What Gunpowder Plot Was

“It is rather heresy which leads to disobedience. The Catholic religion teaches obedience to Princes, and defends them. As to reaching the King’s ears, we shall be glad to do so, and we wish him to know with what longing for the safety228 and quiet of himself and his kingdom we have proceeded and are proceeding. It is our conscientious desire so to proceed as we have written to one king and the other.”229

As the letter referred to must have been the one in which Clement asked to have the education of Prince Henry, this note does not sound very promising. Nor was James’s language, on the other hand, such as would be counted satisfactory at Rome. After his return from England Rosny informed Del Bufalo that James had assured him that he would not persecute the Catholics as long as they did not trouble the realm, and had praised the Pope as a temporal sovereign, adding that if he could find a way of agreeing with him he would gladly adopt it, provided that he might remain at the head of his own Church.230

A letter written on August 8/18, by Barneby, a priest recently liberated from prison, to Del Bufalo, throws further light on the situation. From this it appears that what the Nuncio at Brussels had proposed was not the sending of a fully authorised legate to England, but merely the appointment of someone who, being a layman, would, without offending James’s susceptibility, be at hand to plead the cause of the Catholics and to give account of anything relating to their interests. We are thus able to understand how it was that the Nuncio had made the proposal without special orders from the Pope. More germane to the present inquiry is the account given by Barneby of James’s own position: —

“For though,” he writes, “it is certain that his Majesty conscientiously follows a religion contrary to us, and will therefore, as he says, never suffer his subjects to exercise lawfully and freely any other religion than his own – and that, both on account of his civil position, as on account of certain reasons and considerations relating to his conscience – nevertheless he openly promises to persecute no one on the ground of religion. And this he has so far happily begun to carry out with great honour to himself, and with the greatest joy advantage and pleasure to ourselves, though some of our most truculent enemies revolt, desiring that nothing but fine and sword may be used against us. What will happen in the end I can hardly imagine before the meeting of Parliament.231”

As far as it is possible to disengage James’s real intentions from these words, it would seem that he had positively declared against liberty of worship, but that he would not levy the legal fines for not going to church on those who remained obedient subjects. Did he mean to wink at the Mass being said in the private houses of the recusants, or at the activity of the priests in making converts? These were the questions he would have to face before he was out of his difficulties.

On the other side of the channel Del Bufalo was doing his best to convey assurances to James of the Pope’s desire to keep the English Catholics in obedience. With this view he communicated with James’s ambassador in Paris, Sir Thomas Parry, who on August 20, gave an account of the matter to Cecil: —

“The Pope’s Nuncio,” he wrote, “sent me a message, the effect whereof was that he had received authority and a mandate from Rome to call out of the King our master’s dominions the factious and turbulent priests and Jesuits, and that, at M. de Rosny’s232 passage into the realm, he had advertised them thereof by a gentleman of his train, and that he was desirous to continue that service to the King, and further to stop such as at Rome shall move any suit with any such intent, and would advertise his Majesty of it; that he had stayed two English monks in that city whose names he sent me in writing, who had procured heretofore faculty from thence to negotiate in England among the Catholics for such bad purposes; that not long since a petition had been exhibited to the Pope for assistance of the English Catholics with money promising to effect great matters for advancement of the Catholic cause upon receipt thereof; that his Holiness had rejected the petition and sharply rebuked the movers; that he would no more allow those turbulent courses to trouble the politic governments of Christian Princes, but by charitable ways of conference and exhortation seek to reduce them to unity. Lastly his request was to have this message related to the King, offering for the first trial of his sincere meaning that, if there remained any in his dominions, priest or Jesuit, or other busy Catholic, whom he had intelligence of for a practice in the state which could not be found out, upon advertisement of the names he would find means that by ecclesiastical censures they should be delivered unto his justice.”233

