly wavering in a state of great
uncertainty, like the weak man that he was, he suddenly yielded and
agreed to partake in what he persuaded himself to be a pious act on
behalf of his religion, but was in reality a piece of unprecedented
pious folly; and few things are more certain than that, be his personal
virtues ever so exalted, and his intentions ever so pure, the pious fool
can do, and often does, more to injure the cause of religion than even
the scientific fool to injure that of science, which is saying much.
It is now my duty to explain how grossly Sir Everard was deceived by
Catesby, when he was assured that any Jesuit Fathers had approved of the
conspiracy "in general, though they knew not the particulars." What I
am about to write may appear a long digression; but it should be
remembered that it was chiefly upon Catesby's assurance of the approval
of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus that Sir Everard consented to
join in the conspiracy; therefore the amount of consent actually
obtained from them, if any, is of the utmost importance to my story.
Here is Father Gerard's account of the so-called approval of the plot,
which Catesby had extracted from Father Garnet, and on the strength of
which he persuaded Sir Everard Digby and others to join in it.[162]
"Having a great opinion both of the learning and virtue of the Fathers
of the Society, Mr Catesby desired to get, by cunning means, the
judgment of their Superior, so as he should never perceive to what end
the question were asked." This makes Father Gerard's opinion of
Catesby's shameful dishonesty in the affair unmistakably clear.
"Therefore," he continues, "coming to Father Garnet, after much ordinary
talk, and some time passed over after his arrival" (at a house in Essex,
in June 1605, that is to say, about three months before he revealed the
plot to Sir Everard) "one time he took occasion (upon some speech
proposed about the wars in the Low Countries or such like)"--observe the
fraud of this! Catesby was to have command of a regiment in the "Low
Countries," so he clearly intended to lead Father Garnet to suppose
that he was contemplating a position in which he might very probably
find himself when _there_--"to ask how far it might be lawful for the
party that hath the just quarrel to proceed in sacking or destroying a
town of the enemy's, or fortress, when it is holden against them by
strong hands. The Father answered that, in a just war, it was lawful for
those that had right to wage battle against the enemies of the
commonwealth, to authorise their captains or soldiers, as their
officers, to annoy or destroy any town that is unjustly holden against
them, and that such is the common doctrine of all Divines: in respect
that every commonwealth must, by the Law of Nature, be sufficient for
itself, and therefore as well able to repel injuries as to provide
necessaries; and that, as a private person may _vim vi repellere_, so
may the commonwealth do the like with so much more right, as the whole
is of more importance than a part; which, if it were not true, it should
follow that Nature had provided better for beasts than for men,
furnishing them with natural weapons as well to offend as to defend
themselves, which we see also they have a natural instinct to use, when
the offence of the invader is necessary for their own defence. And
therefore that it is not fit to think that God, Who, by natural reason,
doth provide in a more universal and more noble manner for men than by
natural instinct for beasts, hath left any particular person, and much
less a commonwealth, without sufficient means to defend and conserve
itself; and therefore not without power to provide and use likely means
to repel present injuries, and to repress known and hurtful enemies. And
that, in all these, the head of the commonwealth may judge what is
expedient and needful for the body thereof." Much of all this was
useless to Catesby's purpose; but he waited patiently, and when Father
Garnet had finished speaking, he answered, "that all this seemed to be
plain in common reason, and the same also practised by all well-governed
commonwealths that ever have been, were they never so pious or devout.
But, said he, some put the greatest difficulty in the sackage of towns
and overthrowing or drowning up (_sic_) of forts, which, in the Low
Countries"--the Low Countries again! mark his deceitfulness--"and in all
wars is endeavoured, when the fort cannot otherwise be surprised, and
the same of great importance to be taken. How, then, those who have
right to make the war may justify that destruction of the town or fort,
wherein there be many innocents and young children, and some perhaps
unchristened, which must needs perish withal? Unto this the Father
answered, that indeed therein was the greatest difficulty; and that it
was a thing could never be lawful in itself, to kill an innocent, for
that the reason ceaseth in them for which the pain of death may be
inflicted by authority, seeing the cause why a malefactor and enemy to
the commonwealth may be put to death is in respect of the common good,
which is to be preferred before his private (for otherwise, considering
the thing only in itself, it were not lawful to put any man to death);
and so because the malefactor doth _in re gravi_ hinder the common good,
therefore by the authority of the magistrate that impediment may be
removed. But now, as for the innocent and good, their life is a help and
furtherance to the common good, and therefore in no sort it can be
lawful to kill or destroy an innocent."
