Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Francis Beaumont: Dramatist: A Portrait, with Some Account of His Circle, Elizabethan and Jacobean,; And of His Association with John Fletcher
John Stuart Mill · en
and patent, but eked out with tidings written in an invisible ink of
orange-juice. On March 6, Garnet confesses that Mrs. Anne Vaux, alias
Perkins, he, and Brookesby bear the expenses of White Webbs. On March
11, Anne being examined says that she keeps the place at her own
expense; that Catesby, Winter, and Tresham have been to her house, but
that she knew nothing of the Plot; on the contrary, suspecting some
mischief at one time, she had "begged Garnet to prevent it." Examined
again on March 24, she says that "Francis Tresham, her cousin, often
visited her and Garnet at White Webbs, Erith, Wandsworth, etc., when
Garnet would counsel him to be patient and quiet; and that they also
visited Tresham at his house in Warwickshire." Garnet's trial took place
at Guildhall on March 28, Sir Edward Coke of the Inner Temple acting for
the prosecution. Garnet acknowledged that the Plot had been conveyed to
him by another priest [Greenway] in confession. He was convicted,
however, not for failing to divulge that knowledge, but for failing to
dissuade Catesby and the rest, both before and after he had gained
knowledge from Greenway. He was executed on May 3. Of Anne's share in
all that has preceded, Beaumont would by this date have known. One
wonders whether he or his brother, John, ever learned the pathetic
details of the final correspondence between Anne and the Father
Superior. How, March 21, she wrote to him asking directions for the
disposal of herself, and concluding that life without him was "not life
but deathe." How, April 2, he replied with advice for her future; and as
to Oldcorne and himself, added that the former had "dreamt there were
two tabernacles prepared for them." How, the next day, she wrote again
asking fuller directions and wishing Father Oldcorne had "dreamt there
was a third seat" for her. And how, that same day, with loving thought
for all details of her proceedings, and with sorrow for his own weakness
under examination, the Father Superior sends his last word to
her,--that he will "die not as a victorious martyr, but as a penitent
thief,"--and bids her farewell.