Before we well-nigh finally take our leave of Christopher Wright, I should
like to bring before my readers two pieces of Evidence, from each of
which, at any rate, may be drawn the inference that it was one of the
conspirators themselves that revealed the tremendous secret.
That Christopher Wright was that revealing conspirator, the manifold
considerations which the preceding pages of this Inquiry have established,
I trust, will satisfy the intellect of my readers, seeing that those
considerations, I respectfully but firmly urge, must be held to have built
up a “probability” so high as to amount to that “moral certitude” which is
“the very guide” of Man’s terrestrial life, in that it furnishes Man with
those sufficient rules which direct his daily action.[129]
But, in bringing the first piece of Evidence to which I allude before the
eyes of my readers, I desire, with great respect, to say that I am keenly
conscious that I run the risk of incurring the condemnation implied in the
words: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
But, since “circumstances alter cases,” I feel warranted (under
correction) in adventuring, in this one instance, upon a particular line
of argument which I feel is, as an affair of taste, _primâ facie_
unseemly, and, as a matter of feeling, a line of action, in ordinary
cases, to be rigorously eschewed.
Yet, seeing that such a course of conduct cannot be held to be morally
wrong, my plea is——and I respectfully submit my all-sufficient plea
is——that an Inquiry, having for its purpose the elucidation of the
hitherto inscrutable mystery as to who revealed, or who were instrumental
in revealing, so satanic an enterprise as the Gunpowder Plot, being far,
far removed beyond the range of mere logic-chopping, dry-as-dust,
non-human investigations, justifies the following, in one instance, of a
course of action which unquestionably would clash with mere, decorous
taste, and would collide with mere delicate feeling, except, by the case
being altered, it were lifted into the realm of the categories of the
extraordinary and the special.
_Then_ the nature of the act _or_ action composing that course of conduct
would be, in a sense, fundamentally and meritoriously changed. And,
_therefore_, it would be, by a double title, morally justifiable.
Now, when the Gunpowder conspirators were at Huddington, the mansion-house
of Robert Winter, on Thursday, the 7th day of November, certainly most of
the conspirators, and probably all of them, received the Sacrament of
Penance through the ministry of a Jesuit Father, named Nicholas Hart
(alias Strangeways and Hammond), who besides being an _alumnus_ of
Westminster School, and for two years a student of the University of
Oxford, had, prior to his becoming a Priest and a Jesuit, “studied law in
the Inns of Court and Chancery in London.”[130]
Now, William Handy, the serving-man of Sir Everard Digby (of whom we have
already heard), further deposed as follows:[131]
“On Thursday morning, about three of the clock, all the said company, as
well servants as others, heard Mass, received the Sacrament, and were
confessed, which Mass was said by a priest named Harte, a little man
whitely complexioned, and a little beard.”
Now, Ambrose Rookwood, on the 21st day of January, 1605-6, deposed[132]
that he confessed to Hammond at Huddington, on Thursday, the 7th of
November, that he was sorry he had not revealed the Plot, it seeming so
bloody, and that after his confession Hammond absolved him without remark.
The precise words of the ill-fated Rookwood hereon are these:——
GUNPOWDER PLOT BOOKS——NO. 177.
“The voluntarie declaration of Ambrose Rokewood esquier. 21
Janu. 1605 [1606]
“I doe acknowledge that uppon thursday morninge beeing the 7th
of November 1605 my selfe and all the other gentlemen (as I doe
remember) did confesse o^{r} sinnes to one Mr. Hamonde Preeste,
at Mr. Robert Wintour his house, and amonges other my sinnes I
did acknowledge my error in concealing theire intended
enterprise of pouder agaynste his Ma^{tie} and the State, having
a scruple in conscience, the facte seeminge to mee to bee too
bluddye, hee for all in generall gave me absolution without any
other circumstances beeing hastned by the multitude that were to
come to him.
“Ambrose Rookewoode.
“Ex^{r} p. Edw. Coke
W. Ward.”
(Endorsed)
“... pouder
xx^{th} of January 1605.
hamond
Declaration of Ambrose
Rookewoode of his own hand.”