The decision was never in doubt. The mere fact that these men were on trial for high treason meant that they would inevitably be found guilty, and equally inevitably sentenced to death. Refinements such as defending counsel were unknown. In the nineteenth century, Lord Macaulay would describe the process as ‘merely a murder preceded by the uttering of certain gibberish and the performance of certain mummeries’. Yet one should be wary of too much anachronistic indignation. These were the rules of a treason trial at the time, proceedings which were quite literally intended as a show trial, one where the guilt of the prisoners would be demonstrated publicly. For this reason, the government encouraged popular attendance at such events. The real trial had already taken place in the form of interrogations before the Privy Council. It was here that guilt or otherwise was decided, since guilt was not a foregone conclusion at this point. Not every prisoner brought before the Privy Council as a suspect traitor was sent for trial.21
The prisoners were kept together in the Star Chamber for a short while before being brought into Westminster Hall. Here they were displayed on a scaffold which had been specially devised, and subjected to the fascinated scrutiny of the spectators. These included some secret watchers as well as many members of both Houses of Parliament. (There was a complaint the next day that MPs had been jostled and their reserved places ‘pestered with others not of the House’; a committee was set up to investigate.) Among the secret watchers was the King himself, who occupied a room where he could see without being seen. He was said to have been present from eight in the morning until seven at night. Queen Anne and Prince Henry, not quite twelve years old – two potential victims of the Plot – were concealed in another secluded watch-post. Two private rooms were also erected so that foreign ambassadors and other notables could attend the trial discreetly.22
As for what they saw, a contemporary description conveys the sense of horrified wonder at the sight of the eight murderous ‘wretches’. Some hung down their heads ‘as if their hearts were full of doggedness’, while others forced ‘a stern look, as if they would frighten death with a frown’. None of them gave the impression of praying ‘except it were by the dozen upon their beads’. (The Plotters were actually saying the rosary, a Catholic form of prayer much scorned by Protestants, beads being among the devotional objects which were unlawful.) One particular detail must have maddened King James. It was noticed throughout the trial that the conspirators were ‘taking tobacco, as if hanging were no trouble to them’. Yet only in 1604 the King had energetically denounced smoking – ‘a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs’ – in his Counterblaste to Tobacco.23 The conspirators’ addiction was yet another proof of their moral obloquy.
The Lords Commissioners who sat in trial consisted of the Earls of Suffolk, Worcester, Northampton and Devonshire, as well as Salisbury, Sir John Popham as Lord Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Fleming as Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer and two Justices of the Common Pleas, Sir Thomas Walmsley and Sir Peter Warburton. Of the peers, Worcester had been considered a Papist in the previous reign, and Northampton a Church Papist, but men of Catholic sympathies were of course specially keen to demonstrate their horror of the Powder Treason. Seven of the conspirators – Sir Everard Digby was the exception – were tried on the same indictment.*24
This list of ‘false traitors’ to the King began, significantly, with the names and common aliases of the three Jesuits, Garnet, Tesimond and Gerard, who were described as ‘not yet taken’ since the morning’s dramatic news had not reached London. The list then passed on to Thomas Wintour, followed by Guido Fawkes, ‘otherwise called Guido Johnson’, Robert Keyes and Thomas Bates, ‘yeoman’. The names of the four slain conspirators came next: Catesby, Percy, the two Wrights, coupled with that of Francis Tresham, ‘lately dead’. The names of the other three surviving conspirators, Robert Wintour, John Grant and Ambrose Rookwood, occurred in the course of the same indictment, an extremely long document which certainly did not underplay the drama of the occasion.
All seven of these conspirators pleaded ‘Not Guilty’, including Guy Fawkes. These pleas caused the authorities some surprise, as the previous confessions of the prisoners were ‘notorious’. Guy Fawkes, in particular, had freely admitted his guilt from the first moment of his apprehension on 5 November. Digby had to be tried separately since, alone among his comrades, he pleaded ‘Guilty’.
