Chapter XV: Part 15

When Tyrone returned to his own country he found that the reign of peace and reconciliation between England and Ireland was as far off as ever. Tyrone had believed it was fortunate for him to have made terms of peace in King James' reign and not in Elizabeth's. But he soon found that his hopes of a better time coming were premature. James no doubt thought it good policy to secure the allegiance of a man like Tyrone by apparently generous concessions. But he had no idea of adopting any policy toward Ireland other than the old familiar policy of striving to reduce her to the conditions of an English province, with English laws, customs, costumes, and religion.

The King appears to have set his mind on the complete suppression of the national religion by the enforcement of the sternest penal laws against Catholics. He was determined also to blot out whatever remained of the old Brehon laws, still dear to the memories of the people, and still cherished among the sacred traditions of the country. When King James succeeded to the throne he promised the Irish that they should have the right of practising their religion, at least in private; but he soon recalled his promise, and made it clear that those who would retain the protection of the new ruling system must abjure the faith of their fathers. Those who were put into the actual government of the country saw that this policy could not be carried out without much resistance, and therefore decreed the complete disarmament of all Irish retainers who still acknowledged the leadership of the chieftains. One of the greatest of these chieftains, O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnel, was called upon to conform openly to the English Church, under pain of being proceeded against as a traitor.

The state of things he found existing on his return to Ireland would naturally have driven Tyrone into rebellion, and the rulers of the country appear to have made up their minds that he must be planning some such rising. Tyrconnel was naturally regarded as an enemy of the same order, and the policy of the ruling powers was to anticipate their designs and condemn them in advance. Tyrone and Tyrconnel were accordingly proclaimed traitors to the King. The two earls determined that, as immediate insurrection had no chance of success, there was no safety for them but in prompt escape from the country.

Then followed "the flight of the earls." Tyrone and Tyrconnel, with their families and many of their friends and retainers, nearly a hundred persons in all, made their escape in one vessel from the Irish shore, and for twenty-one days were at the mercy of the sea and of the equinoctial winds, for they sailed about the middle of September. A story characteristic of the faith which then filled the hearts of Irish chieftains is told. Tyrone fastened his golden crucifix to a string and drew it through the sea at the stern of the vessel, in the hope that the waves might thus be stilled. In the first week of October they landed on the shore of France and travelled on to Rouen, receiving nothing but kindness from the French. When King James heard of their flight he at once demanded from France the surrender of the earls, but Henry IV refused to surrender them.

Henry received the exiles with gracious and friendly greeting, but it was not thought prudent by the earls, any more than by the French King, they should remain in France at the risk of involving the two countries in war. The earls, with their families and followers, went into Flanders and then on to Rome. Pope Paul V gave them a cordial welcome, and made liberal arrangements for their maintenance, while the King of Spain showed his traditional sympathy with Ireland by settling pensions on them. Tyrconnel died soon after, in the Franciscan Church of St. Pietro di Montorio, and was laid in his grave wrapped in the robe of a Franciscan friar. Tyrone lived for several years. He was filled in this later time by a passionate longing to see once more the loved country of his birth, and he appealed to the English government for permission to return to Ireland and live quietly there until the end came. His request was not granted. The English authorities, no doubt, felt good reason to believe that his return to Ireland would be the cause of profound and dangerous emotion among the people who loved him and whom he loved so well.

His later years in Rome were literally darkened, because his sight, which had been for some time failing, soon left him to absolute blindness. He died on July 20, 1616, having lived a life of seventy-six years. Tyrone's body was laid to rest in the same church which held the body of his comrade Tyrconnel. Their graves are side by side. A modern writer tells us that the church which has become the tomb of the two exiled earls stands "where the Janiculum overlooks the glory of Rome, the yellow Tiber and the Alban Hills, the deathless Coliseum, and the stretching Campagna." "Raphael had painted his Transfiguration for the grand altar; the hand of Sebastiano del Piombo had colored the walls with the scourging of the Redeemer." The present writer has seen the graves, and even the merest stranger to the spirit of Irish history must feel impressed by the story of the two exiles who found their last resting-place enclosed by such a scene.

THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

A.D. 1605

SAMUEL R. GARDINER

The "Gunpowder Plot" acquires importance from the fact that its
anniversary, November 5th, is still celebrated in England with
fire-crackers, burnings of "Guy Fawkes" scarecrows, and other
patriotic manifestations. Historically the plot, being detected
before its execution, ended in smoke, with no more terrible result
than the execution of the conspirators.

James I, son of the ill-starred Mary of Scotland, succeeded Elizabeth
on the English throne in 1603, and held both England and Scotland
under his sway. The English Catholics had been led to hope that James
would be lenient toward their faith, but in this they were
disappointed, and a few desperate followers of their religion united
in the Gunpowder Plot. More than one attempt has been made to prove
that this really amounted to very little, and was exaggerated by
James' minister, the Earl of Salisbury, to justify the harshness of
the Government toward Catholics.

Father Gerard's book, _What was the Gunpowder Plot?_ is the strongest
argument yet produced in favor of this view; but the fact remains
undenied and undeniable that some sort of plot existed. We present
here the latest summarizing of the matter (1897) by the standard
English historian, Gardiner, confining the account almost wholly to
Fawkes' own confessions.

