The Gunpowder Plot: Terror & Faith in 1605 (51 page)

Farewell, good friend Tom, this day I will save thee a labour to provide my dinner.

FATHER HENRY GARNET
3 May 1606

F
ather Henry Garnet said his farewells in the Tower very early on the morning of Saturday 3 May. King James was no longer in London. The royal interest in the theological arguments aroused by Henry Garnet’s trial had waned in favour of the other great kingly passion, the chase. James had left for Newmarket in Suffolk on the Friday, hunting his way happily northwards. Sir William Waad was left in charge of delivering his prisoner, as he had been in charge of delivering the conspirators in January.

The Jesuit, who had by now spent nearly three months as a prisoner in the Tower, said a courteous goodbye to those who had served him. To one of the cooks who called out, ‘Farewell, good sir,’ he attempted a mild jest: ‘Farewell, good friend Tom, this day I will save thee a labour to provide my dinner.’ Even his captors were visibly moved. Lady Waad, well aware of what lay ahead, told him that she would pray for him, adding: ‘God be with you and comfort you, good Mr Garnet…’
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At the last moment, as Garnet, wearing a black cloak over his clothes and a hat, was being strapped to the hurdle which would take him to his death, there was a commotion in the courtyard. A woman rushed forward. It was Anne Vaux.

It was in fact an administrative mistake that she should have been let out of her prison for this harrowing moment. Waad had given instructions that Mistress Vaux should be permitted to watch the priest’s departure at a window. But her keeper allowed Anne right out into the courtyard itself, where the wicker hurdle lay with its burden. Anne was however dragged away before she could exchange one last word with her mentor, or even utter a prayer over the man who for twenty years had been the centre of her world.
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Evidently the patriotic protests of Sir Arthur Gorges, who thought the site of St Paul’s Churchyard holy to the memory of Queen Elizabeth, had been disregarded, for this was the place chosen for the execution. The hurdle was drawn by three horses all the way from the Tower. Father Garnet lay on it with his hands held together and his eyes closed; he had the air of ‘a man in deep contemplation’.
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An enormous crowd awaited him at St Paul’s. A scaffold had been erected on the west side for the prisoner, and there were wooden stands set up for spectators. The surrounding windows were also packed with onlookers.

Not all of them, of course, were hostile. At least one priest was present in disguise, hoping to perform the last rites on Father Garnet’s moribund body, as Garnet in the past had done for others. This priest spent twelve pence for a seat on the stand and, as a result, he was able to supply Father Gerard later with numerous details for his
Narrative
.
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A Protestant account described Father Garnet as looking guilty and fearful at the prospect of his final ordeal, but in fact his main problem, once he had left the hurdle, was to secure any kind of repose in which to prepare himself for death.
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The Sheriff of London was present, as were Sir Henry Montague, the Recorder of London, the Dean of Winchester, Dr George Abbot, and the Dean of St Paul’s, Dr John Overal. In their different ways, all these gentlemen were determined to secure the last-minute repentance and even the conversion of this notorious Jesuit. It might be thought that someone who had already endured so much for the sake of his Church was unlikely to
desert it at the end: but even in the last weeks in the Tower Garnet had been subjected to various doctrinal debates – in all of which of course he remained firm in favour of the Catholic Faith.

The Jesuit dealt quite easily with the request, made by the Recorder in the name of the King, to reveal any further treasons of which he had secret knowledge. He had, said Garnet, nothing more to say on that subject. But when the divines set about arguing with him about the superior merits of Protestantism, the priest ‘cut them off quickly’, asking them not to trouble themselves – or him: ‘he came prepared and was resolved’. Garnet then desired some place apart where he could pray.
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This was not to be. Montague stated his orders were that Garnet should acknowledge himself justly condemned, and then seek the King’s forgiveness. Garnet replied that he had committed no treason or offence against the King. They could condemn him for nothing except for keeping the secrets of the confessional: this was the only way in which he had had ‘knowledge of that Powder Treason’. However, Garnet added, if he had indeed offended the King or the state, he asked for forgiveness with all his heart.

These last words encouraged the Recorder to believe he had secured the vital admission he wanted. He called out to the crowd to pay attention: the Jesuit had just asked for the King’s forgiveness for the Powder Treason. But Garnet refused to accept this and he repeated that he was not guilty. The same open disagreement then took place on the controversial subject of Catesby, and Tesimond’s confession to Garnet. Once again the priest refused to be browbeaten into giving way.

‘You do but equivocate,’ exclaimed Sir Henry Montague, ‘and if you deny it, after your death we will publish your own hand [writing], that the world may see your false dealing.’

‘This is not the time to talk of equivocation,’ answered Garnet. ‘Neither do I equivocate. But in troth,’ he went on and then reiterated it: ‘
in troth,
you shall not find my hand otherwise than I have said.’ This solemn declaration, made twice over,
impressed the spectators. The Recorder’s own reputation was not enhanced when Garnet demanded to inspect the famous document in his own writing. Montague had to reply, somewhat foolishly, that he had left it at home.
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When Garnet was asked – according to custom – whether he had anything further to say, he apologised for his own weakness, including his failing voice. But he did call attention to the appropriate date on which he was to die: ‘Upon this day is recorded the Invention [Finding] of the Cross of Christ, and upon this day I thank God I have found my cross…’ Although Garnet continued to deny his own guilt, he did take the opportunity to express once more his horror at the fact that Catholics had planned such an enterprise. In the future, he directed all Catholics to remain ‘quiet’, possessing their souls in peace: ‘And God will not be forgetful of them.’