Sir Edward Phillips, Serjeant-at-Law, now sprang into action with what was termed the ‘declaration’. His words were magisterial, eloquent and damning: ‘The tongue of man never delivered, the ear of man never heard, the heart of man never conceived, or the malice of hellish or earthly devil ever practised…’ such a treason. For if it was ‘abominable to murder the least’ of God’s creatures, then how much more abominable to murder ‘Such a King, Such a Queen, Such a Prince, Such a progeny, Such a State, Such a government…’.25
The Attorney-General Sir Edward Coke was the next to speak and he did not spare himself – or his audience. He made an extremely long speech, a fact he himself acknowledged when he used the word ‘copious’ of what was to follow: he did not intend to be ‘so succinct as usual’.26 One important aspect of this speech was however a negative one. Throughout, Coke implicitly denied that King James had made any promises of toleration to the Catholics before his accession. This was hardly surprising, given that Salisbury had written to Coke privately in advance in order to ‘renew’ his memory on the subject. Coke was to underline the fact that certain persons had gone to Spain to stir up an invasion ‘as soon as the Queen’s breath was out of her body’. This emphasis was the King’s express wish and Salisbury explained his reason. The King was aware that there were some men who would suggest that only despair at the King’s behaviour towards the Catholics, his severity, had produced ‘such works of discontentment’ as the recent treason.
The point was evidently important to James and one can guess why. Those vague Scottish promises of toleration were now a very long way away in the King’s scope of things and such politically embarrassing intrigues of another time, another country, were best not recalled. It was far better to present the Catholics as a nest of malcontents from the word go, plotting to destroy the King ‘before his Majesty’s face was ever seen’ – that is, in advance of his arrival in England. One may perhaps hear the delicate whisper of the King’s guilty conscience in this firm rebuttal.
Salisbury’s further instructions – all in his own handwriting – were interesting too. Monteagle was to be lauded for his part in the discovery of the Plot, but care was to be taken by Coke not to vary from the King’s own account, already published. Coke, in short, was not to give credence to a story ‘lewdly given out’ that Monteagle had once been part of the Plot, and had betrayed it to Salisbury, still less that one of the conspirators had actually written the anonymous letter. (Monteagle’s name was also obliterated in the published account of the Spanish Treason, as related by Francis Tresham.) Salisbury’s last note was characteristic: ‘You must remember to lay Owen as foul in this as you can.’27
Coke did not fail Salisbury and he did not fail King James. The Spanish Treason, including the two thousand horses promised by the English Catholics, featured strongly. So did the oaths taken by the conspirators and the alleged administration of the Sacrament – by Garnet, Tesimond and other Jesuits – to sanctify them. (Guy Fawkes’ specific denial while being examined that Father Gerard knew anything of the Plot when he gave the Sacrament in May 1604 was not mentioned. To make quite sure this damaging statement was omitted, Coke underlined the passage in the examination in red and marked in the margin ‘hucusque’ – thus far and no further.)28
The Spanish King was however courteously handled. His Ambassador, listening intently in his private closet, must have been relieved to find that ‘foreign princes’ were (by the King’s direct instructions) ‘reverently and respectfully spoken of. The priests, in contrast, were execrated. Their traitorous advice, t
heir outright encouragement were underlined at every point, giving a picture of the Jesuits’ behaviour which was so far at variance with the truth that it would have been laughable if it had not been so tragic – and so sinister.
With a flurry of classical and Biblical quotations, Coke described the Powder Treason as having three roots, all planted and watered by the Jesuits. ‘I never yet knew a treason without a Romish priest,’ he declared, ‘but in this, there are very many Jesuits.’ In short the ‘seducing Jesuits’ were the principal offenders. All the old stories of the Jesuits seeking to remove crowns from rulers were trotted out, how the practices of ‘this sect’ principally consisted in ‘two Ds, to wit, the deposing of kings, and disposing of kingdoms’. As for absolution, Catesby had received it in advance from the Jesuits and been encouraged to believe that his potential crime was ‘both lawful and meritorious’. After that, ‘he persuaded and settled’ the rest of the Plotters when they raised some doubts, telling Rookwood, for example, that Father Garnet had given him absolution for the action, even if it involved ‘the destruction of many innocents’.
