The Jesuits, 1534-1921. Thomas J. Campbell

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      Cecil and his companions were admitted to Rome only because the French Ambassador, de Béthune, took them under his protection. He had constituted himself their patron, not, however, for religious reasons, but merely to score a point against the influence of the King of Spain with the Pope. Their reception by his Holiness was extremely cold, and when they reported back to de Béthune, he appeared before the Pope on the next day, and said: "Hitherto the Catholic policy has been grossly wrong (turpiter erratum est). Nothing has been tried except arms, poisons, and plots. If only these were laid aside Elizabeth would be tolerant. Therefore, (1) Your Holiness must withdraw your censures from the queen; (2) you must threaten the Catholics with censure if they attempt political measures against her directly or indirectly; (3) Father Persons and his like must be chastised and expelled from your seminaries; (4) the Archpriest, who seems to have been constituted solely to help the Spanish faction by false informations, should be removed or much restrained; (5) if perhaps all this cannot be done at once, a beginning should be made by giving satisfaction to the Appellant priests; (6) then, by degrees, Henri will intervene and Elizabeth's anger will cool down." As Pollen remarks: "The Frenchman's boldness was almost sublime. To throw over St. Pius V, Cardinal Allen, Gregory, Sixtus, Campion and all the seminaries, with one sweeping remark: turpiter erratum est – was worthy of la furie française. De Béthune scoffed at a past already acknowledged to be one of the glories of the Church, as a period of murder plots, diversified by armed invasions."

      On October 12 the Pope gave a Brief to the contending parties to settle their quarrel. Both sides shouted victory, and the paper was at once sent to England, where it was intercepted by Elizabeth's spies. The government responded by a proclamation against the Catholic clergy, banishing them from the realm lest it might be thought that Elizabeth had ever meant to grant toleration. "God doth know our innocency," it said, "of any such imagining." The royal proclamation was cunningly devised. It declared that all Jesuits were unqualified traitors and must leave the country within thirty days. For other Catholics, a commission was to be appointed which, after three months, was to begin an individual examination of all suspects and deal with them at discretion.

      By the Scottish party this was regarded as the beginning of a new era, and they, consequently, drafted an instrument stating: (1) that they owed the same civil obedience to the queen as that which bound Catholic priests to Catholic sovereigns; (2) that they would inform her of any plots or attempts at evasion, even when made to place a Catholic sovereign on the throne; (3) that were any excommunication issued against them on account of their performance of this duty, they would regard it as not binding. This statement was issued on January 31, 1603. It never reached Elizabeth, for she died in the following March. But as it stood, it was in direct contravention of the Pope's instructions to the clergy to do all in their power, short of rebellion, to restore the Catholic succession.

      Before the death of Elizabeth, two clergymen, Watson and Clarke had gone to Scotland to sound James on his possible attitude to English Catholics in case he obtained the throne. Of course, he was extremely affable, to them, as he was to the English Puritans, who were just then arrayed in opposition to the Established Church. But he was no sooner king than he began to treat both Puritans and Catholics with such rigor that a plot was formed by both of the aggrieved parties to seize his person and compel him to modify his policy. Among the Protestant conspirators were such men as Cobham, Markham, Grey and Walter Raleigh. The whole history of this singular combination, however, is so confused that it is hard to pronounce with certainty as to what really was done or intended. But it appears that the purpose of the Catholic conspirators was to allow the king to be taken prisoner by the Puritans and then to rescue him from their hands. It was called the Bye Plot, and was based on the hope that James would be so grateful for this act of devotion to his interest that he would grant all their requests. On the other hand, such childish simplicity seems almost incredible. It was worthy of the visionary, Watson, who planned it.

      The farce ended in a tragedy. The two priests were hanged without more ado. Of the Puritans, Cobham was sent to the scaffold, and Grey, Markham and Raleigh, after being condemned, were pardoned. King James received a letter from the Pope regretting the action of Watson and Clarke, and assuring him of the abhorrence with which he regarded all acts of disloyalty. He also expressed his willingness to recall any missionary who might be an object of suspicion, and both Jesuits and seculars were ordered to confine themselves to their spiritual duties and to discourage by every means in their power any attempt to disturb the tranquillity of the realm (Lingard, History of England, IX, 21).

      In 1604 James drew up for Catholics an oath of allegiance which not only denied the power of the Pope to depose kings, but declared that such a claim was heretical, impious and damnable. It was condemned by Paul V, but the Archpriest Blackwell publicly announced that notwithstanding the condemnation, the oath might be conscientiously taken by any English Catholic, and he accepted it himself before the Commissioners of Lambeth. Bellarmine and Persons wrote long expostulations to him, but without avail. He was finally deposed from office, and Birkhead took his place as archpriest. "This measure," says Lingard, "was productive of a deep and long-continued schism in the Catholic body. The greater number, swayed by the authority of the new Archpriest and of the Jesuit missionaries, looked upon the oath as a denial of their religion; but, on the other hand, many preferring to be satisfied with the arguments of Blackwell and his advocates, cheerfully took it, when it was offered, and thus freed themselves from the severe penalties to which they would have been subject by the refusal" (op. cit., IX, 77).

      Now came the disaster. Irritated beyond measure by the treachery and the tyranny of King James I, a number of Catholic gentlemen, some of them recent converts, formed a plot to blow up the House of Parliament and so get rid of king, lords and commons by one blow.

      While the plans were being laid, some of the conspirators began to doubt about their right to involve so many innocent people in the wholesale ruin that must result from this terrible crime. To settle their scruples, Catesby, the chief plotter, proposed a supposititious case to Father Garnet, the Jesuit provincial. "I am going to join the army of the Archduke on the Continent," he said, "and I may be ordered, for example, to blow up a mine in order to destroy the enemy. Can I do so, even if a number of innocent persons are killed?" The answer of course was in the affirmative, and then Catesby made haste to assure his friends that they could proceed in their work with a safe conscience. But as time wore on, he was noticed by his friends to be habitually excited, very often absent from home, and apparently not preparing to go abroad, as he had said he intended to do. Hence, suspicion was aroused, and Garnet, having received some vague hints of the conspiracy, took occasion at Catesby's own table, to inculcate on his host the necessity of submitting meekly to the persecution then going on. Whereupon Catesby burst out in a rage: "It is to you and such as you," he exclaimed, "that we owe our present calamities. This doctrine of non-resistance makes us slaves. No priest or pontiff can deprive a man of the right to repel injustice." Garnet, alarmed at this utterance, immediately wrote to his superior in Rome, and in due time received two letters, one from the General, the other from the Pope, putting him under strict orders to do all in his power to prevent any attempt against the State. These letters were shown to Catesby, but he protested that they were written on wrong information, and he volunteered to send a special messenger to Rome to put before the authorities there the true state of things. This promise satisfied Garnet, and he felt sure the matter was disposed of, at least, for a time.

      This was on May 8, 1605. On October 26, Catesby went to confession to Father Greenwell, or Greenway, or Texmunde, or Tessimond, a Yorkshire man, and revealed the whole plot. Greenwell showed his horror at the proposition and forbade him to entertain it, but Catesby refused to be convinced, and asked him to state the case to Garnet, under seal of confession, with leave to speak of it to others, after the matter, had become public. This will explain how the fact of the confession came out in the trial. Unfortunately, Greenwell was foolish enough to communicate it to Garnet under seal of confession. He was bitterly reproved for doing so, but it was too late; had he kept it to himself, Garnet would not have died on the scaffold. On November 5 after midnight, the plot was discovered, and Guy Fawkes, who was guarding the powder in the cellar СКАЧАТЬ