Before examining the evidence, it will be well to remind my readers what the so-called traditional story of the plot is, or, rather, the story which has been told by writers who have in the present century availed themselves of the manuscript treasures now at our disposal, and which are for the most part in the Public Record Office. With this object I cannot do better than borrow the succinct narrative of the _Edinburgh Review_.[1]

[1] January, 1897, p. 192.

"Early in 1604 the three men, Robert Catesby, John Wright, and Thomas
Winter, meeting in a house at Lambeth, resolved on a Powder Plot,
though, of course, only in outline. By April they had added to their
number Wright's brother-in-law, Thomas Percy, and Guy Fawkes, a
Yorkshire man of respectable family, but actually a soldier of
fortune, serving in the Spanish army in the Low Countries, who was
specially brought over to England as a capable and resolute man.
Later on they enlisted Wright's brother Christopher, Winter's brother
Robert, Robert Keyes, and a few more; but all, with the exception of
Thomas Bates, Catesby's servant, men of family and for the most part
of competent fortune, though Keyes is said to have been in straitened
circumstances, and Catesby to have been impoverished by a heavy fine
levied on him as a recusant.[2]

[2] This is a mistake. The fine of three thousand pounds was
imposed for his part in the Essex rebellion.

"Percy, a second cousin of the Earl of Northumberland, then captain
of the Gentleman Pensioners, was admitted by him into that body
in--it is said--an irregular manner, his relationship to the earl
passing in lieu of the usual oath of fidelity. The position gave him
some authority and license near the court, and enabled him to hire a
house, or part of a house, adjoining the House of Lords. From the
cellar of this house they proposed to burrow under the House of
Lords; to place there a large quantity of powder, and to blow up the
whole when the King and his family were there assembled at the
opening of Parliament. On December 11, 1604, they began to dig in the
cellar, and after a fortnight's labor, having come to a thick wall,
they left off work and separated for Christmas.

"Early in January they began at the wall, which they found to be
extremely hard, so that, after working for about two months,[3] they
had not got more than half way through it. They then learned that a
cellar actually under the House of Lords, and used as a coal cellar,
was to be let; and as it was most suitable for their design, Percy
hired it as though for his own use. The digging was stopped, and
powder, to the amount of thirty-six barrels, was brought into the
cellar, where it was stowed under heaps of coal or firewood, and so
remained, under the immediate care of Guy Fawkes,[4] till, on the
night of November 4, 1605--the opening of Parliament being fixed for
the next day--Sir Thomas Knyvet, with a party of men, was ordered to
examine the cellar. He met Fawkes coming out of it, arrested him, and
on a close search found the powder, of which a mysterious warning had
been conveyed to Lord Monteagle a few days before. On the news of
this discovery the conspirators scattered, but by different roads
rejoined each other in Warwickshire, whence, endeavoring to raise the
country, they rode through Worcestershire, and were finally shot or
taken prisoners at Holbeche in Staffordshire."

[3] Off and on, a fortnight at the end of January and beginning of
February, and then again probably for a very short time in March.

[4] Fawkes was absent part of the time.

It is this story that I now propose to compare with the evidence. First of all, let us restrict ourselves to the story told by Guy Fawkes himself in the five examinations to which he was subjected previously to his being put to the torture on November 9th, and to the letters, proclamations, etc., issued by the Government during the four days commencing with the 5th. From these we learn, not only that Fawkes' account of the matter gradually developed, but that the knowledge of the Government also developed; a fact which fits in very well with the "traditional story," but which is hardly to be expected if the Government account of the affair was cut-and-dried from the first.

Fawkes' first examination took place on November 5th, and was conducted by Chief Justice Popham and Attorney-General Coke. It is true that only a copy has reached us, but it is a copy taken for Coke's use, as is shown by the headings of each paragraph inserted in the margin in his own hand. It is therefore out of the question that Salisbury, if he had been so minded, would have been able to falsify it. Each page has the signature (in copy) of "Jhon Jhonson," the name by which Fawkes chose to be known.

The first part of the examination turns upon Fawkes' movements abroad, showing that the Government had already acquired information that he had been beyond sea. Fawkes showed no reluctance to speak of his own proceedings in the Low Countries, or to give the names of persons he had met there, and who were beyond the reach of his examiners. As to his movements after his return to England, he was explicit enough so far as he was himself concerned, and also about Percy, whose servant he professed himself to be, and whose connection with the hiring of the house could not be concealed.

Fawkes stated that after coming back to England he "came to the lodging near the Upper House of Parliament," and "that Percy hired the house of Whynniard for £12 rent, about a year and a half ago"; that his master, before his own going abroad, _i.e._, before Easter, 1605, "lay in the house about three or four times." Further, he confessed "that about Christmas last," _i.e._, Christmas, 1604, "he brought in the night-time gunpowder [to the cellar under the Upper House of Parliament]."[5] Afterward he told how he covered the powder with fagots, intending to blow up the King and the Lords; and, being pressed how he knew that the King would be in the House on the 5th, said he knew it only from general report, and by the making ready of the King's barge; but he would have "blown up the Upper House whensoever the King was there."

[5] The words between brackets are inserted in another hand.

