The Jesuits, 1534-1921: A History of the Society of Jesus from Its Foundation to the Present TimeCampbell, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph)
History
The Jesuits, 1534-1921: A History of the Society of Jesus from Its Foundation to the Present Time
Campbell, Thomas J. (Thomas Joseph)
Jesuits -- History
letters were shown to Catesby, but he protested that they were written
on wrong information, and he volunteered to send a special messenger to
Rome to put before the authorities there the true state of things. This
promise satisfied Garnet, and he felt sure the matter was disposed of,
at least, for a time.
This was on May 8, 1605. On October 26, Catesby went to confession to
Father Greenwell, or Greenway, or Texmunde, or Tessimond, a Yorkshire
man, and revealed the whole plot. Greenwell showed his horror at the
proposition and forbade him to entertain it, but Catesby refused to be
convinced, and asked him to state the case to Garnet, under seal of
confession, with leave to speak of it to others, after the matter, had
become public. This will explain how the fact of the confession came out
in the trial. Unfortunately, Greenwell was foolish enough to communicate
it to Garnet under seal of confession. He was bitterly reproved for
doing so, but it was too late; had he kept it to himself, Garnet would
not have died on the scaffold. On November 5 after midnight, the plot
was discovered, and Guy Fawkes, who was guarding the powder in the
cellar of the building where Parliament was to meet, was seized, and
acknowledged that the thirty-five barrels of powder which had been
placed there were "to blow the Scottish beggars back to their native
mountains"--an utterance that won from the king the expression: "Fawkes
is the English Scævola." The other conspirators had time to flee, but
were caught on November 8, at Holbeach House. They made a brief stand,
but in the fight four were killed, among them Catesby. The others, with
the exception of Littleton, who, it would seem, had betrayed them,
purposely or otherwise, were taken prisoners and lodged in the Tower.
"More than two months intervened," says Lingard, "between the
apprehension and the trial of the conspirators. The ministers had
persuaded themselves, or wished to persuade others, that the Jesuit
missionaries were deeply implicated in the plot. On this account the
prisoners were subjected to repeated examinations; every artifice which
ingenuity could devise, both promises and threats, the sight of the
rack, and occasionally the infliction of torture were employed to draw
from them some avowal which might furnish a ground for the charge; and
in a proclamation issued for the apprehension of Gerard, Garnet, and
Greenway, it was said to be plain and evident from the examinations that
all three had been peculiarly practisers in the plot, and therefore no
less pernicious than the actors and counsellors of the treason."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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