Let us now examine the Letter itself.
The first thing to be noted is that no reprint that I have seen of the
famous Letter, whether in ancient or modern continuous Relations of the
Gunpowder Plot, is strictly correct. For they all omit the pronoun “yowe”
after the words “my lord out of the loue i beare.” This pronoun “yowe” is
indeed crossed out in the original Letter with a blurred net-work of
lines.[55] But, this notwithstanding, it can be still detected in the
original document, happily, even to this day, to be seen in the Record
Office, London.
Now the fact that this word “yowe” is crossed out in this mysterious
fashion, coupled with the fact that the words used at the end of the
Letter are as follow: “and i hope god will give yowe the grace to mak
good[56] use of it to whose holy proteccion i comend yowe,” makes it clear
(to my mind) that an universal temporal salvation of the destined victims
was intended by the revealing conspirator and by his penman, and not
merely the particular salvation of the recipient of the Letter.
Again, the meaning of the words “for the danger is passed as soon as yowe
have burnt the letter,” is in one sense fairly clear. For as Wilson says,
in his “_Life of James I._” (1653), p. 30, “the writer’s desire was to
have the letter burned, and then the danger would be past both to the
writer and the receiver, if he had grace to make use of the warning.”[57]
This must be the, at least, _ostensible_ meaning. For it is obvious that
neither Wright nor Oldcorne (_ex hypothesi_) would, for different but most
potent reasons, wish the penman of the Letter to be known to the then
public, either Catholic or Protestant.
Now it was in accordance with universal right reason and moral fitness
that Father Oldcorne should——so far as was consistent with his being
satisfied that warning of the Plot had been given through trustworthy
channels to the King’s principal Secretary of State——keep in the
background and not himself in person adventure upon the theatre of action,
even for the purpose of compassing an object which he was bound by his
vocation, alike in Justice and Charity, to compass. For by the Act 27
Elizabeth, he was “a traitor,” being a Priest and remaining in England for
more than forty days. While the fact that he was a Jesuit into the bargain
would be, of course, counted an aggravation of his statutory offence.[58]
Again, Father Oldcorne had to remember, besides the ideal standard that
his vocation imposed upon him, the practical standard which was the
unwritten law that guided the conscience of the best of the average
Catholics in that period of their intolerable sufferings.[A] For it is a
fact of human nature that every man seeks to instruct his conscience by
some objective rule or standard of Truth and Right; but that instincts
and emotions oftentimes finally rule men rather than reason and
argumentative proof.
[Footnote A: The English papists groaned under the following
persecution:——The poor were practically liable to be fined (and therefore
sold up “stick and pin”) one shilling every time they absented themselves
from their parish church. The richer members of the community were
compelled to pay £20 per lunar month. Many of the English nobility,
gentry, and yeomanry were ruined by this; indeed the Catholics must have
been very rich on the whole to hold out as long as they did. It was the
Government authorities (Clerical and Lay) that did the persecuting;
individual Protestants often sought to mitigate the miseries of their
fellow-countrymen from whom they differed in religion. Being reconciled to
the See of Rome was death, and to be a popish priest was by the terrible
Statute 27 Eliz. to be “a traitor” and to be liable to be hanged, cut down
alive, bowelled, and quartered. To say Mass was to be liable to a fine of
200 marks _and_ imprisonment for life (a mark was 13s. 4d.). To hear Mass
was to be liable to a fine of 100 marks _and_ imprisonment for life. To
harbour a priest was death and forfeiture of property.]
It was, furthermore, incumbent upon Oldcorne to recollect that more harm
than good is frequently occasioned in this entangled world by an
unseasonable, indiscriminate, “heroic” application of abstract principles
(faultless in themselves) to the varied and perplexing circumstances of
man’s terrestrial life.
