Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/133

Rh the Parliament House, and were discovered, and were all utterly undone.' After leaving Huddington, Father Greenway left for Mr. Abington's house (Hendlip), to raise recruits for Catesby's force.

The importance of this last confession was great in the extreme, for it not only proved Greenway to be guilty of treason, but also tended to show that Greenway had seen the conspirators at Huddington with the approval and permission of his superior, Garnet. That Bates was speaking the truth, however, has been denied by Jesuit writers, who urge that Greenway subsequently denied that Bates ever mentioned the subject of the plot to him in the confessional; and that Garnet, whilst questioning the accuracy of Bates's version of the Coughton story, complained that he was being condemned on the evidence of a dead man. But notwithstanding the denials of these priests, it is probable that Bates's story, although extracted from him under terror of torture, was in the main part true; and both Greenway and Garnet were such notorious prevaricators that no reliance can be placed on any of their statements, unless corroborated by indisputable evidence forthcoming from other sources.

Finally, in concluding this chronological record of the conspirators' confessions, it will be well to reproduce from the version in King James's Book on the Plot the important deposition of Guy Faukes, as signed by him on November 17, and witnessed by Sir William Waad, Sir Edward