Chapter XII (2)

We must now return to examine the conduct of the Jesuits in England, and we could wish that we were spared the task; for, in connexion with their plots and crimes, we shall have to speak of the shameful and unchristian proceedings of their opponents, which were such as we cannot think of without sadness, and which convey but a poor idea of the goodness of human nature when acting under the influence of exciting passions. By the one party, the conception of a most abominable and infernal crime is extolled as a meritorious and heroic action; while the other, to punish the intended crime, violates the most sacred laws of justice and humanity.

There is no event in the annals of any nation, the memory of which has been so carefully perpetuated as has been in England the gunpowder plot. It is the first page of the national history which is taught to children by its annual commemoration every fifth of November. We therefore shall relate of it only so much as is necessary to demonstrate the part in it that may be attributed to the Jesuits. Here, as in the affair of Campion, it is rather difficult, amidst the many contradictory versions and documents, to arrive at a clear and satisfactory conclusion regarding the degree of culpability of the accused. We shall neither credit the apologists of the Jesuits, Eudemon and Bellarmine,[277] nor Abbott’s _Antologia_, and the assertions of James VI. himself, who, forgetting the dignity of a king, entered the lists to shew his pedantic learning and love of controversy. Instead of filling hundreds of pages with contradictory quotations, we shall frankly state the conclusions to which we have come after a careful examination of what has been written on the subject.[278]

That the Jesuits were from first to last the contrivers of all the machinations against Elizabeth and James, is an incontestable fact, and we have in part proved it. The notorious and unrelenting Parson, who, after he fled from England, became rector of the English college in Rome, and possessed very great influence at the Papal court, was the chief instigator of these plots. During Elizabeth’s lifetime, he had had the idea of unceremoniously disposing of the English crown in favour of the Duke of Parma, or of Cardinal Farnese, his brother; a ridiculous and absurd project of a fanatic conspirator, which was ridiculed at the time, by Pasquino,[279] in these words: “If any man will buy the kingdom of England, let him repair to a merchant with a black square cap, in the city, and he shall have a very good pennyworth of it.”[280] It was Parson, and his brethren the Jesuits, who obtained from Paul V., against the representation of Henry IV. of France, the bull which forbade all the Roman Catholics to take the oath of allegiance, and which produced so many miseries. It was he, too, who constrained the Pope to disgrace the arch-priest Blackwell for having taken it, and who compelled the secular priests to become rebels and victims against their own will; which circumstance elicited from them the memorial to the Pope which we have reported at p. 163. But, that no doubt may remain about it, listen to the ingenuous Crétineau, who, enumerating the benefits rendered by the Jesuits to Romanism, says, “Have they not preserved in England the germ (of Popery) which is now _developing itself with such vigour_, and which in Ireland, after three hundred years of martyrdom, BECAME A LEGITIMATE REVOLUTION?”[281] No words can prove better than these that the Jesuits were constantly and actively employed in Great Britain in propagating Romanism, a doctrine which, according to them, confers upon the Pope the right of supremacy, of disposing of the crown at his pleasure, and of releasing the subjects from their allegiance to a heretic sovereign, and which, consequently, amounts to high treason. In this aspect alone can be in part excused those sanguinary laws of persecution and tyranny enacted in the reigns of Elizabeth and James against the Roman Catholics. We insist upon this consideration.