The emotive subject of equivocation was also introduced by Coke. This was the art of lying as practised by Catholics – or so the government would have it. (The Catholics themselves, as we shall see in the next chapter, viewed it rather differently.) Coke spoke of how the ‘perfidious and perjurious equivocating’ of the conspirators, abetted and justified by the Jesuits, had allowed them not only to conceal the truth but also to swear to things which they themselves knew to be totally false. This was because ‘certain heretical, treasonable and damnable books’, including one which Coke entitled ‘Of Equivocation’, had been discovered among Francis Tresham’s possessions. It was a subject to which Coke would return with eloquence in the future. In the meantime, the shade of Francis Tresham was beginning to haunt Father Garnet.
Coke’s editorial concoction of what had actually taken place was accompanied by an even more colourful evocation of the horrors which might have taken place. Coke focused in turn on the probable fate of the Queen, Prince Henry ‘the future hope’, and, in a sense worst of all, the young Princess Elizabeth – ‘God knoweth what would have become of her.’ As he got into his stride, Coke even managed to feel sorry not only for the men and beasts who would have suffered from the explosion but also for the very buildings of the neighbourhood: ‘insensible creatures, churches and houses, and all places near adjoining’ – a remarkably modern concern.
When, however, Coke came to his delineation of the penalties traditionally meted out to traitors, he showed himself a man of his own time. Each condemned prisoner would be drawn along to his death, backwards at a horse’s tail because he ‘hath been retrograde to nature’: his head should be near the ground, being not entitled to the common air. He was to be put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both. His privy parts were to be cut off and burnt before his face since he himself had been ‘unworthily begotten’ and was in turn unfit ‘to leave any generation after him’. The bowels and heart which had conceived of these terrible things were to be hacked out and the head ‘which had imagined the mischief was to be cut off. Thereafter the various dismembered portions of the traitor’s body were to be publicly exposed, that they might become ‘prey for the fowls of the air’.
When Coke’s speech was concluded, the various ‘Examinations, Confessions and voluntary Declarations’ of the prisoners were read aloud.29 These began with the testimonies by Guy Fawkes and Francis Tresham about the Spanish Treason, Tresham including the names of Father Garnet and Father Tesimond as being ‘acquainted with Wintour’s employment in Spain’. After this followed the specific confessions to do with the Powder Treason. Guy Fawkes’ confession came first, followed by the confession of the recently captured Robert Wintour. This had been taken on 17 January in front of the Lords Commissioners, and was accompanied by a long statement signed by him four days later.
This statement had an important postscript: ‘I confess that on Thursday 7th of November, I did confess myself to Father Hammond the priest, as other gentlemen did, and was absolved, and received the Sacrament.’ Hammond was in fact the alias of the chaplain at Huddington, Father Hart. The general confession of the conspirators at Huddington in the small hours of the morning was probably more to do with their expectation of death in the near future than with their guilt over the past. Nevertheless, the notion that the conspirators had been able to make a clean breast of their potential crimes and receive absolution from a priest – a Jesuit – two days after the discovery of the Plot was a damaging one.
More confessions were read, including that of Thomas Wintour as well as the examinations of Rookwood and Keyes. The last piece of evidence was not a confession, but it concerned a conversation which Robert Wintour was said to have had with Guido in the Tower after his capture. The two men found themselves in adjacent cells and took the opportunity to have what they believed to be an intimate conversation but was in fact overheard by a government spy. Wintour and Guido mentioned the taking of Nicholas Owen – ‘the little man’. Then Robert Wintour said something to Fawkes to the effect that ‘God will raise up seed to Abraham out of the very stones’, meaning that God in the future would raise up others for the good of the Church, ‘although they [the conspirators] were gone’.30 These confidences were less important than the revelation of the government’s methods of espionage among their prisoners. Sadly, Father Garnet never got to hear of this particular trick, otherwise his own conduct in the Tower might have been different.