He further acknowledged that there was more than one person concerned in the conspiracy, and said he himself had promised not to reveal it, but denied that he had taken the sacrament on his promise. Where the promise was given he could not remember, except that it was in England. He refused to accuse his partners, saying that he himself had provided the powder, and defrayed the cost of his journey beyond sea, which was only undertaken "to see the country, and to pass away the time." When he went, he locked up the powder and took the key with him, and "one Gibbons' wife, who dwells thereby, had the charge of the residue of the house."

Such is that part of the story told by Fawkes which concerns us at present. It is obvious that Fawkes, who, as subsequent experience shows, was no coward, had made up his mind to shield as far as possible his confederates, and to take the whole of the blame upon himself. He says, for instance, that Percy had only lain in the house for three or four days before Easter, 1605, a statement, as subsequent evidence proved, quite untrue; he pretends not to know, except from rumor and the preparation of the barge, that the King was coming to the House of Lords on the 5th, a statement almost certainly untrue. In order not to criminate others, and especially any priest, he denies having taken the sacrament on his promise, which is also untrue.

What is more noticeable is that he makes no mention of the mine, about which so much was afterward heard, evidently--so at least I read the evidence--because he did not wish to bring upon the stage those who had worked at it. If indeed the passage which I have placed in square brackets be accepted as evidence, Fawkes did more than keep silence upon the mine. He must have made a positive assertion--soon afterward found to be untrue--that the cellar was hired several months before it really was. This passage is, however, inserted in a different hand from the rest of the document. My own belief is that it gives a correct account of a statement made by the prisoner, but omitted by the clerk who made the copy for Coke, and inserted by some other person. Nobody that I can think of had the slightest interest in adding the words, while they are just what Fawkes might be expected to say if he wanted to lead his examiners off the scent. At all events, even if these words be left out of account, it must be admitted that Fawkes said nothing about the existence of a mine.

Though Fawkes kept silence as to the mine, he did not keep silence on the desperate character of the work on which he had been engaged. "And," runs the record, "he confesseth that when the King had come to the Parliament House this present day, and the Upper House had been sitting, he meant to have fired the match and have fled for his own safety before the powder had taken fire, and confesseth that, if he had not been apprehended this last night, he had blown up the Upper House when the King, Lords, Bishops, and others had been there, and saith that he spake for [and provided][6] those bars and crows of iron, some in one place, some in another, in London, lest it should be suspected, and saith that he had some of them in or about Gracious Street."[7] Fawkes here clearly takes the whole terrible design, with the exception of the mine, on his own shoulders.

[6] Inserted in the same hand as that in which the words about the
cellar were written. It will be observed that the insertion cannot
serve anyone's purpose.

[7] Gracechurch Street.

Commissioners were now appointed to conduct the investigation further. They were: Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Worcester, Northampton, Salisbury, Mar, and Popham, with Attorney-General Coke in attendance. This was hardly a body of men who would knowingly cover an intrigue of Salisbury's. Worcester is always understood to have been professedly a Catholic; Northampton was certainly one, though he attended the King's service, while Suffolk was friendly toward the Catholics; and Nottingham, if he is no longer to be counted among them,[8] was at least not long afterward a member of the party which favored an alliance with Spain, and therefore a policy of toleration toward the Catholics.

[8] On July 20-30, 1605, Father Creswell writes to Paul V that
Nottingham showed him every civility "that could be expected from
one who does not profess our holy religion."

Before five of these commissioners--Nottingham, Suffolk, Devonshire, Northampton, and Salisbury--Fawkes was examined a second time on the forenoon of the 6th. In some way the Government had found out that Percy had had a new door made in the wall leading to the cellar, and they now drew from Fawkes an untrue statement that it was put in about the middle of Lent, that is to say, early in March, 1605.[9] They had also discovered a pair of brewer's slings, by which barrels were usually carried between two men, and they pressed Fawkes hard to say who was his partner in removing the barrels of gunpowder. He began by denying that he had had a partner at all, but finally answered that "he cannot discover the party, but"--_i.e._, lest--"he shall bring him in question." He also said that he had forgotten where he slept on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday in the week before his arrest.

[9] The "cellar" was not really hired till a little before Easter,
March 31st.

Upon this James himself intervened, submitting to the Commissioners a series of questions with the object of drawing out of the prisoner a true account of himself, and of his relations to Percy. A letter had been found on Fawkes when he was taken, directed not to Johnson, but to Fawkes, and this among other things had raised the King's suspicions. In his third examination, on the afternoon of the 6th, in the presence of Northampton, Devonshire, Nottingham, and Salisbury, Fawkes gave a good deal of information, more or less true, about himself; and, while still maintaining that his real name was Johnson, said that the letter, which was written by a Mrs. Bostock in Flanders, was addressed to him by another name "because he called himself Fawkes," that is to say, because he had acquired the name of Fawkes as an alias.

"If he will not otherwise confess," the King had ended by saying, "the gentler tortures are to be first used unto him, _et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur_." To us, living in the nineteenth century, these words are simply horrible. As a Scotchman, however, James had long been familiar with the use of torture as an ordinary means of legal investigation, while even in England, though unknown to the law, that is to say, to the practice of the ordinary courts of justice, it had for some generations been used not infrequently by order of the council to extract evidence from a recalcitrant witness, though, according to Bacon, not for the purpose of driving him to incriminate himself. Surely, if the use of torture was admissible at all, this was a case for its employment. The prisoner had informed the government that he had been at the bottom of a plot of the most sanguinary kind, and had acknowledged by implication that there were fellow-conspirators whom he refused to name.

