Now, according to the laws which govern human nature, a subordinate
conspirator, introduced late into the conspiracy, whose early training was
such as to lead him, on reflection, to regard as morally unlawful the
taking of a secret oath, such as the Gunpowder conspirators had taken: a
conspirator in whose heart emotions, not only of compassion but also of
compunction, were likely to be awakened by the remembrance of that
training, as the day was about to dawn and as the hour was about to strike
when would be consummated one of the bloodiest tragedies that had ever
stained an evil world: a conspirator answering to this, I say, was the
most likely to be the conspirator who revealed this purposed appalling
massacre, the bare thought of which causes strong men to shudder, even to
this day.
Still more likely would be a conspirator who, fulfilling the description
just mentioned, adds to that the following, namely——that he possessed an
entirely trustworthy friend who would act as penman of any document he
might wish to use as a means of communicating a secret yet warning note to
a representative of the intended victims.
And yet still more likely would be a conspirator who, to the descriptions
of the two preceding paragraphs, added a third, namely——that he possessed
a second entirely trustworthy friend who would act as an “_interpres_”——a
go-between——to drive home the full intended effect of the document penned
by the hand of the first; and this with the express knowledge and consent
of that first.
Hence, such go-between would be the agent common to both the revealing
conspirator and his scribe, and would be informed, directed and controlled
by them.
Regard being had to the fixities of thought or self-evident fundamentals
which in the introduction to this Inquiry were enunciated, these two
friends, these two confidants must have been bound to the revealing
conspirator by bonds, ties, obligations, “light,” indeed, “as air, yet
strong as iron,” which were the outcome of kinship, friendship, or
business (in a superlatively wide sense), possibly of all three.
Now the inference that I draw, from a reviewing and weighing of the
Evidence to-day available in relation to this matter, is this, that
_Christopher Wright_ was the conspirator who revealed the Plot, and that
his worthy aiders and honourable abettors were, first, _Thomas Ward_, the
gentleman-servant (and almost certainly kinsman) of Lord Mounteagle
himself, _amicus secundum carnem_; and, secondly, _Edward Oldcorne_,
Priest and Jesuit, _amicus secundum spiritum:——friends according to the
flesh and to the spirit respectively_.