in all the arts of equivocation employed by their Society. Greenway never seems to have spoken of the Plot in terms of detestation (before its discovery), but talked it over with Garnet in as calm a manner as if the scheme in hand was in no way cruel and wicked. Even if it were true that he only knew of the existence of the Plot from Catesby, sub sigillo, there still existed every facility for him to stop the proceedings without breaking the seal of the confessional. Moreover, it need not be disputed that Greenway knew of the Plot before July, 1605, when he passed on the secret to Garnet.1

There exists, therefore, I consider, no reason whatever why Father Oswald Tesimond's name should not be allowed to remain among Sir William Waad's Conjuratorum nomina, ad perpetuam ipsorum infamiam et tanta diritatis detestationem sempiternam ! Moreover, if Garnet's statement is to be accepted as correct, to the effect that he only knew of the Plot from Greenway in confession, and that Greenway only knew it from Catesby in confession, what right had Greenway to mention the matter, at all, to Garnet? But, we may rest assured that both Greenway and Garnet eventually knew of the Plot from Catesby himself without being

1 Hume, the historian, rashly asserts that 'Tesmond, a Jesuit, and Garnet, Superior of that Order in England, removed these scruples (of the wavering conspirators), and showed them how the interests of religion required that the innocent should here be sacrificed with the guilty.'

compromised by restrictions of the confessionalbox.

FATHER JOHN GERARD, S.J.-Although I have, earlier in this volume, practically acquitted this Jesuit of the charge of having been an accessory before the fact to the Gunpowder Plot, it must not be forgotten that he was privy to sending Sir Edward Baynham to Rome. But he evidently was not fully acquainted with all the details relating to the instructions given to Baynham. He probably had some general inkling of the fact that something was being done, sub rosa, for the good of the Catholic cause, but he knew nothing about the intended explosion at Westminster. At the period of the Plot, he was not a Professed' Jesuit, as were his notorious colleagues, Fathers Greenway and Garnet, and was not so deeply in the secrets of his Society as they were.

Born in 1564, Gerard was the son of a Lancashire knight, of ancient race, and a cousin of Sir William Stanley. He was a gentleman both by birth and behaviour, which his colleagues, Oldcorne, Garnet, and Greenway, certainly were not. He entered the Society of Jesus at Rome, in 1588, and was then sent upon the English Mission. Between the time of his arrival and the period of the Plot, he passed a most romantic existence. He was imprisoned and tortured in the Tower, whence he escaped (1597) by climbing

down a rope swinging over the moat. occasions he had to take refuge in

On several one of the

priest-holes in some old country house,' and was often within an inch of recapture. In 1603 he (with Garnet) betrayed William Watson to the Government, but reaped no personal benefit by this action. After the failure of the Plot, he baffled all the efforts of the Government to discover his whereabouts, and eventually, disguised as a footman in the service of the Spanish Ambassador, succeeded in crossing the channel on the very day of Father Garnet's execution. He never returned to England, and died at Rome, 1637.

The most pleasant feature in Gerard's English career was his friendship with Sir Everard Digby. Had Gerard known of the Plot, he might have prevented Digby from joining it. Digby, on the other hand, seems to have thought that Gerard both knew and approved of the Plot. Although an innocent man, had Gerard been captured he would, almost certainly, have shared the fate of Garnet, for the Government was determined to stop at nothing in order to implicate him in the conspiracy. The circumstance of his having given the Sacrament to some of the conspirators at the house behind Clement's Inn was magnified into a story that he had given them the Sacrament

1 He had a wonderful escape when hidden (1594) at Braddocks, Essex, the seat of the Wiseman family.

2 He was hidden, for some time, at Great Harrowden, the seat of the Vaux family.

after they had just taken the formal oath of the plotters in his presence, and with his approval. As a matter of fact, they had taken the oath privately by themselves, and had then entered another room to hear a priest (who happened to be Gerard) say Mass. Again, it was absurdly said that he had worked with the conspirators when they were digging their mine beneath the Parliament House.

Father John Gerard has been held by some to have been the author of the Treatise on Equivocation, found in Francis Tresham's desk and produced at Garnet's trial. Adequate proof in favour of this theory is, however, wanting. Gerard was very successful in persuading rich men to join the Society of Jesus.

'T

CHAPTER XXII

THE LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER

1

I

HAT beast Waad,' as Sir Walter Ralegh called him, had been appointed Lieutenant of the Tower about eleven weeks before the capture of Guy Faukes at Westminster. Prior to his appointment, however, he had held several very important diplomatic and political posts. He had faithfully served William Cecil, the great Lord Burghley, and was destined, in the matter of the Powder Plot, to serve with equal fidelity his son, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Sir William Waad, under Elizabeth, had been Secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and afterwards Clerk of the Privy Council. He had been sent on frequent diplomatic missions to Madrid, Paris, and the Low Countries. In 1588 he was elected a member of Parliament, and in 1601 represented Preston, where his Protestant zeal made him very

1 Lord Ronald Gower, in his history of the Tower of London, aptly remarks that 'Ralegh's feelings towards the new Lieutenant appear to have resembled those of Napoleon to Sir Hudson Lowe.' 2 Especially in regard to obtaining evidence against the Queen of Scots.