If, indeed, Father Gerard's view of the case, that the government, or at least Salisbury, had for some time known all about the conspiracy, nothing--not even the Gunpowder Plot itself--could be more atrocious than the infliction of torments on a fellow-creature to make him reveal a secret already in their possession. If, however, the evidence I have adduced be worth anything, this was by no means the case. What it shows is that on the afternoon of the 6th all that the members of the government were aware of was that an unknown number of conspirators were at large--they knew not where--and might at that very moment be appealing--they knew not with what effect--to Catholic land-owners and their tenants, who were, without doubt, exasperated by the recent enforcement of the penal laws. We may, if we please, condemn the conduct of the government which had brought the danger of a general Catholic rising within sight. We cannot deny that, at that particular moment, they had real cause of alarm. At all events, no immediate steps were taken to put this part of the King's orders in execution.

Some little information, indeed, was coming in from other witnesses. In his first examination, on November 5th, Fawkes had stated that in his absence he locked up the powder, and "one Gibbons' wife who dwells thereby had the charge of the residue of the house." An examination of her husband on the 5th, however, only elicited that he, being a porter, had with two others carried three thousand billets into the vault. On the 6th, Ellen, the wife of Andrew Bright, stated that Percy's servant had, about the beginning of March, asked her to let the vault to his master, and that she had consented to abandon her tenancy of it if Mrs. Whynniard, from whom she held it, would consent. Mrs. Whynniard's consent having been obtained, Mrs. Bright, or rather Mrs. Skinner--she being a widow remarried subsequently to Andrew Bright--received two pounds for giving up the premises.

The important point in this evidence is that the date of March, 1605, given as that on which Percy entered into possession of the cellar, showed that Fawkes' statement that he had brought powder into the cellar at Christmas, 1604, could not possibly be true. On the 7th Mrs. Whynniard confirmed Mrs. Bright's statement, and also stated that, a year earlier, in March, 1604, "Mr. Percy began to labor very earnestly with this examinate and her husband to have the lodging by the Parliament House, which one Mr. Henry Ferris, of Warwickshire, had long held before, and, having obtained the said Mr. Ferris' good-will to part from it after long suit by himself and great entreaty of Mr. Carleton, Mr. Epsley, and other gentleman belonging to the Earl of Northumberland, affirming him to be a very honest gentleman, and that they could not have a better tenant, her husband and she were contented to let him have the said lodging at the same rent Mr. Ferris paid for it."

Mrs. Whynniard had plainly never heard of the mine; and that the Government was in equal ignorance is shown by the indorsement on the agreement of Ferris--or rather Ferrers--to make over his tenancy to Percy--"The bargain between Ferris and Percy for the bloody cellar, found in Winter's lodging." Winter's name had been under consideration for some little time, and doubtless the discovery of this paper was made on, or more probably before, the 7th. The Government, having as yet nothing but Fawkes' evidence to go upon, connected the hiring of the house with the hiring of the cellar, and at least showed no signs of suspecting anything more.

On the same day, the 7th, something was definitely heard of the proceedings of the other plotters, who had either gathered at Dunchurch for the hunting-match, or had fled from London to join them, and a proclamation was issued for the arrest of Percy, Catesby, Rokewood, Thomas Winter, Edward[10] Grant, John and Christopher Wright, and Catesby's servant, Robert Ashfield. They were charged with assembling in troops in the counties of Warwick and Worcester, breaking into stables and seizing horses. Fawkes, too, was on that day subjected to a fourth examination. Not very much that was new was extracted from him. He acknowledged that his real name was Guy Fawkes, that--which he had denied before--he had received the sacrament not to discover any of the conspirators, and also that there had been at first five persons privy to the plot, and afterward five or six more "were generally acquainted that an action was to be performed for the Catholic cause, and saith that he doth not know that they were acquainted with the whole conspiracy." Being asked whether Catesby, the two Wrights, Winter, or Tresham, were privy, he refused to accuse any one.

[10] Properly "John."

That Fawkes had already been threatened with torture is known, and it may easily be imagined that the threats had been redoubled after this last unsatisfactory acknowledgment. On the morning of the 8th, however, Waad, who was employed to worm out his secrets, reported that little was to be expected. "I find this fellow," he wrote, "who this day is in a most stubborn and perverse humour, as dogged as if he were possessed. Yester-night I had persuaded him to set down a clear narration of all his wicked plots from the first entering to the same, to the end they pretended, with the discourses and projects that were thought upon amongst them, which he undertook [to do] and craved time this night to bethink him the better; but this morning he hath changed his mind and is [so] sullen and obstinate as there is no dealing with him."

The sight of the examiners, together with the sight of the rack,[11] changed Fawkes' mind to some extent. He was resolved that nothing but actual torture should wring from him the names of his fellow-plotters, who so far as was known in London were still at large.[12] He prepared himself, however, to reveal the secrets of the plot so far as was consistent with the concealment of the names of those concerned in it. His fifth examination, on the 8th, the last before the one taken under torture on the 9th, gives to the inquirer into the reality of the plot all that he wants to know.

[11] In _The King's Book_ it is stated that Fawkes was shown the
rack, but never racked. Probably the torture used on the 9th was
that of the manacles, or hanging up by the wrists or thumbs.

