While the body was quartered by the executioner, some drops of blood fell upon the straw with which the scaffold was strewed. A man of the name of Wilkinson, who was present, was anxious to preserve some relic of the deceased, and therefore carried home with him some of the straws sprinkled with Garnet’s blood. These relics were committed to the care of a woman, who preserved them under a glass case. Wilkinson had come over from St. Omer’s on purpose to be present at the execution. It was reported, that the straws which had been carried away by Wilkinson leaped up from the scaffold, or from the basket in which the dissevered head was deposited, upon his person. Some weeks after, on examining the straws, the parties pretended, that they discovered a likeness of Garnet on one of the husks which contained the grain. Wilkinson and several other persons asserted that they perceived a likeness. The matter was soon noised abroad, and the Romanists proclaimed that a miracle had been wrought. It was thought necessary to institute an examination into the matter; and accordingly several witnesses gave their evidence before the archbishop of Canterbury. Some persons had reported, that the head on the ear of corn was surrounded with _glory_, or with streaming rays; but Griffith, the husband of the woman who had preserved the straw, declared, before the archbishop, that he discovered nothing of the sort, and that the face was no more like Garnet’s than that of any other man who had a beard. Another witness deposed, that he believed that a good artisan could have drawn a better likeness. The matter, however, was not permitted to be forgotten; and at Rome a print of the straw was published and publicly exhibited. Some months afterwards Garnet was declared to be a martyr by the pope; in which light he is still regarded by Romanists. The miracle was undoubtedly intended to afford the pope an excuse for his _beatification_, which is the lowest degree of celestial dignity. “This he did,” says Fuller, “to qualify the infamy of Garnet’s death, and that the perfume of this new title might outscent the stench of his treason.” The Romanists of that day made the most of this miracle. In a work published soon after, entitled, _The True Christian Catholic_, it is boldly asserted that the sight of Garnet’s straw caused at least five hundred persons to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. The miracle was published in all the Romanist states; but in England, it was said, that the man who had been educated at Rome, and commissioned to enter into a conspiracy against his native country, deserved to be pictured in blood.