Father Henry Garnet, the chief of the English Jesuits, left London at the
end of August, 1605,[154] and proceeded towards Gothurst (now Gayhurst),
in the Parish of Tyringham, three miles from Newport Pagnell,
Buckinghamshire.[A]
[Footnote A: The seat of Walter Carlile, Esquire, as has been already
mentioned. I have to thank this gentleman for his courteousness in
informing me that Gayhurst (formerly Gothurst) is three miles from Newport
Pagnell. An excellent picture, together with descriptive account, of
Gayhurst, is given in the “_Life of Sir Everard Digby_,” by one of that
knight’s descendants. Gothurst contained a remarkable hiding-place, which
was probably constructed by Nicholas Owen, the lay-brother of Father
Garnet. According to Father Gerard, the friend of Digby, Gothurst was ten
miles from Great Harrowden, the seat of the young Lord Vaux.]
Now, who was Henry Garnet, whom the Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke,
described in Westminster Hall as “a man——grave, discreet, wise, learned,
and of excellent ornament, both of nature and art;” but around whose name
so fierce a controversy had raged for well-nigh 300 years? He was born in
1555, and brought up a Protestant of the Established Church; his father
being Mr. Briant Garnet, the head master of the Free School, at
Nottingham; his mother’s name was Alice Jay. Henry Garnet was a scholar of
Winchester School, and the intention was to send him to New College,
Oxford. However, he resolved to become reconciled to the Pope’s religion,
and in 1575 joined the Jesuit Novitiate in Rome, where the great Cardinal
Bellarmine was one of his tutors.
Now, to the end that the claims of Truth and Justice, strict, severe, and
impartial, may be met in relation to this celebrated English Jesuit, it
will be necessary to repeat that as far back as about the beginning of
Trinity Term (_i.e._, the 9th June, 1605), Catesby, in Thames Street,
London——_outside the Confessional_——had propounded to Garnet a question,
_which ought to have put the Jesuit expressly upon inquiry_. For that
question was, in case it were lawful to kill a person or persons, whether
it were necessary to regard the innocents which were present, lest they
also should perish withal.
And this the rather, when Catesby on that very occasion “made solemn
protestation that he would never be known to have asked me [_i.e._,
Garnet] any such question as long as he lived.”——See “Hatfield MS.,”
printed in “_Historical Review_,” for July, 1888, and largely quoted in
the Rev. J. Gerard’s articles on Garnet, in “_Month_” for June and July,
1901.
On the 24th of July, 1605, Garnet had sent a remarkable letter to Rome,
addressed to Father Aquaviva, the General of the Jesuits.——See “Father
Gerard’s Narrative,” pp. 76, 77, in “_Condition of Catholics under James
I._,” edited by Rev. John Morris, S.J. (Longmans, 1872).
In this letter, which of course was in Latin, Garnet says——amongst other
things betokening an apprehension of a general insurrectionary feeling
among Catholics up and down the country in consequence of the terrible
persecution which had re-commenced as soon as James I. had safely
concluded his much-desired peace with Spain——“_the danger is lest secretly
some Treason or violence be shown to the King, and so all Catholics may be
compelled to take arms._”
Garnet then proceeds: “_Wherefore, in my judgment, two things are
necessary, first, that His Holiness should prescribe what in any case is
to be done; and then, that he should forbid any force of arms by the
Catholics under Censures, and by Brief, publicly promulgated; an occasion
for which can be taken from the disturbance lately raised in Wales, which
has at length come to nothing._ It remains that as all things are daily
becoming worse, we should beseech His Holiness soon to give a necessary
remedy for these great dangers, and we ask his blessing and that of your
Paternity.” (The italics are mine.)
Now, by the word “censures” here, I presume, Garnet meant excommunication,
that is, a cutting off from the visible fellowship of Catholics and (what
would frighten every Catholic, whether his faith worked by love or fear,
that is, whether it were a rational form of religion or a mere abject
superstition) a deprivation of the Sacraments of his exacting Church,
which are, according to Rome’s tenets, the special means devised by the
Founder of Christianity whereby Man is united to “the Unseen
Perfectness.”