[12] The principal ones were either killed or taken at Holbeche on
that very day.

"He confesseth," so the tale begins, "that a practice was first broken unto him against his majesty for the Catholic cause, and not invented or propounded by himself, and this was first propounded unto him about Easter last was twelvemonth, beyond the seas in the Low Countries, by an English layman,[13] and that Englishman came over with him in his company into England, and they two and three more[14] were the first five mentioned in the former examination. And they five resolving to do somewhat for the Catholic cause (a vow being first taken by all of them for secrecy), one of the other three[15] propounded to perform it with powder, and resolved that the place should be (where this action should be performed and justice done) in or near the place of the sitting of the Parliament, wherein Religion had been unjustly suppressed. This being resolved, the manner of it was as followeth:

"First they hired the house at Westminster, of one Ferres, and having his house they sought then to make a mine under the Upper House of Parliament, and they began to make the mine in or about the 11 of December, and they five first entered into the works, and soone after took an other[16] to them, having first sworn him and taken the sacrament for secrecy; and when they came to the wall (that was about three yards thick) and found it a matter of great difficulty, they took to them an other in like manner, with oath and sacrament as aforesaid;[17] all which seven were gentlemen of name and blood, and not any was employed in or about this action (no, not so much as in digging and mining) that was not a gentleman.

[13] Thomas Winter.

[14] Catesby, Percy, and John Wright.

[15] _I.e._, Catesby. In a copy forwarded to Edmondes by Salisbury
(Stowe MSS. 168, fol. 223) the copyist had originally written
"three or four more," which is altered to "three."

[16] Christopher Wright.

[17] Robert Winter.

"And having wrought to the wall before Christmas, they ceased until after the holidays, and the day before Christmas (having a mass of earth that came out of the mine) they carried it into the garden of the said house, and after Christmas they wrought the wall till Candlemas, and wrought the wall half through; and saith that all the time while the other wrought, he stood as sentinel, to decry any man that came near; and when any man came near to the place, upon warning given by him they ceased until they had notice to proceed from him; and sayeth that they seven all lay in the house, and had shot and powder, and they all resolved to die in that place, before they yielded or were taken.

"And, as they were working, they heard a rushing in the cellar, which grew by one Bright's selling of his coals,[18] whereupon this examinant, fearing they had been discovered, went into the cellar and viewed the cellar, and perceiving the commodity thereof for their purpose, and understanding how it would be letten, his master, Mr. Percy, hired the cellar for a year for £4 rent; and confesseth that after Christmas twenty barrels of powder were brought by themselves to a house, which they had on the bank side in hampers, and from that house removed the powder to the said house near the Upper House of Parliament; and, presently, upon hiring the cellar they themselves removed the powder into the cellar, and covered the same with fagots which they had before laid into the cellar.

[18] This is an obvious mistake, as the widow Skinner was not at
this time married to Bright, but one just as likely to be made by
Fawkes himself as by his examiners.

"After, about Easter, he went into the Low Countries (as he before hath declared in his former examination) and that the true purpose of his going over was, lest, being a dangerous man, he should be known and suspected, and in the mean time he left the key of the cellar with Mr. Percy, who in his absence caused more billets to be laid into the cellar, as in his former examination he confessed, and returned about the end of August, or the beginning of September, and went again to the said house, near to the said cellar, and received the key of the cellar again of one of the five,[19] and then they brought in five or six barrels of powder more into the cellar, which also they covered with billets, saving four little barrels covered with fagots, and then this examinant went into the country about the end of September.

[19] Percy.

"It appeareth the powder was in the cellar placed as it was found the 5 of November, when the Lords came to prorogue the Parliament, and sayeth that he returned again to the said house near the cellar on Wednesday the 30 of October.

"_He confesseth he was at the Earl of Montgomery's marriage, but, as he sayeth, with no intention of evil, having a sword about him, and was very near to his Majesty and the Lords there present._[20]

[20] The words in Italics are marked by pen-strokes across them for
omission.

"Forasmuch as they knew not well how they should come by the person of the Duke Charles, being near London, where they had no forces (if he had not been also blown up), he confesseth that it was resolved among them that the same day that this detestable act should have been performed, the same day should other of their confederacy have surprised the person of the Lady Elizabeth, and presently have proclaimed her Queen, _to which purpose a proclamation was drawn, as well to avow and justify the action, as to have protested against the Union, and in no sort to have meddled with religion therein, and would have protested also against all strangers_, and this proclamation should have been made in the name of the Lady Elizabeth.

"Being demanded why they did not surprise the King's person, and draw him to the effecting of their purpose, sayeth that so many must have been acquainted with such an action as it would not have been kept secret.

"He confesseth that if their purpose had taken effect, until they had had power enough, they would not have avowed the deed to be theirs; but if their power (for their defence and safety) had been sufficient, they themselves would then have taken it upon them. They meant also to have sent for the prisoners in the Tower to have come to them, of whom particularly they had some consultation.

"He confesseth that the place of rendezvous was in Warwickshire, and that armour was sent thither, but the particular thereof he knows not.

"He confesseth that they had consultation for the taking of the Lady Mary into their possession, but knew not how to come by her.

"And confesseth that provision was made by some of the conspiracy of some armour of proof this last summer for this action.