The last words are somewhat vague, and as we have not the Nuncio’s own words, but merely Parry’s report of them, we cannot be absolutely certain what were the exact terms offered, or how far they went beyond the offers previously made by the Nuncio at Brussels.234 Nor does a letter written by the Nuncio to the King on Sept. 19/29, throw any light on the subject, as Del Bufalo confines himself to general expressions of the duty of Catholics to obey the King.235 That the Nuncio’s proposals met with considerable resistance among James’s councillors is not only probable in itself, but is shown by the length of time which intervened before an answer was despatched at the end of November or the beginning of December.236 The covered language with which Cecil opened the despatch in which he forwarded to Parry the letter giving the King’s authorisation to the ambassador to treat with the Nuncio, leaves no doubt as to his own feelings.

“But now, Sir,” writes Cecil, “I am to deliver you his Majesty’s pleasure concerning a matter of more importance, though for mine own part it is so tender as I could have wished I had little dealt in it; not that the King doth not most prudently manage it, as you see, but because envious men suspect verity itself.”

Parry, Cecil went on to say, was to offer to the Nuncio a Latin translation of the King’s letter, and also to give him a copy of the instructions formerly given to Sir James Lindsay. The object of this was to prevent Lindsay from going beyond them. Cecil then proceeds to hint that Lindsay, who was now at last about to start from Italy, would not have been allowed to meddle further in the business but that it would disgrace him if he were deprived of the mission with which he had formerly been intrusted. The main negotiation, however, was to pass between Parry and the Nuncio, though only by means of a third person; and, as a matter of fact, Lindsay did not start for many months to come.

So far as concerns us, the King’s letter accepts the Pope’s objections to the sending of a ‘legatus,’ as he would be unable to show him proper respect; and then proceeds to contrast the Catholics who are animated by pure religious zeal with those who have revolutionary designs. With respect to both of these he professes his readiness to deal in such a way that neither the Pope nor any right-minded or sane man shall be able to take objection. In an earlier part of the letter he had assumed that the Pope was prepared actually to excommunicate those Catholics who were of an unquiet and turbulent disposition. Whether this were justified or not by the Nuncio’s words, it was an exceedingly large assumption that the Pope would bind himself to excommunicate Catholics practically at the bidding of a Protestant king.

On or about December 4/14, 1604, the King’s letter was forwarded by the Nuncio to Rome.237 Nor did James confine his assurances to mere words. A person who left England on January 11,238 1604, assured the Nuncio that peaceful Catholics were living quietly, and that those who were devout were able ‘to serve God according to their consciences without any danger.’ He himself, he added, could bear witness to this, as, during the whole time he had been in London, he had heard mass daily in the house of one Catholic or another.239

This idyllic state of things – from the Roman Catholic point of view – was soon to come to an end. Clement VIII. refused, at least for the present, either to send a representative to England or to promise to call off turbulent persons under pain of excommunication.240 Possibly nothing else was to be expected, as the idea of turning the Pope into a kind of spiritual policeman was not a happy one. Still, it is easy to understand that James must have felt mortified at the Pope’s failure to respond to his overtures, and it is easy, also, to understand that Cecil would take advantage of the King’s irritation for furthering his own aims. Nor were other influences wanting to move James in the same direction. Sir Anthony Standen had lately returned from a mission to Italy, and had brought with him certain relics as a present to the Queen, who was a Roman Catholic, and had entered into communication with Father Persons. Still more disquieting was it that a census of recusants showed that their numbers had very considerably increased since the King’s accession. No doubt many of those who apparently figured as new converts were merely persons who had concealed their religion as long as it was unsafe to avow it, and who made open profession of it when no unpleasant consequences were to be expected; but there can also be little doubt that the number of genuine conversions had been very large. From the Roman Catholic point of view, this was a happy result of a purely religious nature. From the point of view of an Elizabethan statesman, it constituted a grave political danger. It is unnecessary here to discuss the first principles of religious toleration. It is enough to say that no Pope had reprimanded Philip II. for refusing to allow the spread of Protestantism in his dominions, and that James’s councillors, as well as James himself, might fairly come to the conclusion that if the Roman Catholics of England increased in future years as rapidly as they had increased in the first year of the reign, it would not be long before a Pope would be found ready to launch against James the excommunication which had been launched against Elizabeth, and that his throne would be shaken, together with that national independence which that throne implied.

