What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original EvidenceGerard, John
History
What was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence
Gerard, John
Gunpowder Plot, 1605
But we have positive evidence upon this point. Father Greenway, who was
at the time in the Midlands, close to the scene of action, incidentally
mentions, without any reference to our present question,[311] that while
the rebels were in the field, messengers came post haste continually,
one after the other, from the capital, all bearing proclamations
mentioning Percy by name.
It must also be observed that though the couriers, we are told, could
not in three days get from London to Holbeche to hinder Percy's death,
they contrived to ride in one from Holbeche to London with news that he
was dead.[312]
Another circumstance not easy to explain is, that the man who killed
Percy and Catesby,[313] John Streete by name, received for his service
the handsome pension of two shillings a day for life, equal at least to
a pound of our present money.[314] This is certainly a large reward for
having done the very thing that the government most desired to avoid,
and for an action, moreover, involving no sort of personal risk, killing
two practically unarmed men from behind a tree.[315] If, however, he had
silenced a dangerous witness, it is easy to understand the munificence
of his recompense.
Against Catesby, likewise, there are serious indictments, and it seems
impossible to believe him to have been, as commonly represented, a man,
however blinded by fanaticism, yet honest in his bad enterprise, who
would not stoop to fraud or untruth. It is abundantly evident that on
many occasions he deliberately deceived his associates, and those whom
he called his spiritual guides, making promises which he did not mean to
keep, and giving assurances which he knew to be false.[316] It will be
sufficient to quote one or two examples quite sufficient to stamp him as
a man utterly unscrupulous about the means employed to gain his ends.
On the 5th of November, when, after the failure of the enterprise, he
arrived at Dunchurch, in Warwickshire, Catesby, in order to induce Sir
Everard Digby to commit himself to the hopeless campaign now to be
undertaken, assured him,[317] that though the powder was discovered, yet
the king and Salisbury were killed; all were in "a pother;" the
Catholics were sure to rise in a body, one family alone, the Littletons,
would bring in one thousand men the next day; and so on,--all this
being absolutely untrue. That he had previously employed similar means
on a large scale to inveigle his friends into his atrocious and
senseless scheme, there is much evidence, strongest of all that of
Father Garnet;[318] "I doubt not that Mr. Catesby hath feigned many such
things for to induce others."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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