Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/9

Rh death—is a matter upon which sufficient light has been shed to enable us, at last, to form an accurate opinion of his conduct. That he was no martyr to the secrecy of the confessional is evident, for it can be shown that he was well aware of the proceedings of the conspirators from sources of information frequently given to him outside the confessional box. Father Garnet's personal character, too, has clearly been overrated by Jesuit writers; and it seems almost incredible that an audacious attempt should have been made to have such a man 'beatified' at Rome.

But Father Henry Garnet's policy, bad though it was, does not merit such severe criticism as that which has been correctly bestowed upon the conduct of his colleague, Father Oswald Greenway. This Jesuit not only knew of the plans of the conspirators, both in and out of the confessional, but actually approved of their proceedings to such an extent that when they were engaged in open rebellion, only two days after the failure of the Plot, he rode over several miles across country to say Mass for them, and afterwards went on a mission to get other Romanists in the neighbourhood to join them. This treasonable act on his part is described by himself, in his account of the Plot, in a manner which is so thoroughly characteristic of the policy of the Jesuit writers to suppress the true story of the parts played by Fathers Garnet and Greenway in Robert Catesby's, and