Now, in the particular case which we are examining—the gunpowder plot—we believe that Catesby and Percy, _at first_, contrived the plot without the knowledge or participation of the Jesuits, as it is not denied that afterwards Gerard, Tezmund _alias_ Greenwall, and Garnet, were made acquainted with it in all its horrid details. The whole question regarding Garnet, who alone suffered for the conspiracy, has hitherto amounted to this—whether he knew of it in any other way than as it was revealed to him by Father Gerard, under the seal of confession. And the Jesuits and Papists insist upon this point, pretending that, in such a case, Garnet could not reveal the conspiracy without committing sacrilege. To speak the truth, we are inclined to believe that he, literally speaking, did not know of it otherwise; and these are the reasons why we believe so. Garnet was not, like Parson, a bold and daring partisan, capable of braving any danger, of attempting any enterprise. He was a very poor conspirator, in no way disposed to earn the palm of martyrdom. Catesby, who had been his associate in the plots during the reign of Elizabeth, must have known him well, so that he and the other conspirators did not trust him at first even with their confession. It was Greenway who, in our opinion, violated the seal of confession by apprising his superior of what was going on. It is not improbable, then, that when afterwards Catesby proposed to disclose to him the whole plan of the plot, Garnet, who had nothing to learn, refused to listen to him, in order that, in case of ill-success, he might not be accused of being an accomplice. That all the Jesuits approved of the plot and wished it success, there is very little doubt, and we even believe that, without speaking openly to the point, Garnet must have indirectly, by cunning, adroit insinuations, encouraged the conspirators to consummate the horrible crime. It is a fact deponed by Bates, and indubitably proved, that Garnet and the other two Jesuits had frequent interviews with Catesby and the other conspirators some few days before that which had been fixed upon for the execution of the plot; and we do not hesitate to say, that had Garnet wished to deter the conspirators from their infernal projects, he might have found a thousand ways of doing so without at all betraying the secrets of the confessional. But suppose that, as we have said, Garnet and Greenway did not know of the conspiracy except under the seal of confession, and that they in no way encouraged and abetted it, yet we cannot acquit them of the charge of being accomplices in the crime.

We have related at p. 140 that at Grenada the Jesuits had propounded a doctrine that there are circumstances in which the confessor may oblige his penitent to discover his accomplices or permit him to inform the competent authorities of the crime. It is true that the crime specified was heresy, but we think that the same may be said of murder or any other crime, and that that doctrine which is good at Grenada must be equally good in England. But let that pass, and let us proceed. The conspirators, at least five of them, declared to the confessor, that they were meditating a horrible crime, that they were taking measures to accomplish it, and that they were sure of success. The confessor granted them absolution, and another Jesuit administered to them the communion. Now, the indispensable condition of the validity of absolution from a sin, is, that the penitent feel repentance or contrition for having committed it. How then could Father Greenway absolve the conspirators from a crime of which they not only did not repent, but which they were proceeding at all hazards to perpetrate? The evil spirit himself expounds this doctrine to the unfortunate Guido, to whom he proves that the absolution he had received from the Pope from a sin he had not yet committed was null.

“No power can the impenitent absolve,
Nor to repent and will at once consist,
By contradiction absolute forbid.”[282]

We conclude from this, that either your confession is merely a snare to entrap fools, or that Greenway considered the conspiracy not a hellish crime, but a meritorious deed!

But we have a still more stringent argument. Suppose that, following some of their _probable opinions_, the Jesuits thought that they were obliged to absolve the miscreants, and that their ministry obliged them faithfully to keep the secret, had they not the Pope, the omnipotent Pope to apply to, to absolve them from that obligation? Is there any precept, any sacrament, any law human or divine, from the fulfilment of which, according to their doctrine, the Pope cannot grant a dispensation? If there is any, let it be pointed out, and we shall absolve them. But if they cannot deny that the Pope could have released them from the secrecy of confession, and if they cannot prove that they asked such dispensation, it is evident that they did not wish to prevent the crime. And if this was connivance, and if this connivance was a capital crime, then their condemnation was undoubtedly a legal and just sentence, and they met with nothing but deserved punishment. We wonder that James, who was so well versed in theological controversies, did not find out any of these arguments, which would certainly have furnished more plausible grounds for a condemnation than the equivocal confession wrung from the Jesuits by the contrivance of ignoble and disgraceful snares. For if we unreservedly condemn the Jesuits, we exclaim with equal energy against the proceedings of their adversaries. All the forms of justice, all the laws of humanity, were scandalously violated. Garnet is confined in a prison, repeatedly interrogated, and, in order that he may betray himself, assured that his accomplice Father Greenway has been arrested, and that he has confessed everything. Then, after he has been long in a dungeon alone, a jailor, pretending to be touched with compassion, tells the desolate man, that another Jesuit is close by, and that he can converse with, and even see him; and opens a door through which the two friends can see each other. The manner in which his secrets were surprised; the misconstruction of his words; the interception of letters, which he was assured he might in safety write to his bosom friends; the strange imputation of roguery, because he did not consent to accuse himself, in clear and precise words; the promises which were held out to him and never kept; and, above all, the protracted, cruel, and inhuman moral torture which was inflicted upon him on the scaffold;[283] all deserve our severe and unconditional censure. Thank God! in England at least we are now far from those cruel times of injustice and fanaticism, and we sincerely hope we shall never see them back again.

