It is to be lamented that Catesby, not content with giving an account of
the failure of the plot to Sir Everard Digby, added to it a lie. In his
examination,[271] Digby stated that Catesby "told him that now was the
time for men to stirre in the Catholick cause, for though the sayd Ro.
Katesbie had bin disappointed of his first intention, yet there was such
a pudder bredd in the State by _y{e} death of the King and the Earle of
Salisburie_, as if true Catholiques would now stirre, he doubted not but
they might procure to themselves good conditions. Wherefore by all the
bondes of frendshippe to him self and all which that cause might require
at this examt{s}. handes, he urged this exam{t}. to proceede in that
businesse as him self and all that companie would do, and as he had
great assurance all other Catholiques in those parts would do the like:
telling me that there were two gentlemen in the companie, naming the
Littletons, that would bring 1000 men the next day."
[271] S.P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi. No. 94.
The King and Lord Salisbury both killed, and a promise of a thousand men
from one family alone!
This was something to start with, even though the parliament had not
been destroyed; and in the general "pudder" that had been "bredd," the
Catholics might possibly succeed in obtaining good terms, if not the
reins of government. So was Sir Everard persuaded by Catesby, who was
not only a traitor to his country, but a deceiver of his friends.
The conspirators assumed that their names would be soon, if not already,
known to the Government, as Fawkes would almost certainly be tortured
until he revealed them; and, brave as he was, there was no saying
whether he would be able to withstand the temptations of putting an end
to his agonies on the rack by giving the names of his employers and
accomplices.
Besides all this, Catesby pretended that their case was by no means
hopeless. No Catholics were more discontented with the Government than
those in Wales and the English counties which bordered on it; few,
again, as a body, were more powerful. Let the party at Dunchurch,
therefore, start at once, said Catesby, with their servants and
retainers, ride through Warwickshire and Worcestershire into Wales,
rallying the Catholic gentry with their followers to their standard as
they went along; and, so soon as they should be in considerable numbers,
let them proclaim a general insurrection of the Catholics of England.
Were it once to be known that a Catholic army was established in the
West, others would certainly be raised in different parts of the
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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