"He confesseth that the powder was bought by the common purse of the confederates.

"L. Admiral [Earl of Nottingham] Earl of Salisbury
L. Chamberlain [Earl of Suffolk] Earl of Mar
Earl of Devonshire Lord Chief Justice [Popham][21]
Earl of Northampton
"Attended by Mr. Attorney-General [Coke]."

[21] _G.P.B._, No. 49. In the Stowe copy the names of the
commissioners are omitted, and a list of fifteen plotters added. As
the paper was enclosed in a letter to Edmondes of the 14th, these
might easily be added at any date preceding that.

The 9th, the day on which Fawkes was put to the torture, brought news to the government that the fear of insurrection need no longer be entertained. It had been known before this that Fawkes' confederates had met on the 5th at Dunchurch on the pretext of a hunting-match,[22] and had been breaking open houses in Warwickshire and Worcestershire in order to collect arms. Yet so indefinite was the knowledge of the council that, on the 8th, they offered a reward for the apprehension of Percy alone, without including any of the other conspirators.[23] On the evening of the 9th[24] they received a letter from Sir Richard Walsh, the Sheriff of Worcestershire.

[22] Probably, as Father Gerard suggests, what would now be known
as a coursing-match.

[23] _Proclamation Book, R.O._, p. 117.

[24] A late postscript added to the letter to the ambassadors sent
off on the 9th (_Winwood_, ii. 173) shows that before the end of
the day Salisbury had learned even more of the details than were
comprised in the sheriff's letter.

"We think fit," he wrote, "with all speed to certify your Lordships of the happy success it hath pleased God to give us against the rebellious assembly in these parts. After such time as they had taken the horses from Warwick upon Tuesday night last,[25] they came to Mr. Robert Winter's house to Huddington upon Wednesday night,[26] where--having entered--[they] armed themselves at all points in open rebellion. They passed from thence upon Thursday morning[27] unto Hewell--the Lord Windsor's house--which they entered and took from thence by force great store of armour, artillery of the said Lord Windsor's, and passed that night into the county of Staffordshire unto the house of one Stephen Littleton, Gentleman, called Holbeche, about two miles distant from Stourbridge, whither we pursued, with the assistance of Sir John Foliot, Knight, Francis Ketelsby, Esquire, Humphrey Salway, Gentleman, Edmund Walsh, and Francis Conyers, Gentlemen, with few other gentlemen and the power and face of the country.

[25] November 5th.

[26] November 6th.

[27] November 7th.

"We made against them upon Thursday morning,[27] and freshly pursued them until the next day,[28] at which time, about twelve or one of the clock in the afternoon, we overtook them at the said Holbeche House--the greatest part of their retinue and some of the better sort being dispersed and fled before our coming, whereupon and after summons and warning first given and proclamation in his Highness's name to yield and submit themselves--who refusing the same, we fired some part of the house and assaulted some part of the rebellious persons left in the said house, in which assault one Mr. Robert Catesby is slain, and three others verily thought wounded to death whose names--as far as we can learn--are Thomas Percy, Gentleman, John Wright, and Christopher Wright, Gentlemen; and these are apprehended and taken: Thomas Winter Gentleman, John Grant Gentleman, Henry Morgan Gentleman, Ambrose Rokewood Gentleman, Thomas Ockley carpenter, Edmund Townsend servant to the said John Grant, Nicholas Pelborrow, servant unto the said Ambrose Rokewood, Edward Ockley carpenter, Richard Townsend servant to the said Robert Winter, Richard Day servant to the said Stephen Littleton, which said prisoners are in safe custody here, and so shall remain until your Honours good pleasures be further known. The rest of that rebellious assembly is dispersed, we have caused to be followed with fresh suite and hope of their speedy apprehension. We have also thought fit to send unto your Honours--according unto our duties--such letters as we have found about the parties apprehended; and so resting in all duty at your Honours' further command, we take leave, from Stourbridge this Saturday morning, being the ixth of this instant November 1605.

"Your Honours' most humble to be commanded,

"RICH. WALSH."

[28] November 8th.

CERVANTES' "DON QUIXOTE" REFORMS LITERATURE

A.D. 1605

HENRY EDWARD WATTS

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is the most celebrated of Spanish
authors; but his fame rests upon a far more solid basis than merely
that of having written the most readable and tender of humorous
romances. He reformed literature. He tilted at windmills as truly as
ever his hero did, and overthrew the false taste for wordy pomp and
emptiness which was characteristic of his times. It was not only
Spanish literature that felt the impulse of his warm, frank honesty
and insight into life. All Europe was his debtor.

Cervantes was an impoverished nobleman, that too common product of
Spain in those days when her American gold fleets had begun to fail
her. In his early manhood he was an author and then a soldier of
fortune in Italy. He fought as a common soldier on one of the Genoese
galleys in the great sea-fight of Lepanto, distinguished himself
there by his heroism, and was three times wounded, crippled in one
arm for life. Later he was captured by Algerian pirates, and was for
five years a slave, ever planning and attempting escapes, a daring,
dashing hero, the life and admiration of his fellow-captives.

