The crying want of the present day——as of Oldcorne’s day——is not only for men but for men who are statesmen. And no man can be a statesman unless he has a wide and profound knowledge of human nature, and who, while he pities human nature and loves it, never makes the mistake of expecting too much from it. In other words, we require men who are humanists and humorists, as I cannot but think was the character of Edward Oldcorne. Now, no man in England knew better nor recognised more fully (for he knew the virtually omnipotent transforming power of the precedent conditions of person, time, and circumstance) the truth of the propositions I have just enunciated than did Father Oldcorne. But this notwithstanding, I hold it was _not_ the truth of the foregoing propositions ALONE——indisputable doubtless as he regarded them——that finally controlled the motives that ruled the action——in substance and in form——at the most critical moment of the existence of this acute, disciplined, high-minded Yorkshireman, when by Fate he was called upon to contemplate, _after the fateful November the Fifth_, the bloody, prodigious Gunpowder Plot, and the mighty feat which Destiny had imposed upon him for helping to spin the same right round on its axis, even though well-nigh at the eleventh hour.[59] What finally controlled the motives, the positive _not_ negative motives, that ruled that beneficent and never-to-be-forgotten action of this Yorkshire Priest and Jesuit in that supreme moment——the Plot having then become, through his instrumentality, as a mere bubble-burst——will be discovered in due course of this Inquiry. The remark of Mrs. Rookwood to which I have referred is given in Gerard’s “_Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_,” p. 219. Thomas Winter, Rookwood, Keyes, and Fawkes were drawn on their hurdles from the Tower to the Yard of the old Palace of Westminster over against the Parliament House. “As they were drawn upon the Strand, Mr. Rookwood had provided that he should be admonished when he came over against the lodging where his wife lay: and being come unto the place, he opened his eyes (which before he kept shut to attend better to his prayers), and seeing her stand in a window to see him pass by, he raised himself as well as he could up from the hurdle, and said aloud unto her: ‘Pray for me, pray for me,’ She answered him also aloud: ‘I will; and be of good courage and offer thyself wholly to God. I for my part do as freely restore thee to God as he gave thee to me,’” This was Friday, the 31st day of January, 1605-6. On the previous day in St. Paul’s Churchyard had been likewise hanged, cut down alive, drawn, and quartered, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates. Catesby, John Wright, and Christopher Wright had been slain at Holbeach on the 8th of November previously. Thomas Percy died of wounds there received the next day.