[162] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, p. 65 _seq._
Determined as Catesby was to twist Father Garnet's words into "a
parallel case," he wanted something more tangible than this to work
upon. Accordingly he said:--"That is done ordinarily in the destruction
of the forts I spake of." "It is true, said the Father, it is there
permitted, because it cannot be avoided; but is done as _per accidens_,
and not as a thing intended by or for itself, and so it is not unlawful.
As if we were shot into the arm with a poisoned bullet, so that we could
not escape with life unless we cut off our arm; then _per accidens_ we
cut off our hand and fingers also which were sound, and yet being, at
that time of danger, inseparably joined to the arm, lawful to be cut
off, which it were not lawful otherwise to do without mortal sin. And
such was the case of the town of Gabaa, and the other towns of the tribe
of Benjamin, wherein many were destroyed that had not offended. With
which Mr Catesby, seeming fully satisfied, brake presently into other
talk, the Father at that time little imagining at what he aimed, though
afterwards, when the matter was known, he told some friends what had
passed between Mr Catesby and him about this matter, and that he little
suspected then he would so have applied the general doctrine of Divines
to the practice of a private and so perilous a case, without expressing
all particulars, which course may give occasion of great errors, as we
see it did in this."
If Sir Everard Digby had heard the conversation on which the vaunted
"consent" of the Jesuits had been founded, there can be little doubt
that he would have refused to have anything to do with the conspiracy on
such grounds. Father Gerard probably heard the account of the interview,
after the failure of the plot, from Father Garnet himself.
Father Garnet's own much shorter account of the conversation may be
given here.[163] Mr Catesby "asked me whether, in case it were lawful to
kill a person or persons, it were necessary to regard the innocents,
which were present, lest they also should perish withal. I answered that
in all just wars it is practised and held lawful to beat down houses and
walls and castles, notwithstanding innocents were in danger, so that
such battering were necessary for the obtaining of victory, and that the
multitude of innocents, or the harm which might ensue by their death,
were not such that it might countervail the gain and commodity of the
victory. And in truth I never imagined anything of the King's Majesty,
nor of any particular, and thought it, as it were, an idle question,
till I saw him, when we had done, make solemn protestation that he would
never be known to have asked me any such question as long as he lived."
[163] Hatfield MS., 110, 30. Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot,
p. 7.
That Father Garnet believed Catesby to have deceived him and to have
told untruths about him is evident from one of his letters written in
orange juice in the Tower. He says[164] "Master Catesby did me much
wrong, and hath confessed that he tould them that he said he asked me a
question in Q. Eliz. time of the powder action, and that it was
unlawfull. All which is most untrew. He did it to draw in others." Again
he writes[165] "I doubt not Mr Catesby hath fained many such things for
to induce others," Sir Everard Digby, of course, among the rest.
[164] _Records, S. J._, Vol. iv., p. 108.
[165] _History of the Gunpowder Plot_, Jardine, Appendix, p. 329.
Some of the modern admirers of Father Garnet have maintained that the
worse Catesby, the worse Garnet; the better Catesby, the better Garnet.
Without suggesting the exact converse, I would venture to point out the
danger to Garnet's memory in anything that might tend to show some sort
of co-partnership in spirit and intention between himself and Catesby.
