 "...he
had never in his life met the like man to Mr. Garnet
either for modesty, wisdom, or learning," wrote Sir Henry Bromley of the
prisoner Garnet.
But Father Garnet
was not wise enough. He and one other priest had know all along of the
Gunpowder Plot. They knew those responsible intimately. Instead of telling
the government and the king at once, they chose to ask Rome what they should
do in the event that they knew that violent action involving the murder
of all in Parliament, the King and his family was being contemplated. The
state could not in any way think well of this.
After his stay
at Holt Castle with Bromley was complete, Garnet
left to London with Thomas Abingdon, Father Hall, Ashley and Little John
Owen. It took them three days to reach London. Garnet
was still suffering from his hiding. The Priests were taken to the Gatehouse
while the other prisoners were put into Marshalsea prison.
After three or
four days Garnet
was examined by members of the Privy Council who were polite. They were
impressed with the man and his knowledge. One of the council said, "He
could not be misliked but for matter of doctrine only. As for the Powder
he was clear of it." Cecil,
on the other hand, had other evidence and set out to demonstrate guilt.
Garnet
was brought before the entire Privy council on February 13. A courteous
meeting but the pressure was mounting. Technical aspects of religious doctrine
were discussed. The Council was also interested in the names of others
who might have been involved. Garnet
was moved from the Gatehouse to the Tower the next day. He mentioned in
his writings the courteous treatment he received. Cecil
was working to catch Garnet
off guard.
Cecil
assigned a keeper to Garnet
with instructions to pretend to be interested in becoming Catholic. At
first Garnet
was suspicious but then accepted the planted spy. Luxuries were permitted.
He could buy wine and send letters to Catholics on the outside asking for
clothing and spectacles. But using the messenger to carry letters he placed
himself into a trap.
He wrote to his
nephew Thomas Garnet,
also a Jesuit being held in the tower, and to Anne Vaux,
who would relay any cryptic or secret messages which he might be able to
include in the letters to the Jesuit society or other Catholics. Unknown
to the priest, the letters were opened and read. A skilled forger, Thomas
Phelippes, himself a prisoner in the Tower, copied them and passed them
on minus secret messages and encoded lines. There were such secret messages
included written in orange juice as well as encoded lines.
Cecil
found as a result that Anne Vaux should be
brought in. She was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower around March 11
and stayed there till the following August. But she did not give in and
gave not one word. She had after all signed a letter to Garnet
"your loving sister", which prompted Cecil
to call Garnet
"Senex Fornicarius," for which he apologized. Still there are questions
though about the relationship. It was extremely close and dangerous.
Working on Garnet,
Cecil
made it possible for Hall to be transferred into adjoining cells where
they could speak with each other through a small opening in the wall. The
two priests heard each others confession. Then they compared notes on their
interrogations by the Council. The conversations provided the essential
information required for conviction. They discussed Tesimond
and the knowledge of the plot that he had given Garnet
in confession. Through the opening in the wall a small cavity also lead
to a chamber where two scribes had been stationed to take down every word.
Garnet
was again brought before the council, this time having been purposely deprived
of sleep and perhaps drugged. He could not talk for thirst. He was given
two glasses of beer, fell asleep and was let to rest but was little better.
He was in a befuddled state. However, he revealed nothing. He was confronted
with the partial knowledge that was gained from the listeners. They knew
he was guilty but not from whom he received the information.
Tesimond
had reached freedom and Garnet
knew of this through the grapevine. Tesimond
had gone directly to the hive of activity to escape. He had realized that
the plot was done for and immediately rode to London. He was in fact reading
a proclamation for his own arrest in a London street when one of the crowd
recognized him. They took him to a dark alley where he escaped, crossing
to France from Dover with a cargo of pigs.
The seal of the
confessional no longer applied. Catesby
had lifted it by writing openly to Garnet
at Coughton and the plot was no longer secret. Garnet
was tricked and knew it. He knew that torture would continue. He decided
that through confession there might come mercy so agreed to confess. He
declared on the 8th of March to the Council that he had knowledge of the
plot beforehand but was under the seal of the confessional. He stated that
the knowledge had come from Tesimond.
