Any attempt to prove the iniquity of Catesby's conspiracy is so unnecessary that I will not waste time in offering one. I have only to endeavour to imagine the condition of mind in which he and his friends were able to look upon it with approval, and the arguments they may have used in its favour. Next to passages and precedents from Scripture in support of his diabolical scheme, Catesby would be well aware that its approval by authorities of the Church, and especially by Fathers of the Society of Jesus, would have most influence with his friend Sir Everard. To the surprise of the latter, he informed him that he had laid the matter before the Provincial of the Society, and had obtained his consent to the scheme. He admitted that the Jesuits were not fully aware of all the particulars; it was not intended to put them to the dangers of responsibility for the deed itself, or anything connected with it; already their very priesthood was high treason, and the last thing that Catesby and his friends desired was to add to their perils; but their approval of the design in general was of such importance that neither Catesby himself, nor any of those admitted into the secret, would have acted without it, and this Catesby declared he had obtained. Upon a zealous convert, like Sir Everard Digby, such an assurance would exercise a great influence. Nor was it only of sacerdotal approval that Catesby boasted; he was able to add that he had obtained the consent, as well as the assistance, of John Wright, a Catholic layman and a Yorkshire squire; of Sir Everard's own friend, Thomas Winter; of his eldest brother, Robert Winter,[156] "an earnest Catholic," at whose house the pilgrims to St Winefride's Well had stayed for a night on their way thither; of Ambrose Rookwood, a Catholic,[157] "ever very devout," who had actually been one of the pilgrims; of John Grant,[158] "a zealous Roman Catholic," who, like his brother-in-law, Robert Winter, had entertained the St Winifride's pilgrims for a night in his walled and moated house, and of Thomas Percy, a relative of the Earl of Northumberland's, and a very recent and earnest convert to the Church. [156] _Narrative_, G. P., Gerard, p. 71. [157] _Ib._, p. 85. [158] Jardine's _Gunpowder Plot_, p. 52. CHAPTER VII.