For the time James – pushed hard by his councillors,241 as he was – might fancy that he had found a compromise. There was to be no enforcement of the recusancy laws against the laity, but on February 22, 1604, a proclamation was issued ordering the banishment of the priests242. It was not a compromise likely to be of long endurance. For our purposes the most important of its results was that it produced the Gunpowder Plot. A few days after its issue that meeting of the five conspirators took place behind St. Clement’s, at which they received the sacrament in confirmation of their mutual promise of secrecy. All that has been said of the tyranny of the penal laws upon the laity, as affording a motive for the plot, is so much misplaced rhetoric. Moreover, if we accept Fawkes’s evidence243 of the date at which he first heard of the plot as being about Easter, 1604, i. e. about April 8, the communication of the design to Winter must have taken place towards the end of March, that is to say after the issue of the proclamation and before any other step had been taken to enforce the penal laws. Consequently all arguments, attributing the invention of the plot to Cecil for the sake of gaining greater influence with the King fall to the ground. He had just achieved a triumph of no common order, the prelude, as he must have been keen enough to discern, of greater triumphs to come. Granted, for argument’s sake, that Cecil was capable of any wickedness – we at least require some motive for the crime which Father Gerard attributes to him by innuendo.

As time went on, there was even less cause for the powerful minister to invent or to foster a false plot. It is unnecessary to tell again in detail the story which I have told elsewhere of the way in which James fell back upon the Elizabethan position, and put in force once more the penal laws against the laity. On November 28, 1604, he decided on requiring the 20l. fines from the thirteen wealthy recusants who were liable to pay them, and on February 10, 1605244– a few days after the plotters had got half through the wall of the House of Lords – he announced his resolution that the penal laws should be put in execution. On May 4, 1605, Cecil, who in August, 1604, had been made Viscount Cranborne, was raised to the Earldom of Salisbury. Yet this is the politician who is supposed by Father Gerard to have been necessitated to keep himself in favour by the atrocious wickedness he is pleased to ascribe to him. In plain truth, Salisbury did not need to gain favour and power. He had both already.

A policy of intolerance is so opposed to the instincts of the present day, that it is worth while to hear a persecutor in his own defence. On March 7, 1605, less than a month after the King’s pronouncement, Nicolo Molin, the Venetian ambassador, writes, that he had lately spoken to Cranborne on the recent treatment of the Catholics.