Cecil
then lied to Garnet
stating that Tesimond had actually been
captured and was a prisoner in the Tower and that he denied that Garnet's
knowledge had come under the seal. Garnet
was stunned.
"It may be that
he meant not so but I stand to it as the truth is that I took it so, both
because he offered confession and a few days after came to confession."
A letter Garnet
wrote to Tesimond, who he believed to
be in the Tower, came into the possession of Cecil
and was found in his papers. He was concerned about Tesimond's
fate but also underlines the fact that no other knowledge came to him outside
the seal.
Nicholas Little
John Owen was also in the prison and was also now the subject of torture.
He was a cripple with a rupture having injured himself in his priest hole
construction activities. Being hanged from the manacles or Topcliffes rack
would surely be extremely painful for him. Little John's information was
also very important in regard to priest holes as well as to the individuals
involved, if only they could make him talk.
Little John was
tortured to such an extent that his bowels were forced out, then later
reinforced with an iron plate which cut him. The torture continued until
it is said that he cut himself and died in the process.
He took his secrets
with him.
James Johnson,
alias John Grissold, was also tortured concerning the Vaux-Garnet
connection as he was caretaker at White Webbs. He did under torture list
the visits of Garnet
and the others to this Catholic "safe House". Johnson was released but
still afterwards was followed closely by the government.
Father Hall,
with no direct knowledge in advance of the plot, was guilty of helping
those involved. He too was tortured extensively. He had nothing new to
tell of the plot. He was taken to Worcester with Abingdon, John
Winter and Ralph Ashley.
On the 7th day
of April 1606 Hall was hanged drawn and quartered at Red Hill, a mile outside
Worcester. As was Ashley, young John Winter and Humphrey Littleton. Thomas
Abingdon, as the brother in law of Lord Mounteagle,
was given preferential treatment. After the execution of the others he
was released but was forbidden for life to leave Worcestershire. He lived
out his days doing antiquarian research.
At eight in the
morning on Friday March 28, a coach rolls out of the Tower towards Guildhall
in the City of London. Sir William Wade and another knight were accompanying
a prisoner. The coach had its curtains tightly drawn. Henry Garnet,
Superior of the English Society of Jesus, was going to trial.
Henry Garnet
, alias Walley alias Farmer alias Darcy, "had conspired with Robert Catesby
to withdraw the hearts of the subjects from their due obedience to God
and their King and to deprive the King of his crown, to kill him and the
Prince and to slaughter the whole Parliament assembled to raise rebellion
to change religion, to ruin the commonwealth and to bring in strangers...."
To this Garnet
plead not guilty, even though he had early knowledge of it all via Tesimond
through Catesby.
When Francis
Tresham
was arrested a book was found: A Treatise of Equivocation. Margin notes
in the book were in Garnets
hand. No mention was made however that also in Garnets
hand was a re-working of the title to read "A Treatise against Lying and
Fraudulent Dissimulation." Coke
used the work however to demonstrate that the philosophy of Equivocation
demonstrated that Jesuits used lying to further their cause.
Garnet
even made his way as an Equivocator into Shakespeare's Macbeth. Act II,
Scene 1, as his Alias "Farmer:
Enter a Porter Knocking within.
Porter: Here's
a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old
turning the key (knocking) Knock knock,knock. Who's there in the name of
Beelzebub. Here's a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty
come in time have napkins now about you here you'll sweat fort (knocking)
Knock,knock!Whos there i the other devils name? Faith here's an equivocator
that could swear in both the scales against other scale who committed treason
enough for Gods sake yet could not equivocate to heaven, O come in equivocator.
Garnet
was condemned before he was tried. His sub sigillo defense was brushed
away as equivocation. His appeal to the Papal Nuncio was brought up. The
direct link and consultation with the pope on the matter did not help his
case. The King was heard, on his way from the proceedings, to have even
criticized the trial.
The sentence
of death was given on February 28 but was not immediately carried out.
