Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/27

Rh use of the Jesuit doctrine of 'mental reservation'—or, in plainer language, deliberate lying—reduced equivocation to a fine art. Moreover, Shakspeare seems to have been at work on Macbeth at about the time of Garnet's trial and execution. His colleague, Father Oswald Greenway, was principally known to his friends as 'Tesmond,' or 'Tesimond' although we find him often called 'Greenwell,' and sometimes 'Beaumont.'

From a review, therefore, of the circumstances as to how the plot was laid, it will be seen that the chief conspirators engaged in the Powder Treason were gentlemen by birth and education, were bigoted and maltreated members of the Roman Catholic faith, were nearly all men of wealth, were on terms of close acquaintance with the English priests of the Society of Jesus, and had been (for the most part) engaged in the Essex rebellion. They do not seem to have consorted, so far as we know, with the secular priests, the Jesuit's rivals, but associated constantly with Father Garnet and his colleagues. In the confessions of both Faukes and Winter, no name of any secular priest is mentioned, but the statement is recorded that (after the associates had taken 'a solemne oathe and vowe) they did receave the Sacrament of Gerrard the Jesuit. . . but he (Faukes) saith that Gerrard was not acquainted