All the facts lead me to a very different conclusion, and one which is
much more to the interest of Garnet's memory, namely, that Catesby
deceived him from first to last, and that he was, in fact, the innocent
dupe of Catesby. To begin with, Catesby, when, during the first half
year of James's reign, Garnet desired him not to join in "some stirring,
seeing the King kept not his promise," deceived Garnet by assuring him
"he would not."[166] He deceived him in 1604, when, on Garnet's urging
him not to take up arms, etc., against the king,[167] "he promised to
surcease." He deceived him when he put a case before him on the question
of slaying "innocents together with nocents," as if it concerned his
projected campaign in Flanders, when it really concerned the Gunpowder
Plot. He deceived him at the[168] "house in Essex," when he "assured"
him "that all his plans were unexceptionable." He deceived him when
he[169] "promised" "to do nothing before the Pope was informed by"
"messenger." He deceived him at White Webbs, when he told him that what
he had in hand was quite "lawfull." He deceived him at Harrowden when he
said that he was going to start for the war in the Low Countries as soon
as he possibly could.
[166] Examination, March 13. _Records, S. J._, Vol. III., p. 157.
[167] _Ib._
[168] _Father Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot_, Pollen, p. 8.
[169] _Ib._, p. 10.
In other places I either have shown, or will show, that he deceived all
his fellow-conspirators, that he induced them to join in the plot on
false pretences, and that he told the lie direct to Sir Everard Digby
at Dunchurch. Undoubtedly he had a charming manner, he was an agreeable
and well-informed companion; there is much in his history that is
interesting, much that is romantic, much that excites pity, but let not
any modern Catholics imagine that by attempting to minimise his
misdoings they will do any credit to the cause of the Church; for the
man began as a libertine, and, after a period of spasmodic piety, ended
as a liar. Catesby was one of those people who are fond of asking for
priestly advice, obey it only if it coincides with their own wishes, and
have no scruple whatever in misquoting it to their friends. This race is
not extinct, nor is it limited to the male sex. Sometimes the
performance is varied: instead of misquoting the advice of the priest,
these candid penitents misstate the case on which they ask the priest to
form an opinion.
Such people are exceedingly dangerous, and do immense mischief to the
cause of the Catholic Church. When we consider the evil that may be
wrought by one inaccurate and not over-scrupulous woman of this sort,
who says to her friends:--"Oh, you may be quite easy in your mind. I
asked Father Dash, and he told me there was no harm whatever in it," of
some action which that Father would have condemned in the most
unqualified terms, what limit can be put to the disaster that a man like
Catesby might bring upon a credulous friend such as Sir Everard Digby?
It is unfortunate that there should be men of the Digby class as well as
the Catesby! A priestly judgment has to be given in a court in which the
inquirer is witness for both plaintiff and defendant, as well as
advocate for both plaintiff and defendant. The friend, therefore, of the
inquirer, who is asked to accept the decision which he brings from that
spiritual court, ought not to do so unless he feels assured either that
he would lay his case with absolute impartiality before that tribunal,
or that the judge would discredit his evidence if given with partiality.
Now, knowing Catesby very intimately, had Sir Everard Digby good reasons
for believing that he could be trusted as an absolutely impartial
witness and an absolutely impartial advocate on both sides? or else that
the priest consulted would certainly detect any flaw in the evidence of
a man so notorious for his plausibility and his powers of persuasion? If
not, and he was determined only to join in the enterprise on the
condition that it had priestly consent, he was bound either to go and
ask it for himself, or, if his oath of secrecy prevented this, to refuse
to have anything further to do with the conspiracy. So far as I have
been able to ascertain of the previous history of Robert Catesby, he was
one of the very last men from whom I should have felt inclined to take
spiritual advice or spiritual consent at second hand; and, on this
point, I find it difficult to exculpate Sir Everard Digby, although the
difficulty is somewhat qualified by an unhappy remark made to Sir
Everard by Father Garnet, to be noticed presently.
But first let us notice an incident which, in the case of two men
professing to be practical Catholics, is nothing short of astounding! As
a modern Jesuit, the present editor of _The Month_, the chief Jesuit
journal in this country, points out,[170] Catesby "peremptorily demanded
of" his associates in the conspiracy, of whom Sir Everard Digby was one,
"a promise that they would not mention the project even in confession,
lest their ghostly fathers should discountenance and hinder it."
Considering that that project, even when regarded in the most favourable
light, was one likely to entail very intricate questions of conscience
in the course of its preparation and its fulfilment, it is inconceivable
how men called, or calling themselves, good Catholics could either make
such a demand or consent to it.
[170] _The Month_, No. 369, p. 353-4.