Garnet
went from the trial where he learned about the death of Hall, whom he hoped
was in glory. Despite being examined twenty three times, Garnet
was kept in the Tower for another month with the hope that others in the
underground Catholic movement could be implicated.
Finally the date
was set. It was to be the 3rd of May that this brave man was to be executed.
To his cook on the way out, Garnet
said, "Farewell good friend Tom. This day I will save thee a labour to
provide my dinner." He was hauled as the others head downwards on a hurdle
drawn by horses. He went to the scaffold on the west side of St. Paul's
churchyard. Even standing room on a wall sold for a shilling, a weeks wage.
The place was packed wall to wall. All windows were full as were the tops
of houses. There was nothing so well attended in living memory.
The Deans of
St. Pauls and Winchester, Dr. John Overall and Dr. George Abbot Overall
said, "Mr. Garnet,
I am sent unto you from His Majesty to will you that now being in the last
hour of your mortal life, you will perform the duty of a true subject to
which you are obliged by the laws of God and nature and therefore to disclose
such treasons as you know intended towards His Majesty danger and the commonwealth."
Garnet
answered, " Mr. Dean, it may please you to tell His Majesty that I have
been arraigned and what could be laid to my charge I have there answered
and said as much as I could so that in this place I have no more to say."
The Dean then
tried to persuade him to change his religion. Garnet
cut them off saying not to trouble themselves nor him on this issue. He
was prepared and was resolved.
Mounting the
scaffold, he was met by a group of officials, the Sheriffs of London, the
Recorder and other officials. He asked if there was some place he could
pray. The recorder said to him "that he and others were there by order
from his Majesty to bring him to remembrance of his treason and that he
should acknowledge he was justly condemned and ask the king's forgiveness."
Garnet
replied that he was not guilty of treason but "as far as his concealing
of the treason did any ways offend his Majesty or the state he did ask
them forgiveness with all his heart."
The recorder
then stated: "Do you hear, gentlemen? He asketh the king forgiveness for
the Powder Treason." This scene seems to reflect the unease that the state
had even after all of the trial and conviction of its case.
Garnet
however spoiled it for them. He said, "You do me wrong ... for I have no
cause to ask forgiveness for that whereof I was never guilty nor was privy
to it in such sort that it may justly be imputed to me for concealing it."
The Recorder
then noted that there was proof in Garnet's
own hand that he heard of the plot outside of confession.
Garnet
replied, "What is under my hand I will not deny but you shall never show
my hand contrary to what I have spoken."
The Recorder
responded, " You do but equivocate and if you will deny it after your death,
we will publish your own hand that the world may see your false dealing."
Garnet
replied, "This is no time to talk of equivocation neither do I equivocate
But in truth you shall not find my hand otherwise than I have said."
The recorder
turned to an assistant and said, "Let him see his own handwriting."
Garnet
replied, "You cannot show me any such writing of my hand."
They could in
fact not do this. The man who was to have had the note had left it behind
at home. At that point "divers of the standers by laughed in their sleeves."
That day was
May the 3rd, the Feast of the Holy Cross. He was asked if there was anything
he had to say.
"This day," he
said, "I thank God I have found my cross by which I hope to end all the
crosses of my life. I am sorry with all my heart that any Catholics had
ever any such intention knowing that such attempts are not allowable and
to my own knowledge contrary to the Popes mind and therefore I wish all
Catholics to be quiet and not to be moved by any difficulties to the raising
of tumults but to possess their souls in peace."
Then someone
in the crowd yells out, "Were you not married to mistress Anne Vaux?"
Garnet
then defended her, "She is a Virtuous good gentlewoman and therefore to
impute nay such thing unto her cannot proceed but of malice."
He was given
a few minutes for prayer and then signaled the hangman. He was cast off
the ladder, not being bound and not making any struggle with death. Due
to intercession of the crowd, he was allowed to hang until dead before
being cut down for quartering and burning.
So ends this part of our story. Next comes the miracle
of the straw and the end of the story.
End Of Part 5 Click Here
for Part 6
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The
Plot, Part 5
