Gunpowder Plot

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 49, 13 December 1923, Page 21

Gunpowder Plot

(By Waikatoan.)

_ In its account of the celebration of Guy Fawkes our local paper remarked that “few of the assembly knew anything about” that much incinerated gentleman. More’s the pity; for this annual celebration or execration of the memory of a man about whom “few of the assembly know anything” serves to convince one that fifth November, brings into prominence more guys than one. On the strength of our journal’s observation I hope to be acquitted of temerity if I endeavor to throw a ray of light on this much misrepresented incident in our island story. When, in 1533, Henry VIII, assumed the title of head of the Church in England, that England had been Catholic in religion for close on a thousand years. It is not to my present purpose to examine the reasons that induced Henry to make, or his successors to endorse and extend, the change in religion. For the present, suffice it to say that the people of England, with a thousand years of Catholic tradition at their back and a thousand years of Catholic practice in their blood, objected so strongly to the change in religion that it could be brought into effect only with the aid of terrible persecutions. Time failed to make the change of religion more acceptable to the bulk of the English people; so the barbarous penalties were increased. When James I. ascended the throne of England the persecution of those who clung to the old faith was enough, ■says Cobbett, “to make men mad.” Influenced by these outrageous persecutions a man named Catesby determined upon a desperate course: he would end the persecutions by ending the persecutors; he proposed to blow up King James I. and his court at the opening of parliament on sth November, 1605. To achieve his purpose unaided was impossible; so he associated with himself in this desperate enterprise four others Percy, Winter, John Wright, and Guy Fawkes, who formed themselves into a secret society. The plan of action was drawn up 24th May, 1604. In March, 1605, five others were admitted to the society, and later three more were sworn in. The conspirators numbered in all thirteen men. In October, 1605, an anonymous letter, still extant, was received by Lord Monteagle, warning him of a plot on the day appointed for the opening of Parliament. He read the letter aloud to some friends at his house, then took it to the government. Government seems to have shown singularly little concern about the contents of the letter. The day before that fixed for the opening of the parliament an inspection of the precincts of the house was conducted by a high official, but led to no unusual discovery. Another search was made the same day and powder was found. Guy Fawkes, who was on the watch close by, was arrested. The following day, sth November, his fellow conspirators, who were in Warwickshire, fled in. the direction of Wales.' In Worcestershire a chance spark exploded their store of powder. Some were wounded, but no one was killed. Hope of Escape Deserted Them. On Bth November they were attacked by a strong force. Catesby, Percy, and the two Wrights were killed; the rest were wounded and captured. They were tried and executed 27th January, 1606. Father Garnet, a Jesuit, also was executed for complicity; but of him Cobbett says that “he was wholly innocent of any crime connected with the conspiracy.” ( Hy . of the Prot. lief. p. 297.) This is a brief, and, I hope, accurate account of what is known as The Gunpowder Plot. The official account published by the Government of the dAy tried, and tried successfully, to convince the public mind that an enormous, an unparalleled crime had been committed, and that the Catholic Church was responsible for that crime. That conviction lingers still'in the mind of many Britishers. That Catesby and his companions planned an enormous crime against the king and parliament may be granted without cavil. To say that Catesby and his companions committed an enormous crime against the king and parliament is simply untrue. The Gunpowder Plot did not singe a single hair on a single head in the whole realm of England. Except its authors it did no one the slightest harm. Nor could it. The government knew of it long before sth November. ' The government nursed it. With the aid of

