THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.*
WE have a certain feeling, when we take up this book, that there should be a statute of limitation introduced dealing with historical questions of the more traditional order. Guy Fawkes has so completely established his peculiar position in the world that no amount of critical inquiry is likely to alter it now. Dr. Gardiner's book is one of pure controversy, being intended as an answer to Father Gerard, who, setting to his work from what mast be called a purely partisan point of view, has demonstrated, at all events to his own satisfac- tion, that the famous Gunpowder Plot was chiefly a fiction, imagined by the Salisbury of his day in order to strengthen his Government under James I. It is the object of Dr. Gardiner to demolish Father Gerard, and to restore Guy Fawkes to the unique honours of the historic Fifth of Novem- ber. Let us at once do Dr. Gardiner the justice to say that he appears to us to have succeeded very completely in his purpose. Tradition is admitted to be a most improper and untrustworthy ally, but it has as many heads as the hydra, and we are quite at one with Dr. Gardiner in holding that it is a thing by no means to be despised. The tales that are handed down from father to son may be much embellished, much exaggerated, much improved upon, but there remains about them a solid base of truth which cannot well be shaken. No argument and no proof, if it could be produced, would shake the existence of Shakespeare behind all the uncertainties of his story, and few will consent to believe that Guy Fawkes was a martyr and the Gunpowder Plot a sham. It is natural enough that Father Gerard and those who agree with him should wish to free the Roman Catholics from an odious charge. But is it not time to acknowledge that the con- troversial methods of that age were very different indeed from ours, and that to kill, burn, and destroy, anywhere and anyhow, were the recognised forms of conversion as much with one creed as the other? Speaking of the characteristics of Lord Byron's verse, a great critic once wrote that the merest change of circumstance would have equipped Gulnare with Medora's lute, and furnished forth Medora with the dagger of Gulnare. In the same way, we may believe that a reverse of the shield would have brought Cecil to the rack, and placed Fawkes in the seats of the Ministers. Amongst those who most objected to the methods of persecution then • What Gunpowder Plot Was. By Samuel Rawson Gardiner, D.O.L., LL.D. London : Lungwans aud Co.
in vogue was, to do him justice. King James I. himself. He was but a small-minded man, with a conviction in him that Ilia personal government ought to be supreme, which we must look for an Emperor William to parallel. But in writing to Cecil on the vexed subject of the priests lie could repudiate all desire for extremities. "I will never allow in my conscience," he says, "that the blood of any man shall be shed for diversity of opinions in religion.
I reverence the Catholic Church as our mother Church, although clogged with many infirmities and cor- ruptions, besides that I did ever hold persecution as one of the infallible notes of a false Church." And he adds with the utmost frankness, that to prevent the Catholics from -multiplying, and "new setting up empire," he longed to see the execution of the latest edict against them, "not that thereby he wished to have their heads divided from their bodies, but that be would be glad to have both their heads and bodies separated from this whole island, and safely trans- ported beyond seas." Indeed, it is clear that James, whose head was always full of impracticable schemes, was really possessed of an idea that the priests might be permanently banished from the Kingdom without the necessity of the old laws of persecution being enforced. Salisbury was content, as Dr. Gardiner puts it, to "plod on in the old way," and melancholy enough the old way was. The writer of the present book convinces himself, as he is likely to convince his readers, that the main facts of the story of the Gunpowder Plot were true, while asserting as strongly as it should always be asserted that the charge that the Plot emanated from, or was approved by, the English Roman Catholics as a body is now known to all historical students to have been entirely false. He is, at the same time, the gentlest of controversialists, as befits a gentler time, and expresses what will be the general opinion of all when he makes full allowance for the feeling which inspired Father Gerard in his inquiry, and his attempt to show that "even the handful of Catholics who took part in the Plot were more sinned against - than sinning."