After this evidence was heard, the seven were allowed at last to speak if they so wished, ‘wherefore judgement of death should not be pronounced against them’. Only Ambrose Rookwood elected to make any real use of this privilege.31
Rookwood admitted that his offences were so dreadful that he could not expect mercy, and yet maybe there were some extenuating circumstances since he had been ‘neither author nor actor’, but had been drawn into the Plot by his feelings for Catesby, ‘whom he loved above any worldly man’. In the end Rookwood craved for mercy, so as not to leave ‘a blemish and blot unto all ages’ upon his name and blood. Kings, he hoped, might imitate God who sometimes administered bodily punishments to mortals, but did not actually kill them.
The rest of the conspirators spoke shortly. Tom Wintour, clearly suffering from remorse at having brought Robert into the Plot, asked to be hanged on behalf of his brother as well as himself. Guy Fawkes gave an explanation for his plea of ‘Not Guilty’ which had earlier baffled the court. He had done so, he said, in respect of certain conferences mentioned in the indictment ‘which he knew not of. The reaction of Robert Keyes was terse and stoic: death was as good now as at any other time, he said, and for this cause rather than for another. Thomas Bates and Robert Wintour merely asked for mercy.
John Grant kept up his reputation for taciturnity by remaining completely silent for a while. He then said that he was guilty of ‘a conspiracy intended but never effected’. In a memorable phrase in the course of his speech, Coke had said that ‘Truth is the daughter of Time [Veritas temporis filia]; especially in this case.’ But John Grant’s economical comment made before Time had had a chance to give birth to Truth was probably as just a verdict as any. It was indeed a conspiracy intended – but never carried out.
The trial of Sir Everard Digby followed. He pleaded ‘Guilty’ swiftly to the indictment, in order to have the privilege of making a speech. It was evidently not unmoving to some of those that heard it. Digby gave as his first motive his friendship and love for Catesby – how enduring was the influence and charisma of Robin! The cause of religion for which he had decided to neglect ‘his estate, his life, his name, his memory, his posterity, and worldly and earthly felicity’ took second place.32
He alluded to the broken promises of toleration – the King cannot have liked that – as well as mentioning the recusants’ fear of harsher laws in the coming Parliament. This referred specifically to the subject of recusant wiv
es, the fear that women as well as men would be liable for fines. Digby then argued passionately that since his offence was ‘contained within himself the guilt of it should not be passed on to his family, least of all to his little sons. His wife – the unfortunate, destitute Mary – should have her jointure, his sisters their marriage portions and his creditors their debts; his man of business should be admitted to him so that these arrangements could be made.
Coke, however, made short work of all this. The precious friendship with Catesby was ‘mere folly and wicked conspiracy’; Digby’s religion was ‘error and heresy’. Over the question of the wives, Coke laid all the blame for their recusancy squarely on their husbands’ shoulders in a fine seventeenth-century flourish. Either a man had married a woman knowing her to be a recusant, in which case he must expect to pay a fine, or she had become a recusant subsequent to her marriage, in which case the husband was equally at fault for not having kept her under better control. As for Digby’s children! Coke sneered at Digby’s pretended compassion for them when he had so easily accepted the prospect of the deaths of other people’s children, including the ‘tender princes’.33
Digby interrupted here – even now, he had enough spirit not to be cowed by Coke. He did not justify what he had done, Digby said, and he confessed that he deserved ‘the vilest death’; he was merely a humble petitioner for mercy and ‘some moderation of justice’ for his family. By way of answer, Coke quoted back to Digby a singularly relentless passage from the Psalms: ‘Let his wife be a widow, and his children vagabonds, let his posterity be destroyed, and in the next generation let his name be quite put out.’
The Gunpowder Plot Page 31