agents provocateurs the government encouraged it. They could have stopped it at any time, but chose to stop it only the day before the opening of parliament, in order the better to excite the public mind. ''Even If It Had Been Successful the Gunpowder Plot would not have been an unparalleled crime. At that time greater crimes were of common occurrence. Let us confine ourselves, for the moment, to the very sovereign against whom the Gunpowder Plot was aimed. James I. had already had considerable experience of assassins. The house in which his sick father and a large retinue were lodged was blown up with gunpowder, the father and a large number of attendants being killed. For twenty years Queen Elizabeth tried to secure the assassination of his mother. She also endeavored, when James was an infant, to have him poisoned (Cobbett, p. 292.) When, in his infancy, James became, King of Scotland, Moray, the regent who governed in his name, was assassinated. In his own Scotland two separate attempts were made on his life. (lb. p. 298.) Scarcely had he ascended the thrown of England when two attempts in rapid succession, called the Main plot and the Bye plot, were made to get rid of him. His son Charles I. was publicly executed on the scaffold by rebellious subjects. His grandson and namesake, James 11., was dethroned and compelled to fly the country. Looked at in its results to the king and the whole Stuart’ dynasty, Gunpowder Plot was far and away the most innocuous of the many plots that beset that illstarred family. If we take the number of conspirators involved, the Gunpowder Plot will again appear comparatively insignificant. Its authors, their aiders and abbettors, never exceeded thirteen in number. In all the plots mentioned above the conspirators were many in number—sometimes thousands. At no time had Gunpowder ,Plot the slightest chance of coming to a head. Whatever it may have been in its conception, in its execution it was neither enormous nor unparalleled, In fact it is among the least harmful of all the plots against sovereign or parliament recorded in English history. Was the Catholic Church Implicated in the Gunpowder Plot? No evidence can be adduced to show that it was. Catesby, inventor of the plot and chief conspirator, was Protestant and Catholic by turns; his wife was a Protestant; his son was baptised and brought up a Protestant. Let it be granted, however, that ah the conspirators were Catholics of some degree: they never exceeded thirteen in number. At that date about half the population of England still adhered to the Catholic religion; and Cobbett maintains that the population of? England at the beginning of the Reformation was greater than at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There are no official statistics for that period; but the population of England cannot have been less than eight millions. Consequently there were in England at the time of the Gunpowder Plot about four millions of Catholics. Suppose, however, there was only one million: could any reasonable being blame a million people for the crime of thirteen dare-devils? It is a fact that the conspirators could not induce even their own retainers to follow them. During the late European War at least one New Zealand soldier on the Western Front turned traitor and joined the enemy. Could anyone reasonably conclude that therefore the N.Z. Expeditionary Force was made up of traitors? Yet, rela tively, the number that “ratted” from the N.Z.E.F. was much greater than the number of Catholics , that conspired in the Gunpowder Plot. Yesterday’s Herald informed us of the death of the Duke of Cumberland. He Was a Protestant. At the outbreak of the Great War he and the Duke of Albany, another Protestant, went over to Germany to help the Kaiser to strafe England. Could anyone logically conclude that these two traitors prove that the English Nobility is made -up of traitors? What, I wonder, would have happened if a Catholic Duke had turned traitor? We need not wonder : the Penal Laws would have been re-enacted. When a Protestant Duke exhibits his treason the crime hardly attracts notice A foreigner might well be excused for thinking that treason was not surprising in' the Protestant nobility*of England. . r

• , It must not be forgotten that there were Catholics "among the members of the Parliament that it was proposed to blow up. Probably they exceeded in number, certainly they excelled in rank,-the thirteen men who were involved in the execution of this famous plot. If the crime of thirteen Catholics, maddened by persecution, is to be attributed to Catholicism, why not attribute to Protestantism the many crimes committed against King James I. and his family by Protestants who had not the excuse of being maddened by persecution? The men who murdered James’ father and his numerous attendants, were Protestants. The queen who tried for twenty years to have his mother poisoned, was a Protestant. The queen ' y who tried to have him poisoned in his infancy was a Protestant. The two attempts made on his life in Scotland were made by Protestants. The Authors of the Main and*Bye Plots were mostly Protestants. The men who executed his son were Protestants. The men who dethroned his grandson were Protestants. These criminals were not men of obscure station in life; they were the leading men of Scotland and England: and their number was very large. Moreover, in some cases they acted in the name of Protestantism. In magnitude and in malice most of these crimes far outdistanced the Gunpowder Plot. But there is no annual commemoration of any one of them; no annual execration of the name of any one of the many criminals engaged in them.' Our school children are never told of them; the man-in-the-street knows nothing about them; people who make some pretence to scholarship have never heard of them. But the one plot laid by thirteen daredevil Catholics, maddened by persecution, is designedly writ so largely and so lyingly on the pages of English history as to preclude, as far as the writers could preclude it, any possible appearance of the truth. "Why the Gunpowder Plot was magnified and why it was so vehemently attributed to Catholicism is not now far to seek. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was-James-the-first’s chief minister. History says “he inherited the policy of his father.” It does not stress the much more important point that he also inherited the wealth of his father. This dual inheritance explains much of the story of the Gunpowder Plot; and much, too, of the subsequent history of England. William Cecil was by birth “only a plain Lincolnshire esquire” of very limited means. At his death,, howeVer, he left -to his son Robert, Earl of Salisbury, three hundred distinct landed estates. (Macaulays “Burleigh.” These estates William Cecil had procured by plunder, murder, and confiscation, from the real nobility and gentry of England because they refused to renounce that Catholic religion that had enjoyed the allegiance of their fathers for nigh a thousand years; because they refused to accept a new brand of religion “made in Germany.” The Sincerity of William Cecil’s Religious Convictions may be gauged from the fact that he changed his religious opinions four times, each change being dictated, not by religion, but by the interests of his ever increasing estates. With these three hundred distinct landed estates came to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, two alternatives—human heroism or diabolical wickedness: he could restore these estates to their s rightful owners, or he could retain them. He determined to retain them. In all cases their rightful owners were Catholics; in many cases they were members of the grand old nobility of England. When James I. ascended the throne of England most of these original and rightful owners still lived. Their gaze met Robert Cecil on every side. Indications were not wanting that James might show some consideration to the large number of Englishmen (probably half the'country’s population) who, in spite of every species of cruelty, still clung to the old religion, the religion of his martyred mother and, of his murdered father, the religion in which he was born and baptised, the religion in the rite of which he was crowned king of Scotland, the religion to which his Danish wife had recently become a convert. All this alarmed Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. Before him stood the terrifying prospect of losing not only 300 distinct landed estates, but even his life. “He inherited the policy of his father” and his father was not a scrupulous man. Mad Catesby unintentially saved the life and ill-gotten estates of Robert Cecil. . , : ! In 1604 He Resolved to Blow Up Parliament. At no time had his desperate plot any serious chance of

