When Garnet penned this letter to the General of the Jesuits in Rome, he
had, _outside the Confessional_, a general knowledge of the Gunpowder
project from Robert Catesby.
Thus much is clear.
That is to say, Garnet had a great suspicion, tantamount to a general
knowledge, that Catesby had in his head some bloody and desperate
enterprise of massacre, the object whereof was to destroy at one fell blow
James I. and his Protestant Government.——See Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” p.
78.
_Garnet most probably in the Confessional even did not at first know all
particulars._
That is to say, he did not know that it was intended to put thirty-six
barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under the House of Lords——consignments of
explosives which it was further intended were to be ignited, when
Parliament met, by Guy Fawkes, booted and spurred, by means of a
slow-burning match, which would give him one quarter-of-an-hour’s grace to
effect his escape to a ship in the Thames bound for Flanders: and that the
young Princess Elizabeth was to be seized at the house of the Lord
Harrington, in Warwickshire, and proclaimed Queen _after_ her parents and
two brothers, Henry Prince of Wales and Charles Duke of York, had been
torn and rent into ten thousand fragments.
But this able, learned, sweet-tempered, yet weak-willed, unimaginative,
irresolute man _knew enough outside the Confessional_——which is the point
we have to deal with here——to render himself liable to have been sent to
the galleys by the Pope, if His Holiness could have laid hold of him,
when, notwithstanding this atrocious knowledge, he actually refused to
give ear to the arch-conspirator, even although Catesby, on Father
Gerard’s own admission, “offered sometimes to tell him [Garnet] that they
[Catesby and his friends] would not endure to be so long so much abused,
but would take some course to right themselves, if others would not
respect them or could not relieve them.”——Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” p. 78.
Truly “Evil is wrought by want of thought as well as by want of heart.”
The fact that Garnet knew violence was likely to be shown to his lawful
Sovereign, coupled with the fact that Garnet _might have learned all the
particulars about that purposed violence_ had he not, through a negligence
which can be only characterized as grossly criminal, passively omitted, if
indeed he had not actively declined, to obtain those particulars from the
lips of the arch-conspirator himself——such facts make the case _up to the
24th of July, 1605, absolutely_ fatal against Garnet. And such facts can
lead the unbiased mind of the philosophical historian (who does not care a
pin about all the ecclesiastical spite, on either one side or the other,
that ever was or ever shall be), can lead to one inevitable conclusion
only: that Henry Garnet was justly condemned to death by an earthly
tribunal for misprision, that is, for concealment, of High Treason
_against the Sovereign power of his Country_. Although, being a priest, he
ought to have been ecclesiastically “_degraded_” first, according to the
provisions of the Canon law, and then handed over to the secular arm for
condign punishment, according to the law of the outraged State.
For, “_Id certum est quod certum reddi potest_,” that is, certain
knowledge which can be reduced to a certainty.
Again, the damning evidence against Garnet is clenched by a letter that he
sent to Rome, dated 28th August, wherein, amongst other things, he said:
“And for anything we can see, Catholics are quiet, and likely to continue
their old patience, and to trust to the King or his son for to remedy all
in time.”——Gerard’s “_Narrative_,” pp. 78, 79.
Now Garnet[A] was a man of most acute mind and very clear-sighted; but he
was intellectually unimaginative as well as morally weak-willed. And such
a man is never a far-sighted man.
[Footnote A: Garnet was a profound mathematician and accomplished
linguist, amongst other acquirements.]
But as Garnet’s moral character was almost certainly good on the whole,
the conclusion that Justice suggests in reference to this letter of the
28th August especially is that, through intense grief and anguish of mind,
Garnet had lost his head, and was not wholly responsible for either his
words or actions.[B]
[Footnote B: After Father Tesimond had told Garnet (with Catesby’s leave)
of the Plot, thereby bringing the matter as a natural secret indirectly
under the seal of the Confessional, Garnet could not sleep at nights. Now,
sleeplessness, combined with carking care and keen distress of heart,
would inevitably tend to unbalance even the very strongest of human minds,
at least, temporarily. Tesimond told Garnet _generally_ of Catesby’s
diabolical plan “a little before” St. James’-tide (_i.e._, the 25th of
July, 1605), at Fremland, in Essex, but by way of confession. The
Government, however, it seems to me, from the report of the trial in
Jardine’s “_Criminal Trials_” and from Lingard, condemned Garnet _not_
because he did not reveal particular _knowledge_ he had received _in the
Confessional from Tesimond_, but because he did not reveal _general
knowledge_ he had _from Catesby outside the Confessional_. This, in
fairness to James I., Salisbury, and the King’s Council, should be
faithfully borne in mind. Moreover, according to one school of Catholic
moralists, in _either case_ the Government ought to have been communicated
with _if_ Garnet could have done so without risk of divulging Tesimond’s
name. Indeed, Garnet himself took this view——the view which most princes
and statesmen will prefer, I should fancy. Garnet, however, had not the
machinery ready to his hand to carry _both views_ into practical effect.
_Therefore Garnet, to my mind, was eminently justified in not divulging
the particular knowledge he had from Tesimond by way of confession. For
according to the teaching of Thomas Aquinas, the Christian Aristotle, a
natural secret may be indirectly_ protected by the seal of the
Confessional if the priest _promises_ so to protect it. I conclude,
however, that (1) according to the dictates of right reason the promise
may be _either implied or expressed_, and (2) that in the case of
overwhelming necessity the promise may be broken, as in the case of High
Treason, _if the priest_ can avoid, _with absolute certitude_, exposing
the name of the depositor of the wicked secret. It was because Garnet
could not avoid exposing Tesimond’s name _practically_ that he was
justified in not acting upon his own _abstract_ principles in relation to
the knowledge he had from Tesimond by way of confession.]