To illustrate my propositions: It is worth while remembering that even so
lofty a soul as Mrs. Ambrose Rookwood evidently regarded her husband,
primarily, as a sufferer for conscience sake, and only secondarily, if at
all, as a repentant sacrilegious traitor and murderer in desire, who was
suffering condign punishment and paying the just penalty of his ruthless
crimes.
No doubt special allowances have to be made for this poor woman, inasmuch
as her husband and children were all the world to her. But still the
following recorded statement proves that the _tendency_ was for even the
best of the average English Catholics of that day, of whom Mrs. Rookwood
is a fair type and specimen, to centre their sympathies on the wrong-doers
rather than on the wronged.
This was natural enough; for man’s disposition is to be led by his
unconscious instincts and emotional sympathies rather than by drawn-out
reason and cool argument, as has been mentioned above.
It was the bounden duty of Oldcorne to hold that disposition strictly in
check and to keep himself absolutely master of the tendency. But, on this
being assured, he was bound likewise to remember that the tendency
existed, and that he lived in a world not of angels, nor of machines, but
of _men_——of men indeed who were not totally depraved, nor utterly
corrupt, yet who were sorely wounded and weakened in intellect, heart, and
will.
The crying want of the present day——as of Oldcorne’s day——is not only for
men but for men who are statesmen. And no man can be a statesman unless he
has a wide and profound knowledge of human nature, and who, while he
pities human nature and loves it, never makes the mistake of expecting too
much from it. In other words, we require men who are humanists and
humorists, as I cannot but think was the character of Edward Oldcorne.
Now, no man in England knew better nor recognised more fully (for he knew
the virtually omnipotent transforming power of the precedent conditions of
person, time, and circumstance) the truth of the propositions I have just
enunciated than did Father Oldcorne. But this notwithstanding, I hold it
was _not_ the truth of the foregoing propositions ALONE——indisputable
doubtless as he regarded them——that finally controlled the motives that
ruled the action——in substance and in form——at the most critical moment of
the existence of this acute, disciplined, high-minded Yorkshireman, when
by Fate he was called upon to contemplate, _after the fateful November the
Fifth_, the bloody, prodigious Gunpowder Plot, and the mighty feat which
Destiny had imposed upon him for helping to spin the same right round on
its axis, even though well-nigh at the eleventh hour.[59]
What finally controlled the motives, the positive _not_ negative motives,
that ruled that beneficent and never-to-be-forgotten action of this
Yorkshire Priest and Jesuit in that supreme moment——the Plot having then
become, through his instrumentality, as a mere bubble-burst——will be
discovered in due course of this Inquiry.
The remark of Mrs. Rookwood to which I have referred is given in Gerard’s
“_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 219. Thomas Winter, Rookwood,
Keyes, and Fawkes were drawn on their hurdles from the Tower to the Yard
of the old Palace of Westminster over against the Parliament House.
“As they were drawn upon the Strand, Mr. Rookwood had provided that he
should be admonished when he came over against the lodging where his wife
lay: and being come unto the place, he opened his eyes (which before he
kept shut to attend better to his prayers), and seeing her stand in a
window to see him pass by, he raised himself as well as he could up from
the hurdle, and said aloud unto her: ‘Pray for me, pray for me,’ She
answered him also aloud: ‘I will; and be of good courage and offer thyself
wholly to God. I for my part do as freely restore thee to God as he gave
thee to me,’”
This was Friday, the 31st day of January, 1605-6.
On the previous day in St. Paul’s Churchyard had been likewise hanged, cut
down alive, drawn, and quartered, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John
Grant, and Thomas Bates.
Catesby, John Wright, and Christopher Wright had been slain at Holbeach on
the 8th of November previously.
Thomas Percy died of wounds there received the next day.
Father Tesimond had proceeded to Huddington, doubtless mainly in the hope,
let us trust, of stirring up in the hearts of these desperate creatures
sorrow——that great natural sacrament——for their awful crimes that, not in
vain, had cried to Heaven for vengeance! For truly the guilty suffer and
the blood-guilty man shall not live out half his days.