Shortly after Midsummer (_i.e._, July), 1605, Father Garnet was at the
Jesuit house at Fremland, in Essex. Catesby came there with Lord
Mounteagle and Tresham.
At this meeting, in answer to a question, “Were Catholics able to make
their part good by arms against the King?”——Mounteagle replied, “If ever
they were, they are able now;” and then that young nobleman added this
reason for his opinion, “The King is so odious to all sorts.”
At this interview Tresham said, “We must expect [_i.e._, wait for] the end
of Parliament, and see what laws are made against Catholics, and then seek
for help of foreign princes.”
“No,” said Garnet, “assure yourself they will do nothing.”
“What!” said my Lord Mounteagle, “will not the Spaniard help us? It is a
shame!”[A]
[Footnote A: If Mounteagle was in the company of Catesby at Fremland in
the summer of 1605, these two may have been together at Bath between the
12th October and the 26th. Catesby probably would endeavour to induce Lord
Mounteagle to join Sir Everard Digby’s rebellion, as he did induce Stephen
Littleton and Humphrey Littleton.]
Then said Father Garnet, “You see we must all have patience.”[100]
It is also to be remembered that when Sir Edmund Baynham, a
Gloucestershire Catholic gentleman of good family——but of whom Winter
said “he was not a man fit for the business at home,” _i.e._, the purposed
Gunpowder massacre——went to Flanders and Rome in the first week of
September, 1605, Mounteagle appears to have written certain letters of
introduction or of general recommendation, in Baynham’s behalf, to English
Catholics residing in Flanders or in Rome. Jardine says that “it is not
quite certain that Baynham was himself entrusted with the great secret of
the Plot.”[101]
I think that it is morally certain he was not.
Sir Edmund Baynham[A] was intended by the prime conspirators to be at Rome
to justify (_if he could_) to the Pope any action that the conspirators
might have perpetrated on or after November the Fifth in behalf of their
religion. But the prime conspirators were far too astute “to open their
mouth” to let a chattering, hare-brained swashbuckler like Baynham “fill
other people’s” in every wine-shop _en route_ for “the Eternal City.”
[Footnote A: Father Garnet was also employing Sir Edmund Baynham as _his_
diplomatic intermediary with the Pope in order “to gain time,” so that
meanwhile the plotters might find space for repentance! Garnet was
apparently one of those men who though possessed of a profound knowledge
of Man know little or nothing of men. Whereas Oldcorne seems to have had
practical reason as well as theoretical wisdom. Oldcorne, I take it, had a
good, strong, clear, practical head on his shoulders, which included in
its armoury _will_, in the sense of _power_, as well as intellect and
heart, and “_where there’s a will there’s a way_.”]
Guy Fawkes probably was authorised to impart and possibly actually did,
under the oath, impart some knowledge of the Plot to Captain Hugh Owen, a
Welsh Roman Catholic soldier of fortune serving in Flanders under the
Archdukes.[102] Owen’s name figures in the Earl of Salisbury’s
instructions to Sir Edward Coke, the Attorney-General who prosecuted the
surviving Gunpowder conspirators in the historic Westminster Hall.
Moreover, I have thought that at least some of the powder must have been
purchased in Flanders through the good offices of the said Captain Owen.
The powder and the mining tools and implements appear to have been stored
at first in the house at Lambeth and placed under the charge of Robert
Keyes and, eventually, of Christopher Wright. The powder was, I take it,
packed in bags, and the bags themselves packed in padlocked hampers.
Afterwards, I conclude, the powder bags were deposited in the barrels, and
the barrels themselves carried by two of the conspirators, with aid of
brewers’ slings, and deposited in the cellar, which apparently had at
least two doors.