“He replied that, through the too great clemency of the King, the priests had gone with great freedom through all the country, the City of London and the houses of many citizens, to say mass, which they had done with great scandal, and thereupon had arrived advices from Rome that the Pope had constituted a congregation of Cardinals to treat of the affairs of this kingdom which gave occasion to many to believe that the King was about to grant liberty of conscience,245 and had caused a great stir amongst our Bishops and other ministers, the Pope having come to this resolution mainly through the offices of that light-headed man Lindsay,246 and then his Majesty, whose thoughts were far from it, resolved to use a rather unusual diligence to restrict a little the liberty of these priests of yours, as also to assure those of our religion that there was not the least thought of altering things in this direction. Sir James Lindsay, he said, had disgusted his Majesty, and the Pope would in the end discover that he was a lightheaded, unstable man. I understood, said I, that he had gone to Rome with the King’s permission. It is quite true, said he, and if your Lordship wishes to understand the matter I will explain it. Sir James Lindsay, he continued, a year before the death of Queen Elizabeth asked leave to go to Rome, and his request was easily granted. When he arrived there he got means, with the help of friends, to be introduced to the Pope to whom, as is probable, he addressed many impertinencies, as he has done at the present time. In short, he was presented to the Pope, and got from him a good sum of money, perhaps promising to do here what he will never do, and obtained an autograph letter from the Pope to our King to the effect that he had understood from Sir James Lindsay his Majesty’s good disposition, if not to favour the Catholic religion, at least not to persecute it, for which he felt himself to be under great obligations to him, and promised to assist him when Queen Elizabeth died, and to help him as far as possible to gain the succession to her realm as was just and reasonable, but that if his Majesty would consent to have the Prince, his son, educated in the Catholic religion, he would bind himself to engage his state and life to assist him, and would do what he could247 that the Christian Princes should act in union with the same object.248 With this letter Sir James arrived, two months before the Queen’s death, repeating to his Majesty many things besides to the same effect. The King was willing enough to look at the letter, as coming from a Prince, and filled with many affectionate and courteous expressions, but he never thought of answering it, though he was frequently solicited by Sir James. The reason of this was that it would be necessary in writing to the Pope to give him his titles of Holiness and Blessedness, to which, being held by us to be impertinent, after the teaching of our religion, his Majesty could not be in any way persuaded, so that the affair remained asleep till the present time. Then came the Queen’s death, on which Sir James again urged the King to answer the letter, assuring him that he would promise himself much advantage from the Pope’s assistance if occasion served; but it pleased God to show such favour to the King that he met with no opposition, as every one knows. Some months ago, however, it again occurred to Sir James to think of going to Rome; he asked licence from his Majesty, and obtained it courteously enough. At his departure he said, ‘I shall have occasion to see the Pope, and am certain that he will ask me about that letter of his. What answer am I to make?’ ‘You are to say,’ replied the King, ‘that you gave me the letter, and that I am much obliged to him for the love and affection he has shown me, to which I shall always try to correspond effectually.’ ‘Sire,’ said Sir James, ‘the Pope will not believe me. Will your Majesty find some means of assuring the Pope of the truth of this?’ On which his Majesty took the pen and drew up a memoir with his own hand, telling Sir James that if he had occasion to talk to the Pope he should assure him of his desire to show, by acts, the good will of which he spoke, and the esteem he felt for him as a temporal Prince. He then directed Sir James to dwell on this as much as he could, and that as to religion249 he wished to preserve and maintain that in which he had been brought up, being assured that it was the best, but that, not having a sanguinary disposition, he had not persecuted the Catholics in their property or their life, as long as they remained obedient subjects. As to instructing the Prince, his son, in the Catholic religion, he would never do it, because he believed it would bring down on him a heavy punishment from God, and the reproach of the world, if he were willing, whilst he himself professed a religion as the best, to promise that his son should be brought up in one full of corruptions and superstitions. Cecil then recounted the substance of the memoir, which was sealed with the King’s seal, in order that the Pope and every one else might give credence to it on these points. Now, Sir James, to gain favour and get money, has transgressed these orders, as we understand that he has given occasion to the Pope to appoint a congregation of Cardinals on our affairs, and to us to have our eyes a little more open to the Catholics, and especially to the priests. To this I replied that I did not think that his Majesty should for this reason act against his constant professions not to wish to take any one’s property or life, on account of religion. ‘Sir,’ he replied, ‘be content as to blood, so long as the Catholics remain quiet and obedient. As to property, it is impossible to do less than observe250 the laws in this respect, but even in that we shall proceed dexterously and much more gently than in the times of the late Queen, as the Catholics who refuse to attend our churches, and who are rich, will not think it much to pay £20 a month. Those who are less rich and have not the means to pay as much, and from whom two thirds of their revenue is taken during their lifetime will now have this advantage by the King’s clemency that whereas in the Queen’s time their property was granted to strangers who, to get as much as they could, did not hesitate to ruin their houses and possessions, it will now be granted to their own patrons, at the lowest rate, so that they will pay rather a quarter than two thirds of their estate. This arrangement has been come to in order not to afflict the Catholics too much, and to prevent our own people from believing that we wish to give liberty to the Catholic religion, as they undoubtedly will if the payments are absolutely abolished.”

After a further remonstrance from the ambassador, Cranborne returned to the charge.

