Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/284

254 after they had just taken the formal oath of the plotters in his presence, and with his approval. As a matter of fact, they had taken the oath privately by themselves, and had then entered another room to hear a priest (who happened to be Gerard) say Mass. Again, it was absurdly said that he had worked with the conspirators when they were digging their mine beneath the Parliament House.

Father John Gerard has been held by some to have been the author of the Treatise on Equivocation, found in Francis Tresham's desk and produced at Garnet's trial. Absolute proof in favour of this theory is, however, wanting.