Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/46

32 to the catholic account—led to the rack himself, and in its presence was brought to admit that he had received no knowledge of the plot except under the seal of confession, which to a catholic priest was inviolable. But according to the government account—which, after the perfidious means used to obtain the knowledge, is deserving of very little credence—he confessed that he had received a general knowledge of it from Greenway; but both in that case and when it was recounted in confession by Catesby, had done all in his power to discourage and put an end to it. It was charged upon him that he had given Catesby an assurance that it was lawful in certain cases to destroy the innocent with the guilty: but he explained that this had in his mind no reference to the gunpowder plot, but had been in answer to a question put by Catesby in reference to his serving in the Netherlands.

At this stage of the proceedings Oldcorne, a priest of the name of Strange, and Mr. Abingdon were sent down to Hendlip to be tried, where both the priests and some other of the minor conspirators were condemned and executed; but Abingdon received a pardon through the intercession of his brother-in-law, lord Mounteagle.

Garnet was put upon his trial before a special commission in Guildhall on the 28th of March. The interest attached to this trial was evidenced by the numerous crowd which flocked to it. All the members of parliament were present, with the king himself placed in one retired corner, and Arabella Stuart in another. Coke, the attorney-general, exerted himself to the utmost to damage the catholics as well as the prisoner in public opinion. For this purpose he had raked together all the conspiracies which had been attributed to that body since the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth. He drew an alarming picture of the pretensions of the papal court for the subtle policy and habitual equivocation of the Jesuits, and described them and the missionaries as the agents of a grand scheme for the destruction of the king and all the heads of the protestant party. He made great boasts that he would prove the prisoner at the bar to be the original author of the plot and the confidential adviser of the conspirators; but when he came to his proofs, there he miserably failed. There was no evidence but such as had been drawn from the forced depositions of the conspirators themselves, and the incautious admissions of Garnet and Oldcorne in the hearing of the spies in the Tower. So far as the depositions went, they were in direct contradiction to these assertions; and the conversations of the two Jesuits, if faithfully reported, only proved Garnet to have been aware of the plot, and in no case to have originated or encouraged it.

Garnet defended himself with a suavity and ability which charmed even so prejudiced and reluctant an audience. He admitted precisely what he had admitted on his last examinations, and nothing more. Nothing could exceed the temper which he displayed under the most provoking and continual interruptions from the attorney-general and the commissioners on the bench. So harassing and unfair were these, that James himself declared that Garnet had a great right to complain. A verdict of guilty was pronounced against him, with the sentence of hanging, drawing, and quartering.

But though Garnet was condemned, from some cause or other he was not led to execution for more than six weeks after his trial. Either it was deemed that the evidence against him was not sufficient to justify his death, or, possibly, that more proofs of the real extent and ramifications of the plot might be drawn from him. Some such reasons created the delay, for though under sentence of death he was still subjected to harassing examinations, and fresh stratagems and falsehoods were employed to suprise him into disclosures. He was now told that Greenway was a prisoner in the Tower, though he really was safe on the Continent, and that five hundred catholics, shocked at his guilt in the plot, had turned protestants. Under the agony of mind which these statements produced, he was permitted to write to the supposed prisoner Greenway, and to Mrs. Vaux, a real prisoner, in explanation; but out of these letters they obtained nothing further. Garnet at the same time wrote also to the king, declaring his ignorance of any plot of gunpowder. They then pretended that Greenway had asserted that what he told Garnet of the plot was not under seal of confession. These tricks, though they tortured the prisoner, did not advance the objects of his persecutors, for he protested that by the laws of England no man was bound to criminate himself, and that if unduly pressed, a prisoner was less blamable for equivocating than were his powerful oppressors who violated the law in order to condemn him. And truly, however much the Jesuit might prevaricate under these inquisitorial and un-English proceedings, he had far more excuse than the government, which sought its ends by spies, the most despicable falsehoods, and by stripping his admissions, in charging the jury, of all qualifying circumstances, which, says Jardine, truly "was a forgery of evidence. For when a qualified statement is made, the suppression of the qualification is no less a forgery than if the whole statement had been falsicated." Garnet was executed on the 3rd of May, and Cecil was honoured with the garter for his diligence in tracing out the plot, and bringing the traitors to justice.

Though the catholics had shown such a decided aversion to the plot, they were not allowed to escape without further punishment. The lords Montague, Stourton, and Mordaunt, being persons mentioned in the depositions of the conspirators as persons who were to be warned, they were arrested, along with the earl of Northumberland, who was suspected, on account of his relationship to Percy. They were brought into the star-chamber, and though nothing could be proved against them they were condemned to be fined—Stourton six thousand pounds, Mordaunt ten thousand pounds, and Montague considerably more. Against Northumberland the proceedings were especially severe. He had long been a decided antagonist of Cecil's, and the opportunity was too tempting to that cold-blooded statesman to be omitted; besides, it was suspected by the government that it was to him that the conspirators proposed to offer the protectorship if they had succeeded. His conduct in the Tower displayed so much spirit and independence, that it greatly alarmed the timid soul of James. He demanded to be brought to a public and legal trial, and dared them to prove him guilty of any treasonable act. After a seven months delay, they preferred arraigning him in the star-chamber, on the charges that he sought to make himself the head of the papists, and to procure toleration, the latter an honour to him to all posterity, could they have proved it; that he had admitted Percy to be a gentleman-pensioner without tendering him the oath of supremacy, to which were added the frivolous accusations, that after his arrest he