Now, this conclusion leads inevitably to the further conclusion that
Edward Oldcorne must have had latent within him, deep down within the
depths of his conscious being, a particular knowledge, _as distinct from a
general knowledge, a private knowledge as distinct from a public
knowledge_, not indeed of this Plot as a plot, but of the Plot _after_ it
had been, _when_ it had been, and _as_ it had been _first transmuted and
transformed, by the causes and processes hereinbefore mentioned:
transmuted and transformed into an instrument, sure and certain for the
temporal salvation of his fellow-men_.
Yea, _because_ Edward Oldcorne’s noblest mental faculty, his conscience,
gazing with eagle-eye, sun-filled, yet undazzled and undismayed, upon
absolute truth was able unshrinkingly and calmly to bear witness to the
other indivisible parts of his rational nature, that _his_ mind in
relation to that fell enterprise, which from first to last must have “made
the angels weep,” was a mind not only of passive innocence, but of active
rectitude, _therefore_ must he have felt himself to be not barely, but
abundantly _free_. Free, because he knew there was no mortal in this
world, and no being in the world to come, to condemn _him_ at the bar of
eternal Justice; nay, none rightly even to be so much as his accuser: free
to survey the baleful scheme purely speculatively: free, orally to express
the results of that survey, _either as to whole or part, in abstracto, in
the abstract merely; and this notwithstanding the risk of
misinterpretation from his questioner’s “want of thought,” or “want of
heart_.”
For everlastingly was it the truth, that none could gainsay nor resist,
that in relation to _this_ matter, at any rate, it was the lofty privilege
of Edward Oldcorne——indeed a man, if ever there were such, “elect and
precious”——to have been made “a white soul:” to have been made a soul like
unto “a star that dwelt apart.”
_Res ipsa loquitur._ Yea, the words of Edward Oldcorne speak for
themselves. And from those words evident is it that it was the kingly
prerogative of this disciplined, self-repressed, humblest of men, _to know
the truth as to the once atrocious plan: to know the truth and to be
free_.
For his language implies, and, his mind and his character being what they
were, his language is intelligible on none other supposal than this: That
at the very moment when his tongue gave utterance to this now famous
flanking, evasive answer to his inquirer, _he, even he, had possession of
a power, a knowledge, a living consciousness, that he had been exalted to
be the chosen agent of that Supreme Power of the Universe_, to Whom by
infinite right, Vengeance belongs: _the chosen agent whereby the
aforetime, but then no longer, stupendous Gunpowder Treason Plot had been,
to all eternity, overthrown, frustrated, and brought to nought_.[167]