After his ransom and return to Spain, Cervantes once more took up
literature, the amusement of his youth. He became a playwright and
romancer. The government gave him a small position as a tax-collector,
but with such good-natured carelessness did he handle this
uncongenial employ that he had repeatedly to make good from his own
pocket the losses he entailed upon the government. Even this
unsatisfactory labor failed the impractical author about the period
of the death of King Philip II (1598). He was imprisoned for debt,
and sank into such abject poverty that he depended on his friends
for bread. How much the gloomy Philip II is satirized in Cervantes'
masterpiece has always been a disputed question.

The accession of the new King, which had been hailed as "the light after darkness," had little effect on Cervantes' fortunes. Philip III, though he had some taste for letters, and was not without sprouts of kindliness in his heart, had been by education and by an over-strict regimen in youth debased, so that he was even more completely a slave to the priestly influence than his father had been, without any of his father's ability or force of character. The Duke of Lerma was "the Atlas who bore the burden of the monarchy."[1] He was a man, according to Quevedo, "alluring and dexterous rather than intelligent; ruled by the interested cunning of his own creatures but imperious with all others; magnificent, ostentatious; choosing his men only by considerations of his own special policy or from personal friendship." Under such a man, who ruled the King at his will, it was not likely that any portion of the royal benevolence should light on Miguel de Cervantes. Moreover, the crowd of suppliants at court was very great, their appetite stimulated doubtless by the flattering reports of the new King's liberal disposition.

[1] The phrase was probably used by Cervantes in irony. It had been
used by others before, and was a common form.

A contemporary writer laments with pathetic zeal and pious indignation the lot of many famous captains and valiant soldiers, who, after serving the King all their lives and being riddled with wounds, were not only pushed aside into corners without any reward, but condemned to see unworthy men without merit loaded with benefits, merely through enjoying the favor of some minister or courtier.[2] The Duke of Lerma, as one who professed a contempt for all letters and learning, was even less likely to be influenced by Cervantes' literary merits than by his services as a soldier--services which had now become an old story. Disappointed in his hopes of preferment, Cervantes had to maintain himself and his family by the exercise of his pen--writing, as we learn, letters and memorials for those who needed them,[3] while busy upon his new book.

[2] Fr. Sepulveda, quoted by Navarrete.

[3] And "employed in various agencies and businesses," says
Navarrete, vaguely.

Without the gifts which are in favor at court--unskilled in the arts of solicitation--we can imagine, with a man of Cervantes' temperament, what a special hell it must have been--"in suing long to bide." About this time he seems almost to have dropped out of life. The four years between 1598 and 1602 are the obscurest in his story. We do not know where he lived or what he did. It was the crisis of the struggle with his unrelenting evil destiny. The presumption is that he was still in the South, engaged in his humble occupation of gathering rents, of buying grain for the use of the fleet, with intervals perhaps of social enjoyment among such friends as he had made at Seville; among whom is reckoned the painter Francisco de Pacheco. This was for our hero the darkest hour before the dawn. For already, according to my calculation, he must have begun to write _Don Quixote_, being now (1602) in his fifty-fifth year.[4] He had duly qualified himself, by personal experience, to tell the story of the adventures of him who sought to revive the spirit of the ancient chivalry. His own romance was ended. The pathetic lines of Goethe might seem to be written for his own case:

"Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen ass,
Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass,
Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte."[5]

[4] That _Don Quixote_ could not have been written before 1591 is
proved by the mention in chapter vi of a book published in that
year. That it must have been written subsequently to 1596 is proved
by the reference in chapter xix to an incident which was not ended
till September, 1596 (see Navarrete). There are other hints and
allusions in the story which, I think, show that it could scarcely
have been begun while Philip II was alive.

[5] From _Wilhelm Meister, Lehrjahre_, chapter xii, thus Englished
by Thomas Carlyle:

"Who never ate his bread in sorrow,
Who never spent the darksome hours
Weeping and watching for the morrow,
He knew you not, ye unseen Powers."

Never had any man of letters to go through a severer ordeal. At last his genius found the true path for which it had been beating about so many years; but not until his prime of life had passed, when even that brave heart must have been chilled and that gay spirit deadened.

In 1601 Philip III, at the instance of the Duke of Lerma, removed the court to the old capital of Castile, Valladolid--by nature far better situated for a metropolis than Madrid, which had been the choice of his grandfather, Charles V. Thither Cervantes repaired, in 1603, doubtless with some hope of gleaning some crumbs of the royal favor. He was no more fortunate with the new King than he had been with the old. Despairing of place or patronage, he turned, with his brave spirit unquenched as by the record sufficiently appears, to completing this new thing among books.

