GUY FAWKES AND THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7059, 6 November 1929, Page 2

GUY FAWKES AND THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

To the Editcrr

Sir, —I read in your issue of November 5 the article on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Will you kindly permit me the use of your columns to put before your readers a few facts about this plot, which some historians and othors have made so much use of in calumniating the Catholic church. All fair-minded people at all acquainted with the facts of history now freely admit that the Catholics in England as a body had nothing to do With tho plot. It was, as your article stated, the work of a few—l 3 in all. And far from aiding and abetting this dastardly act, the Catholic body in England in the first place knew nothing about it, for it was kept strictly secret, and in the second place showed tho greatest indignation when the plot became known. As Professor Gardiner states in his history (History: I, 264): “Their Catholic brethren spurned them from their houses.”

The ringloaders m the plot were Catholic laymen of good family who 2;ad suffered great injustice under the penal laws enacted fur tho suppression of the Catholic church in England—a code of laws which the last Chiof Justice Coleridge described as “a code as savage as any which can be conceived since tho foundation of the world.” These men, Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, Thomas Winter and John Wright, and with them Guy Fawkes, an English soldier who had been serving abroad, met secretly in May, 1605, to hatch thoir plot to blow up thoir oppressors, the King and Parliament. Best their fellow Catholics should hear of the scheme they took an oath of secrecy and were warned in particular not to Teveal it to any priest lest he should try to prevent it. Bater on, more associates were admitted into the secret, as the plotters needed more funds. Some of them began to question the mprality of their contemplated act, so CatesDj-, the chief conspirator, made use of a subterfuge to quieten scruples He went to Father Garnet, a Jesuit priest, and asked him whether it were lawful for a soldier in war timo to participate in operations involving the killing of non-combatants, as for instance in a bombardment. The priest suspecting nothing, replied of course that a soldier could lawfully participate in such an action when required to do so by his commander. Catesby, turning this answer to his own account, assured his confederates on Garnet's authority that they need not hesitate at the taking of some rnnocont lives. From subsequent conversations Father Garnet began to suspect that something was afoot. Bater, ho had bis suspicions confirmed and hastily sought from the Pope at Kome an injunction strictly forbidding any violence on the part of Catholics in England. He obtained in answer a lettor ordering him and another priest, Blackwellj “to hinder by all possible means all conspiracies of Catholics.” This prohibition was published by Blackwell on July 22, 1805, and is still extant.

These facts, which are now admitted by reliable Protestant as well as Catholic historians, should be enough to shatter the dotestable calumny that the Gunpowder Plot was the work of Catholics as a body in England, and instigated by ecclesiastical authority, Father Garnet, despito his efforts to prevent the carrying out of the . plot, was afterwards executed for complicity in it and his name and that of his society libelled by his calumniators. It is to be remembered moreover that the commonly accepted story of the plot itself will not bear too close scrutiny. The foundation on which it rests is the account published at the time by the Government and circulated at home and abroad. Jardine states that this official version was evidently carefully “manufactured,” that it has distorted the true facts of the case “for the express purpose of leading the public mind in a particular direction.” (Crini. Trials: 11, 3,5). Here, for instance, is one great flaw in the popularly accepted account. The conspirators, it says, hired a house next to Parliament House and dug a tunnel underground, hoping to lay their powder mine underneath the building. But as the masonry of the foundations was too strong they had to give this up, and finally put their 36 barrels of gunpowder and a huge pile of faggols into the cellar under the House of Lords. In the nick of time, however, the plot was discovered and Guy Fawkes, detailed to fire the train; w T a's caught red-handed.

Now the point is this: Lord Cecil himself mentioned that the keeper of the Wardrobe lived in the very house, part of which the confederates rented. The surrounding buildings were inhabited by others of* the State officials. How then could the plotters have bored their tunnel arid disposed of the spoil without attracting attention? How could they have got their vast quantity of powder and enough wood to hide it into a cellar of Parliament House—the cellar was above ground —without being observed by their watchful neighbours? How could they have done all this, unloss their preparations were purposely connived at by the authorities? Might it not seem that this is just what was clone, so that the plot could t>e let mature and then be “discovered” at. the last moment and used as another charge with which falsely to accuse the Catholic people? Several historical writers are, as a matter of fact, of the opinion that this is what did happen. I hope I have made clear the point I set out to demonstrate in this letter. viz., that the old story that the Catholic people as a body in England were responsible for the Gunpowder plot is a fable and a calumny. Probably the small boys who celebrate November 5 as almost a national festival are not aware that they are helping to keep alive a monsirous insult to the memory of many thousands of loyal Englishmen who were falsely incriminated in the affair of the first Guv Fawkes Day. It Is a great pity that their elders, who like to think that they are great sports and who pride themselves on their sense of justice, do not at le.-.J’t this