success.- Cecil was. informed of it and quickly perceived that it was to be, not his undoing, but his political and financial salvation. At least in name all concerned in the plot were Catholics: the rightful, owners of his 300 estates were Catholics. To Cecil Catholics * and Catholicism mattered very much. He and his estates or Catholics and v Catholicism must go under. He nursed the Gunpowder Plot: with the aid of agents provocateurs he encouraged it: at the psychological moment, the day before parliament opened, he dramatically “discovered” it: and best of all ho succeeded in attributing it to Catholicism. Popular fury was roused against the religion of old England. Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, smiled at the gullibility of his countrymen. His life, his titles, and 300 distinct landed estates were seen In A History of the Protes- " taut Reformation Cobbett aptly sums up the fable of the Gunpowder Plot: “It has been and is yet made a source of great and general delusion.” Cobbett died 88 years ago and Gunpowder Plot is even yet made “a source of great and,general delusion”; for it is almost impossible to overtake a lie. Says Lytton: “When the world has once got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to get it out of the world. You beat it about the head until it seems to have given up the ghost, and, lo! the next day it is healthy as ever.” The longevity and robustness of the “historical” lies told about Catholics is explained by Cobbett. “The lies were of long standing; hypocritical selfishness, backed by every species of violence, tyranny and ' cruelty, had been at work for ages to delude the people of England* Those Who Had Fattened Upon the Spoils of the Church and the poor, and who wished still to enjoy the fatness in quiet, naturally labored to persuade the people that those who had been despoiled were unworthy people. . . . When the whole press and all the pulpits of a country are leagued for such a purpose, and supported in that purpose by the State; and when the reviled party, is, by terrors hardly to be described, reduced to silence; in such a case the assailants must prevail the mass of the people-must believe what they say. Reason in such a state of things is cut of the question. But truth is immortal; and though she may be silenced for a while, there always, at last, comes something to cause her to claim her due and to triumph over falsehood.” ( Protestant Reformation, p. 106.) Cobbett lived and died a Protestant. He reared a large family of Protestant children. We may , take him therefore, as. an unbiassed witness to the attitude of his day towards Catholics. “From our very infancy,” he says, “on the knees of our mother, we have been taught to believe that to be a Catholic was to be a false, cruel, and bloody wretch; and ‘ popery and slavery 5 have been rung in our ears, till, whether we looked on the Catholics in their private or their public capacity, we have inevitably come to the conclusion that they were everything that was vicious and vile.” ( Protestant Ref., p. 4.) In a work entitled Advice to Young Men Cobbett writes: “Our 1 Historians,’ as they are called, have written under fear of the powerful, or have been bribed by them . . . and accordingly their works are, so far as they relate to former times, Masses of Lies unmatched by any others that the world has ever seen.” Happily things have changed since Cobbett wrote the above lines. Room in abundance, however, is left for improvement. In Historical Ethics Creighton says: “I think there is often an unconscious leaven of hypocrisy in the presentation of English history by English writers.” Yet, more than enough has been written by honorable historians .to make it inexcusable to be unawate that throughout the past three or four centuries, in England and in Germany, masses of deliberate lies ' about v Catholics and Catholicism have been invented and circulated by men who made themselves enormously rich from the plunder of Catholic churches and of the grand Catholic nobility of old England. From Gunpowder Plot to the Gordon Riots every No-Popery stunt has enjoyed the patronage, the • support, and the inspiration of the 'men whose “fingers', were dripping with the fat of sacrilege.” .But “truth is immortal.”. It is gradually becoming known, and soon, wo hope, it will be universal knowledge, that Gunpowder Plot “has been and is yet made a source of great and general delusion,” ' x * ' ■ ’ , . :