_Don Quixote_ was probably finished by the beginning of 1604, though some further time elapsed, as it seems, before the author had courage to go to print. His genius had lain fallow for twenty years. He was now old, and had written nothing, or at least published nothing, since _Galatea_. What fame was left to him he had earned as a poet among many poets. As an author, if he was remembered at all, it was in a line wholly different from that which he now essayed. There is reason to believe that the manuscript of the new book was in circulation among those who called themselves the author's friends, as was the custom of the age, before he found a patron and a publisher.[6] The publisher was got at last in Francisco Robles, the King's printer, to whom the copyright was sold for ten years.[7] The patron appeared in the person of the Duque de Bejar, a nobleman described by a writer of that age--Cristobal de Mesa--as himself both a poet and a valiant soldier. The choice was not altogether a happy one, for the Duke of Bejar might be said to have an ancestral claim to be regarded as a patron of books of chivalries. It was to his great-grandfather that one of the silliest and most extravagant of the romances had been dedicated by the author, Feliciano de Silva, who is the writer specially ridiculed by Cervantes--the very book which is the subject of a parody in the opening chapter of _Don Quixote_.[8] The Duke of Bejar was noted, moreover, for his own uncommon affection for the books of chivalries then in fashion, and it is probable that he at first understood _Don Quixote_ to be one such as he was in the habit of reading. Learning of his mistake, he refused, it is said, the dedication, and withdrew his patronage from the author. Then, according to the pleasant story first told by Vicente de los Rios, was enacted that scene which has been so favorite a subject with modern artists. Cervantes begged of the Duke to give him a hearing before deciding against his book; upon which he was permitted to read a chapter, which the Duke found so much to his taste that he graciously readmitted the author into his favor and consented to receive the dedication. There is another tradition which imputes to the Duke's confessor--an ecclesiastic who must have had a cleaner nose for heterodoxy than most of his fellows--the original rejection of the dedication by the Duke, the alteration in its wording, and the subsequent neglect of the author.[9] The dedication which now does duty at the opening of the First Part of _Don Quixote_ I have shown to have been tampered with by someone bearing no good-will to Cervantes.

[6] There are two curious pieces of evidence in proof that _Don
Quixote_ was known before it was printed. In the first edition of
the _Picara Justina_, composed by Francisco de Ubeda--the license
to print which is dated August, 1604--there are some truncated
verses, like those in the beginning of _Don Quixote_, in which _Don
Quixote_ is mentioned by name as already famous (_Catalogo de
Salva_, vol. ii, p. 157). Also in a private letter from Lope de
Vega to his patron, the Duke of Sessa, there is a malignant
allusion to Cervantes, speaking of poets. "There is none so bad as
Cervantes, and none so foolish as to praise _Don Quixote_." The
letter is dated August 4, 1604.

[7] That seems to have been the usual period for which a book was
licensed in that age. The sum which Cervantes received for his
copyright is not recorded.

[8] The Third Part of _Don Florisel de Niquea_ was dedicated to a
former Duque de Bejar. See Salva's _Catalogo_, vol. ii, p. 14.

[9] Cervantes is supposed to reflect on this meddlesome ecclesiastic
in Part II, chap, xxxi, of _Don Quixote_, where there is a passage
against those of the religious profession who "govern the houses
of princes," written with a bitterness most unusual in our author.

The privilege of publication is dated September 26th, and the _Tasa_ December 20,1604. The book itself, the First Part of _Don Quixote_ (it was not so called in the first edition, of course), was printed by Juan de la Cuesta during 1604, and published at Madrid in January, 1605.[10] The impression was very carelessly made, and swarms with blunders, typographical and otherwise, showing that it was not corrected or revised by the author. The press-work, however, is quite equal in execution to that of most books of that age.

[10] Those who are fond of dwelling on coincidences may find one
here of singular interest. The year during which _Don Quixote_ was
being printed was also the year in which, according to the best
authorities, Shakespeare was producing his perfected _Hamlet_. The
two noblest works of human wit, their subjects bearing a curious
affinity one to another, each the story of a mind disordered by the
burden of setting the world right, were thus born in the same year.

The reception which _Don Quixote_ met with on its first appearance was cordial beyond all precedent, and such as must have convinced the author, who was evidently doubtful of his new experiment, that here at last his genius had found its true field of exercise. The persons of culture, indeed, received the book coldly. The half-learned sneered at the title as absurd and at the style as vulgar. Who was this _ingenio lego_--this lay, unlearned wit--"a poor Latin-less author," which is what they said of Shakespeare--outside of the _cultos_ proper, of no university education--who had dared to parody the tastes of the higher circles? The envy and malice of all his rivals--especially of those who found themselves included in the satire--even the great Lope himself, the phoenix of his age, then at the height of his glory--spoke out, with open mouth, against the author. The chorus of dispraise was swelled by all those, persons chiefly of high station, whose fashion of reading had been ridiculed. A book, professing to be of entertainment, in which knights and knightly exercises were made a jest of--in which peasants, innkeepers, muleteers, and other vulgar people spoke their own language and behaved after their own fashion--was a daring innovation, all the more offensive because the laugh was directed at what was felt to be a national infirmity. Who was the bold man who, being neither courtier nor ecclesiastic, made sport for the world out of the weaknesses of _caballeros_? An old soldier of Lepanto, indeed! Lepanto was a name outworn. Spain was now in a new world. Crusades against the unbeliever, even those more popular ones which combined the saving of souls with the getting of gold, were long out of fashion. Lastly, the entire ecclesiastical body--the formidable phalanx of the endowed, with their patrons dependents, and dupes--though they were too dull to perceive and too dense to feel the shafts aimed at obscurantism and superstition, had something more than a suspicion that this book called _Don Quixote_ was a book to be discouraged.

In spite of the frowns and sneers of the quality, however, and the ill-concealed disgust of the learned, _Don Quixote_ was received with unbounded applause by the common people.[11] Those best critics in every age and country, the honest readers, who were neither _bourgeois_ nor genteel, neither learned nor ignorant, welcomed the book with a joyous enthusiasm, as a wholly new delight and source of entertainment. Nothing like it had ever appeared before. It was an epoch-marking book, if ever there was one.