The Jesuits were not appalled nor discouraged by the execution of Garnet, nor by that of Oldcorne, who had suffered at Worcester some days before.[284] We find them in almost all the conspiracies which were got up to impede the regular march of the government, and we find from time to time severe and inquisitorial laws enacted against them, some of which forbade them to set foot in England, under penalty of death. It is an incontestable fact, that the Jesuits, by their turbulent and treacherous conduct, were the cause of most of the rigorous measures taken by the government against the Roman Catholics, who ought therefore to consider those crafty monks as their most bitter enemies. Another inference may be drawn from what we have related, namely—that no danger, not even that of death, can deter a Jesuit from following out his projects, when once they are considered to be profitable to the Order, or necessary to avenge it of its enemies. The moment they could return from exile, the instant they were set free from dangers or untied from the rack, they returned to their plots and intrigues with unabated ardour and most wonderful obstinacy. A striking instance of this was furnished by the Jesuit Fischer, who, the moment he was liberated from the tower, undertook to convert to Catholicism the mother of the brilliant Buckingham, who did in fact abjure Protestantism, and, in union with France and Spain, contrived to render less cruel the laws of proscription against the Catholics.[285]

During the fatal struggle which Charles I. maintained against the Parliament, the Jesuits publicly and openly took part with the cavaliers, because Charles was evidently much better disposed towards them than were the Puritans. It is evident that, by shewing their devotedness to the king, if the contest had ended in his favour, they might not only have hoped for the free exercise of their religion, but for a considerable share of influence over him. But a very grave accusation was brought against them, which, if true, would shew them guilty of the most diabolical iniquity. We have no proofs to establish this accusation, which was produced some years after the event; but, if we are to declare our own conviction, we firmly believe them guilty; not because we credit in all its parts the narrative of Jurieu, but for the reasons we are about to give. Jurieu relates that the Jesuits, to re-establish the Roman Catholic religion, thought that it would be necessary that Charles, then prisoner, should fall, and the monarchy along with him. In consequence, eighteen of them, headed by a lord of the realm, went to Rome to consult the Pope. The matter was discussed in secret assemblies, and it was decided _that it was lawful that Charles should die_. The deputies, on their return from Rome, shewed to the Sorbonne the response of the Pope, _of which many copies were distributed_. The Sorbonne approved. On their return to England, the Jesuits set themselves to work, and sent many of the most ardent Catholics among the Independents, dissembling their religion, to inflame still more their passions, and push things to extremities. Their scheme having failed, they wished to _have back the copies of the consultation of the Pope and the Sorbonne_; but the priest who before abjuring Protestantism had been Charles’s confessor, and who was intimate with the Jesuits, would not give up his copy, and, after the return of the Stuarts, shewed it to many persons who were still living, and could afford actual evidence of the reality of what he narrated.[286]