“Sir,” he replied, “nothing else can be done. These are the laws, and they must be observed. Their object is undoubtedly to extinguish the Catholic religion in this kingdom, because we do not think it fit, in a well-governed monarchy, to increase the number of persons who profess to depend on the will of other Princes as the Catholics do, the priests not preaching anything more constantly than this, that the good Catholic ought to be firmly resolved in himself to be ready to rise for the preservation of his religion even against the life and state of his natural Prince.251 This is a very perilous doctrine, and we will certainly never admit it here, but will rather do our best to overthrow it, and we will punish most severely those who teach it and impress it on the minds of good subjects.”252

It is unnecessary to pursue the conversation further, or even to discuss how far Cranborne was serious when he expressed his intention of moderating the incidence of the laws which the Government had resolved to carry out. It is certain that they were not so moderated, and that the enforcement of law rapidly degenerated into mere persecution. What is important for our purposes is that the language I have just quoted leads us to the bed-rock of the situation. Between Pope and king a question of sovereignty had arisen, a question which could not be neglected without detriment to the national independence till the Pope either openly or tacitly abandoned his claim to excommunicate kings, and to release such subjects as looked up to him for guidance from the duty of obedience to their King. That the Pope should openly abandon this claim was more than could be expected; but he had not excommunicated James as his predecessor had excommunicated Elizabeth, and there was some reason to hope that he might allow the claim to be buried in oblivion. At all events, Clement VIII. had not only refused to excommunicate James, but had enjoined on the English Catholics the duty of abstaining from any kind of resistance to him. James had, however, wished to go further. Incapable – as most people in all ages are – of seeing the position with other eyes than his own, he wanted the Pope actively to co-operate with him in securing the obedience of his subjects. He even asked him to excommunicate turbulent Catholics, a thing to which it was impossible for the Pope – who also looked on these matters from his own point of view – to consent. In the meanwhile it was becoming evident that the Pope was not working for a Protestant England under a Protestant king, with a Catholic minority accepting what crumbs of toleration that king might fling to them, and renouncing for ever the right to resist his laws however oppressive they might be; but rather for a Catholic England under a Catholic King. This appeared in Clement’s demand that Prince Henry should be educated in a religion which was not that of his father, and it appeared again in the reports of Lindsay, which had caused such a commotion at Whitehall. “His Holiness,” wrote Lindsay, “hath commanded to continue to pray for your Majesty, and he himself stays every night two large hours in prayer for your Majesty, the Queen, and your children, and for the conversion of your Majesty and your dominions. This I may very well witness as one who was present.”253 We should have thought the worse of the Pope if he had done otherwise; but the news of it was hardly likely to be welcome to an English statesman. Who was to guarantee that, if the priests were allowed full activity in England a Roman Catholic majority would not be secured – or, that when such a majority was secured, the suspended excommunication would not be launched, and a rebellion, such as that of the League in France, encouraged against an obstinately Protestant Sovereign. We may be of opinion that those statesmen who attempted to meet the danger with persecution were men of little faith, who might have trusted to the strength of their religious and political creed – the two could not in those days be separated from one another; but there can be no doubt that the danger was there. We may hold Salisbury to have been but a commonplace man for meeting it as he did, but he had on his side nearly the whole of the official class which had stood by the throne of Elizabeth, and which now stood by the throne of James.

At all events, Salisbury’s doctrine that there was to be no personal understanding with the Pope was the doctrine which prevailed then and in subsequent generations. James’s attempt came to nothing through its insuperable difficulties, as well as through his own defects of character. A pleading, from a Roman Catholic point of view, in favour of such an understanding may be found in a letter written by Sir Everard Digby to Salisbury, which Father Gerard has shown to have been written, not in December, as Mrs. Everett Green suggested, but between May 4 and September, 1605, and which I ascribe to May, or as soon after May as is possible. The letter, after a reference to a conversation recently held between Digby himself and Salisbury, proceeds as follows: —