A History of the Gunpowder Plot. By Philip Sidney. (R.T.S.
52.)—It is generally allowed that the attempt to relegate the Gunpowder Plot story to the realm of myth has failed. But there are many unsolved problems in this same story—as there are, indeed, in some of the very best attested historical narratives— and the subject is not by any means exhausted. One of them is : Who wrote the famous anonymous letter? Mr. Sidney argues with much force that it was, very probably, written by Garnet, who employed his confidante, Anne Vaux. Garnet was, by his own account, in a very disturbed frame of mind. Nothing was more desired by him than that the whole business should be stopped. If it succeeded, it would infallibly be condemned and disowned by the Roman authorities. They might be glad enough to appropriate the possible result—the substitution of a line of Kings owning the Roman obedience for one that seemed definitely to have disowned it—but they would condemn the means. On the other hand, he could not denounce the plot openly. A difficulty for which we see no solution, except the fact that men involved in great crimes often lose their presence of mind and all grasp of the situation, is the boldness of the conspirators in refusing to escape when they had good reasons for believing that their secret had been divulged. That Lord Salisbury was aware of what was going on is clear. Not to mention other proofs, it could not have been by chance that when Lord Mounteagle reached London with the letters he found the principal Ministers of State assembled. What should they have been waiting for late on Saturday night? Mr. Sidney seems to tell the story in a candid way, as he certainly has taken pains to make it accurate in all its details. Naturally he takes a severe view of the action of the Jesuits. Is it possible to do otherwise ? That Garnet and Greenway knew of the plot outside the confessional cannot be denied. In any case, the problem is a difficult one. We must add, however, that we cannot open our columns to its discussion.
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