This statement, literally taken, does not stand examination, and Crétineau, who reports it, triumphantly exclaims, that this manner of writing history renders all discussion impossible.[287] No, certainly not; such infernal projects as to drive the king to extremities, and make the king’s head fall for the fulfilment of their designs, if formed, were neither publicly nor secretly discussed at the Court of Rome in the presence of eighteen Jesuits and a lord, and much less was the conclusion they came to, and their approval of the project, put in writing and _freely distributed_: we readily acquit them of such foolish contrivances. But, knowing as we do the arts of the Loyolan brotherhood, we repeat that we firmly believe that it is more than probable that the Jesuits did mix among the Roundheads and excite their fanaticism to frenzy. I have recorded (page 171) an almost similar fact which appeared under our own eyes in Rome. And I must further add, that all the more virulent men who, in the beginning of Pius IX.’s reign, were proposing the most daring and extravagant measures, were afterwards discovered to be either in the pay of the fathers, or to be the unconscious tools of their secret agency.

Discouraged a little under Cromwell, the Jesuits took heart again after the restoration of Charles II., and resorted to their usual arts and machinations. If we are to believe what they boast of, it seems that they had plunged into a more dangerous and extensive conspiracy against the Protestant religion and the English liberties than we are aware of. “A secret treaty,” says Crétineau, “had been signed between Louis XIV. and Charles II., to re-establish the Catholic religion in Great Britain. Fathers Annat and Ferrier, successively confessors to the French king, and the English Jesuits, had not been strangers to this negotiation; Colman did not ignore those details, and he spoke of them in his letters to Father Lachaise.”[288] We do not know how far we may credit this assertion; we know that Charles debased himself by asking and receiving money from the French monarch, to whom he betrayed the interests of his allies and of his own kingdom; but, as to having stipulated for the re-establishment of the Romish religion, we would not be bold enough to assert that it was so. However it be, this statement is connected with the famous Popish plot which, in 1678, threw Great Britain into such a state of alarm and excitement, and which, although it was at first the cause of many innocent victims beings sacrificed, ultimately produced an immense and glorious result—the Habeas Corpus Act.

Oates and Bedloe are two names which have come down to posterity abhorred and execrated by every honest man. These infamous and abandoned men accused the Jesuits, the Pope, the Kings of France and Spain, many English noblemen, and some scores of thousands of the English citizens, of a plot so absurd, as to make, in our days, every one ashamed of repeating it. And yet the generality of the common people, and the greater part of the higher classes, at the time believed in its reality. Nothing else was talked of, and all the cares of the government, the activity of the parliament, and the energy of the citizens, were exerted to protect the nation from an imaginary impending ruin. This ought to teach us how the passions and spirit of party deprive us of our right feeling and judgment, and how dangerous it is to give way to the impulse of the moment in times of great commotion. Many noblemen and citizens were arrested upon the deposition of these scoundrels. Many suffered the extreme penalty of the law. Father Ireland, on the deposition of Oates, for which the latter was afterwards condemned for perjury, was sentenced to death and executed; and soon after, the provincial and four other Jesuits met with the same fate upon the same absurd and unjust accusation.

We do not pretend to say, however, that the Jesuits at such an epoch had quite renounced their intrigues and treacherous projects, and were not to be looked after. No; their restless and enterprising spirit rendered, and does still render, them very dangerous, and their conduct in Protestant countries may be said, with justice, to be a permanent conspiracy against the welfare and the interests of all other communities; and they themselves, as we said, confess as much. But they were guiltless of the crime of which they were accused, and for which they suffered. How much more mischief they were the cause of in the reign of the despotic and bigoted James II.! It was at their instigation that this bigoted monarch annulled the test act, imprisoned many Protestant bishops, had as many as four Roman Catholic priests consecrated bishops at a time, and had formed a plan for converting England to the Popish idolatry. Yet all these arbitrary and foolish acts resulted also at last in the great advantage of the English nation. The Jesuits’ influence had grown so powerful under James’s reign, that Father Peter was admitted into the privy council, and we do not hesitate to say, that the favour James shewed to the members of the Company and to the Catholics in general, and the authority they exercised over him, was one of the most efficient causes of raising up the people of England’s feelings of indignation, and to bring them to resolve upon and achieve the glorious Revolution of 1688.