Various attempts have been made to shift the odium of the conspiracy from the church of Rome, and also from any members of that church. Some Roman Catholic writers have not scrupled to say, that the whole was a trick of Cecil’s, and that King James was privy to the design, which was entered upon by the court, for the purpose of rendering the Romanists odious, and to pave the way for more stringent laws against recusants. The assertion that the whole plot was a trick of Cecil’s, intended to render the Romanists odious to their countrymen, was not advanced till sixty years after the event. No one at the time questioned the reality of the conspiracy. The confessions of the parties, and the secret letters of Sir Everard Digby, preclude the possibility of even entertaining such an absurd notion. Not one of the conspirators complained of being deceived into the plot, either at his trial or execution; nor did any of their apologists deny the fact of the treason. The assertion was worthy of that church from whom it proceeded. Mr. Hallam, a most unexceptionable witness, thus argues on this point: “But to deny that there was such a plot, or, which is the same thing, to throw the whole on the contrivance and management of Cecil, as has sometimes been done, argues great effrontery in those who lead, and great stupidity in those who follow. The letter to Monteagle, the discovery of the powder, the simultaneous rising in arms in Warwickshire,—are as indisputable as any facts in history. What, then, had Cecil to do with the plot, except that he hit upon the clue to the dark allusions in the letter to Monteagle, of which he was courtier enough to let the king take the credit? James’s admirers have always reckoned this, as he did himself, a vast proof of sagacity: yet there seems no great acuteness in the discovery, even if it had been his own. He might have recollected the circumstances of his father’s catastrophe, which would naturally put him on the scent of gunpowder[13].” [Footnote 13: HALLAM’S _Const. Hist._, i. 555.] In recent times, however, it has been the policy of Roman Catholic writers to represent the conspiracy as the act of a few desperate characters. Desperate, indeed, they were; yet they were not men of desperate fortunes; nor had they suffered under the execution of the laws; but the sole principle that influenced them was one of religion. They were willing to risk all for the sake of promoting the interests of the church of Rome. It will also be seen hereafter that the pope, and some papal sovereigns, approved of the deed.