Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/34

20 and distress of his subjects, was very comfortably and unconcernedly pursuing his great pastime of hunting. The crowds of courtiers and expectants which flocked to the neighbourhood of his sporting sojourn, were such as to eat up all the resources of those districts, and create distress of another kind, for the visits of royal purveyors were neither pleasant nor profitable. The archbishop of York, whilst writing to Cecil praying for a more vigorous prosecution of the catholics, ventured to entreat him to advise the king "against the wasting of the treasure of the realm, and for more moderation in the lawful exercise of hunting, both that poor men's corn may be less spoiled, and other his majesty's subjects more spared."

Cecil, with the tact of a courtier, replied to the archbishop before mentioning it to the king, letting him know that his majesty, amid his amusement, did not neglect the due chastisement of recusants; and that as to his hunting, it was a manly exercise, and ought to be a joy to him to behold the king so able of constitution, promising long life and a plentiful posterity. This answer he then laid before James, who was duly delighted with it, telling Cecil that he had "payed" the archbishop soundly, against whom he was extremely incensed for his plain suggestion as to the wasting of the treasure and excess in hunting, declaring it the most foolish letter that he ever read. He announced to Cecil that he meant to proceed from Royston, where he then was, to Newmarket, to hunt, and thence to Thetford. But other subjects were as foolish as the archbishop. The people of Royston caught a favourite hound of the king's, and put a label round his neck, saying, "Pray, good Mr. Jowler, speak to the king, for he heareth you every day, and so doth he not us, and entreat that it will please his majesty to go back to London, or else the country will be undone; all our provision is spent already, and we are not able to entertain him longer." The puritans also, who were expelled from their livings, continually presented themselves amid his hunting with petitions, and as these were disregarded, their friends proceeded to diffuse their complaints through the press. On the printers and publishers of these papers James let loose Cecil, whom he designated his "little beagle."

From hunting James was called on to perform a task equally congenial to his disposition. This was to decide on what would now be at once recognised as a case of mesmeric clairvoyance. One Richard Haddock, of New College, Oxford, who practised medicine there, and was equally ignorant of Latin and Greek, as well as of divinity, had fallen into the habit of preaching in his sleep, during which he not only astonished his hearers by the depth and eloquence of his discourses, but by his accurate quotations of the learned languages. When awake, which is almost invariably the case with clairvoyants, he knew nothing of what he had said or done in his sleep, and could not pronounce a word of the classical tongues. The man was sent for to court, and first heard in his sleep and then examined by the king, who dealt with him in his usual way of imagined shrewdness, till he had satisfied himself that the man had assumed this peculiarity to attract attention, and badgered and cross-questioned the poor man till he prevailed on him to confess that this was so. The king's profundity, however, did not attempt to solve the mystery of a man's speaking Greek and Latin who knew none; and it is probable that with his subtle questionings, he mingled more persuasive premises, for he sent the man back to Oxford, and soon after gave him preferment in the church, a singular mode, certainly, of punishing religious imposture.

From sleeping preachers, however, James was very soon called to the proceedings of men who were wide awake. The catholics, smarting under their renewed persecutions, felt it useless to remonstrate like the puritans, for both the church party and nonconformists were against them. They, therefore, as a body, brooded in silence over their sufferings; but there were amongst the oppressed spirits those who could not thus endure in patience, but planned a desperate revenge. Amongst these was Robert Catesby, the descendant of an ancient catholic family, seated for centuries at Ashby St. Legers, in Northamptonshire, and also possessing considerable property in Warwickshire. Catesby's father had been a great sufferer for recusancy, having several times been imprisoned, in addition to the plundering of his substance. In his youth the younger Catesby, who was wild and extravagant, was not disposed to sacrifice his jollity for the maintenance of a persecuted faith. He embraced protestantism, but in 1598 he returned to his original belief, and feeling the bitter force of persecution, he became stimulated to an active hatred of the government. He joined the insurrection of Essex on condition that he should enjoy full religious freedom; and escaping the fate of his leader by the forfeiture of three thousand pounds, he then secretly joined himself to the Spanish party amongst the catholics, in order to prevent the succession of the Scottish prince. This hope being defeated, and the catholics not only seeing James prepared to falsify his promises of catholic indulgence, but all the heads of the catholic world abroad—the kings of France and Spain, and the pope himself—seeking the friendship of James, Catesby conceived the gloomy idea that deliverance could only proceed from the English catholics themselves. In following out this desperate idea, he gradually evolved a scheme of vengeance and annihilation of all the persecutors of his faith—the king, the lords, and the commons together—which would have enraptured Nero, and struck the modern world on its discovery with an appalling consternation. This was no other than to blow up the king and parliament with gunpowder.

The idea was not original, for it is stated in a letter by Persons, in Butler's Historical Memoirs, that "There be recounted in histories many attempts of the same kynds, and some also by protestants in our dayes; as that of men who at Antwerp placed a whole barrel of powder in the great street of that city, where the prince of Parma with his nobility was to passe; and of him in the Hague, that would have blown up the whole council of Hollande upon private revenge." But if it was not the first design of the kind, it certainly was second to none in its daring and wholesale atrocity.

Catesby first made a confidant in his terrible project of Thomas Winter, the younger brother of Robert Winter, of Huddington, in Worcestershire. Winter was the intimate friend of Catesby, and had been long associated with him in his plans for the relief of the catholics. He had been a volunteer in the wars of the Netherlands, and then was sent to Madrid as the secret agent of the Spanish party in England, amongst whom his friend Catesby was an active partisan. But familiar as Winter was with the sufferings and projects of the catholics, this bloody revelation struck him with horror, and he denounced it vehemently as most