I am indebted for my copy to the work entitled, “_A True Account of the Gunpowder Plot_,” by “Vindicator” (Dolman), 1851——taken from Tierney’s Edition of “_Dodd’s Church History_.” The Claude referred to in the _post scriptum_ is Father Claude Aquaviva, the then General of the Jesuits, who lived in Rome. (Irish Catholics will not fail to notice the interest this afflicted, much-tried Englishman took in their case on the 21st October, 1605.) Father Gerard says in his “_Narrative of the Plot_,” p. 269: “Father Oldcorne his indictment was so framed that one might see they much desired to have withdrawn him within the compass of some participation in this late Treason; to which effect they first did seem to suppose it as likely that he should send letters up and down to prepare men’s minds for the insurrection.” Again; respecting Ralph Ashley, the Jesuit lay-brother and servant of Father Oldcorne, Gerard says, on p. 271: “Ralph was also indicted and condemned upon supposition that he had carried letters to and fro about this conspiracy.” _Now, my deliberate conjectures are these: That Edward Oldcorne had indeed sent “Letters” which his servant Ralph Ashley had carried concerning “this conspiracy.” That one of those Letters was sent and carried to Henry Garnet. And another to William Parker fourth Lord Mounteagle._ On the 12th of March, 1605-6, Father Garnet, when a prisoner in the Tower of London, before the Lord Chief Justice Popham, Sir Edward Coke, Sir William Waade (Lieutenant of the Tower), and John Corbett, “confessed that Father Parsons wrote to him certain letters last summer [_i.e._, 1605] _which he received about Michaelmas last_, wherein he requested this examinat to advertise him what plotts the Catholiques of England had then in hand; _whereunto for that this examinat was on his journey he made no answere_.” Yea, indeed, this was a part of the truth, no doubt. _But the remainder of the truth, I suggest, was that the Plot of Plots Garnet had learned, a few days after the aforesaid Michaelmas, was being assuredly squashed by Edward Oldcorne._ Poor Henry Garnet, a sorry, pathetic figure in the history of his Country, surely. Yet, because _much_ was lost, he knew that it did not therefore follow that _all_ was lost. For this gifted, distraught, erring man still held “something sacred, something undefiled, some _pledge_ and keepsake of his better nature.” _That something was his point of honour as a Priest of the Catholic Church._[A] [Footnote A: How many a gallant soldier and sailor in our own day, young and old, has been sustained in life and death by the consoling _infinite thought of fidelity to the commands of a lawful superior_; by the comforting _transcendental thought of duty done_! _Cf._, Frederic Denison Maurice’s fine passage on the inspiring and ennobling idea of Duty, in his “_Lectures on the Epistles of St. John_ (Macmillan); also Wordsworth’s magnificent “Ode to Duty.”]