It is obvious that the conclusion to be drawn from the above considerations is chiefly negative. That the conspirators embarked on a plot against the state, is, of course unquestionable. What was the precise nature of that plot is by no means clear, and still less what were the exact circumstances of its initiation and its collapse. This only appears to be certain, that things did not happen as they were officially related, while the elaborate care expended on the falsification of the story seems to indicate that the true version would not have served the purposes to which that story was actually put. FOOTNOTES: [332] _Criminal Trials_, ii. 235. Mr. Jardine is here speaking expressly of the trial of Father Garnet, as reported in the book, but evidently intends his observations to extend to that of the conspirators as well. [333] _Ibid._ 105. [334] _True and Perfect Relation_, Introduction. [335] _Criminal Trials_, ii. 113. [336] The contemporary, Hawarde (_Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata_) gives a report of the trial of the conspirators, under the curious title "_Al le arraignemente del Traitors por le grande treason of blowinge up the Parliamente Howse_," which, although evidently based upon the official account, differs in two remarkable particulars. In the first place it gives a different list of the commissioners by whom the trial was conducted, omitting Justice Warburton, and including instead, Lord Chief Baron Flemming, Justices Yelverton and Williams, and Baron Saville. Moreover, Hawarde says that the king and queen "were both there in pryvate," an important circumstance, of which the _True and Perfect Relation_ says nothing. [337] Viz., on January 30th and 31st: not January 31st and February 1st, as Mr. Gardiner has it. [338] Father Garnet clearly believed that this advantage was used unscrupulously against him, for when certain evidence attributed to Bates was cited, he replied that "Bates was a dead man," and would testify otherwise if he were alive. (Brit. Mus. MSS. Add. 21203. _Foley's Records_, iv. p. 188.) [339] It is frequently said that the search at Hendlip was undertaken not for Garnet but for Oldcorne, whose presence there was known by the confession of Humphrey Littleton. But this confession was made several days after the search had been begun, and the directions for it given by Cecil to the sheriff, Sir H. Bromley, clearly indicate that he had in view some capture of prime importance. (See Gardiner's _History_, i. 271, and Brit. Mus. MSS. Add. 6178, f. 693.) [340] Viz.: Nottingham, Suffolk, Worcester, Devonshire, Northampton, Salisbury, Marr, Dunbar, Popham, Coke, and Waad. [341] In the "original," however, there are some passages which do not appear in the copy, notably one in which Lord Monteagle is mentioned. It appears, therefore, that the "copy" is not the first version produced, but has been edited from another still earlier.