"There are grave reasons for the conclusion that the whole transaction was dexterously contrived for the purpose which in fact it opportunely served, by those who alone reaped benefit from it, and who showed themselves so unscrupulous in the manner of reaping." Such is the proposition which Father Gerard wishes to enforce, and in trying to enforce it be gives us, as Dr. Gardiner says, "hard nuts to crack," which must be "cracked once for all" before the story of the Gun- powder Plot can be allowed to settle down in peace. We must, however, express for our own part the feeling that the nuts are really softer than Dr. Gardiner cares to think. There is really nothing whatever in the character of the Salisbury of the day to justify the suggestion that he would be likely to get up, or be capable of getting up, such a tremendous fiction as the Plot, with all the cruel consequences attached to it. He was not a strong man, but he was not a man of that type. The assumption of Father Gerard only transfers the un- doubted guilt of that wonderful episode from one set of shoulders to another, with even less of inherent probability, and more of violence to the record. It is as natural, no doubt, that there should be no especial desire amongst Englishmen to acquit the Roman Catholics, if we may use the general expression for simplicity's sake, at the expense of the Protestants, as that Father Gerard and his friends should be anxious to transfer the responsibility. But nevertheless we do not feel that they have established any primd-facie case which calls for long arguments before the Court, and we hold that the appeal must be dismissed. "It is certain," says an anonymous correspondent of Anthony Wood, "that the last _Earl of Salisbury (two generations after) confessed to William Lenthall it was his father's contrivance ; which Lenthall soon after told one Mr. Webb (John Webb, Esq.), a person of quality, and his kinsman, yet alive. Sir Henry Wooton says 'twas usual with Cecil to create plots that he might have the honour of the discovery, or to such effect." This amazing piece of hearsay (for this is pure hearsay as opposed to tradition) would be rejected at once on any law of evidence whatever; but it is in its way characteristic of Father Gerard's tone and line of argument, and must be set aside, as well as his favourite assertion of the extreme
camstances act in such-and-such a way. This is one of the
oldest of the fallacies of the world, the most a, or everl kr refute categorically, yet the least capable air, &c., 1ing conviction. An article in the Edinburgh Revi E. the first to deal fully with Father Gerard's pie,
though it was in its nature negative and e2EN to. that position, it has served as an effective bas 'Dr.
Gardiner's reply. If external probability be accep ere
is nothing in the whole story so convincing as the cored lion of Thomas Winter, which is set out at length in tqstaioolr before us. It is perfectly full, perfectly simple, and pe:1.3ctly direct,—pervaded, as Dr. Gardiner says with absolute truth, with the sense of spontaneity from beginning to end. And' what is most to the point is, as he has added, that "no candid person can rise from the perusal without having his estimate- of the character of the conspirators raised. There is no con- scious assumption of high qualities, but each touch as it comes strengthens the belief that the men concerned in the plot were patient and loyal, brave beyond the limits of ordinary bravery, and utterly without selfish aims." This we believe to be entirely true, and without going any further into the merits of this venerable problem, surely it is enough. to induce us to let it alone without further stirring of ill- blood to no imaginable end. "Guy Fawkes Day" means but little now. A very small percentage of those who join in the lingering saturnalia at Eastbourne and Lewes—which had much better be done away with for the credit of the districts,, but that is their affair—attach any meaning whatever to the No-Popery part of it. They are more likely to make it an excuse for burning an unpopular Town Councillor in effigy, than of offering any slight to their Catholic fellow-citizens. And if any such feeling lingers anywhere, we may fairly set off against it the curious fact that the Papal envoy was about the most popular of all the figures in the Jubilee.- Cardinal Manning, whatever his faults or virtues in other ways, certainly did more to rid the masses of any vulgar prejudices against the Roman Catholic faith in England than, any other man has done. Would it not, therefore, as we have said above, be as well to leave things here, without stirring the embers of a dead discussion in a way which can but revive animosity ? We hold, after reading Dr. Gardiner'a book, though we admit that before his answer we were inclined to a balance of doubt, that Father Gerard has failed to make out his case, and we are content to refer our readers to the book itself if they want to study again the weary story of racks and thumbscrews, and to renew their acquaintance with Lord Monteagle and the cellars. There is- an elaborate plan of the ancient Palace of Westminster for their guidance, there is the full account of Fawkes's torture, and there is the record of his confession how he meant to- have "fired the match and have fled for his own safety before, the powder had taken fire, and if he had not been appre- hended this last night, he had blown up the Upper House, when the King, Lords, Bishops, and others had been there.' As Dr. Gardiner says, this is clear enough for anything. Fawkes "may have lied to save his friends" in taking it all on his own shoulders; "he certainly would not lie to save- Salisbury." With the best intentions from his own point of view, Father Gerard has left the old story very much where it was, and Dr. Gardiner will find that an unprejudiced world' will agree with him that it is so. Nor will the Lord Salisbury of to-day, if he should read the controversy, feel much disturbed as to the rest of his ancestor's ashes.
Previous page
