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
to the same effect, when he declares that the papists, after the manner
of Nero, were throwing the blame of their crime upon others.
Clearly, however, it was not to the papists alone that such an
explanation commended itself. The Puritan Osborne[104] speaks of the
manner in which the "discovery" was managed as "a neat device of the
Treasurer's, he being very plentiful in such plots." Goodman, Anglican
Bishop of Gloucester, another contemporary, is even more explicit. After
describing the indignation of the Catholics when they found themselves
deceived in their hopes at the hands of James, he goes on: "The great
statesman had intelligence of all this, and because he would show his
service to the State, he would first contrive and then discover a
treason, and the more odious and hateful the treason were, his service
would be the greater and the more acceptable."[105] Another notable
witness is quoted by the Jesuit Father Martin Grene, in a letter to his
brother Christopher, January 1st, 1665-6:[106] "I have heard strange
things, which, if ever I can make out, will be very pertinent: for
certain, the late Bishop of Armagh, Usher, was divers times heard to
say, that if papists knew what he knew, the blame of the Gunpowder
Treason would not lie on them." In like manner we find it frequently
asserted on the authority of Lord Cobham and others,[107] that King
James himself, when he had time to realize the truth of the matter, was
in the habit of speaking of the Fifth of November as "Cecil's holiday."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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