At this point, someone standing in the crowd near by shouted out: ‘But Mr Garnet, were you not married to Mrs Anne Vaux?’ The accusation stung Garnet, in a way nothing else could.

The priest turned to the people, and answered: ‘That honourable gentlewoman hath [suffered] great wrong by such false reports. For it is suspected and said that I should be married to her, and worse. But I protest the contrary… she is a virtuous good gentlewoman and, therefore, to impute any such thing into her cannot proceed but of malice.’ Having delivered himself of this broadside, Garnet was at last allowed to pray – at the foot of the ladder he would shortly mount.
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He himself assisted in the stripping off of his clothes down to his shirt; this was very long and Garnet had had the sides sewn up almost to the bottom in the interests of modesty ‘that the wind might not blow it up’. One more Protestant minister did come forward, but Garnet refused to listen to him, or even acknowledge his presence. On the ladder itself, he paused and made the sign of the Cross, desiring all good Catholics present to pray for him. However one member of the crowd had evidently been assured that there would be a dramatic last-minute conversion to Protestantism (a government-inspired rumour).
This disappointed person shouted out: ‘Mr Garnet, it is expected you should recant.’

‘God forbid,’ he replied. ‘I never had any such meaning, but ever meant to die a true and perfect Catholic.’

This aroused a protest from Dr Overal, the Dean of St Paul’s: ‘But Mr Garnet, we are all Catholics.’ But this the Jesuit would not have, as for him there was only one Catholic Roman Church, and that was under the Pope.
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Henry Garnet was now ready. He prayed for the welfare of the King and the Royal Family. Then he made the sign of the Cross. His last prayers were in Latin, the language of the ‘one’ Church into which he had been born and in whose service he had spent his life. They included ‘Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit’, uttered several times, and ‘Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of mercy, protect us from the enemy, and receive us at the hour of our death.’ This was the last prayer he said before he was told that the hangman was ready. The priest crossed his arms over his breast – it had not been thought necessary to bind his arms – and ‘so was cast off the ladder’.

Then an odd thing happened. Many of the spectators had deliberately made their way to St Paul’s in order to see a spectacle which included drawing and quartering performed upon a living body. But the mood of the fickle crowd suddenly changed. A great number of those present – they cannot all have been Catholics – surged forward. With a loud cry of ‘hold, hold’, they stopped the hangman cutting down the body while Garnet was still alive. Others pulled on the priest’s legs, something which was traditionally done by relatives in order to ensure a speedy death. This favour was not something the crowd had chosen to perform for the conspirators in January, even though these had been ‘men of good sort’, popular and much esteemed. As a result Father Garnet was ‘perfectly dead’ when he was finally cut down and taken to the block.
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Even the traditional words ‘Behold the heart of a traitor’ received no applause. Nor did anyone cry out, ‘God save the King’ as was customary. Instead, there was an uneasy murmuring among the spectators.

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That same day, 3 May, Father John Gerard, who had himself been named in the January proclamation, managed at last to get away from England to the continent and safety. He believed he owed his preservation to the intercession of the martyred Father Garnet. Gerard planned to make the crucial Channel crossing among the attendants of two envoys, Baron Hoboken and the Marquis de Germain. Hoboken represented the Archdukes and had been summoned to hear complaints concerning Hugh Owen and Father Baldwin in Flanders. The Marquis had, ironically enough, come from Spain to congratulate King James on surviving the Gunpowder Plot. However, these ‘high officials’ took fright at having such an incriminating presence in their midst. But at the last moment, as Gerard believed, ‘Father Garnet was received into heaven and did not forget me.’ The officials changed their minds, and the Marquis de Germain came in person to help Gerard into the livery which would enable him to pass as one of his entourage. ‘In my own mind,’ Gerard wrote, ‘I have no doubt that I owed this [reversal of decision] to Father Garnet’s prayers.’
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Father John Gerard lived on for over thirty years after the death of his friend and colleague; he died in Rome in his early seventies. Like Father Tesimond, also named in the proclamation, who had escaped a few months earlier in that cargo of dead pigs, Father Gerard lived to write a full
Narrative
of the events of the Powder Treason, many of which he had experienced first hand, while meticulous researches among survivors filled in the gaps. In 1609 when he was at the Jesuit seminary in Louvain, he wrote an
Autobiography,
which gave an account of his missionary life in England. It has been suggested by his editor and translator (both books were written in Latin) Father Philip Caraman that Gerard in conversation with the novices must have frequently told ‘anecdotes of hunted priests, of torture and everyday heroism of his friends among the English laity’. Someone then suggested to the General of the Jesuits that all this would make an inspiring if distressing record.
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Anne Vaux also lived for another thirty years, despite the ill-health
and bad eyesight which had dogged her throughout her life. She was released from the Tower in August 1606, about the same time as her servant James Johnson was let go (although the intention with Johnson seems to have been to let him act as a decoy to lead the authorities to recusant safe houses). Shortly after her release, a priest mentioned that Anne Vaux was ‘much discontented’ that she had not been allowed to die with Garnet. He added discreetly on the subject of her work and health: ‘I believe the customers [the priests] and she will live together, but I fear not long.’ His forecast was however incorrect, for Anne Vaux proved to be one of those dedicated people in whom a strong vocation prevails over a weak physique.
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At first, with her sister Eleanor Brooksby, Anne remained in London, presumably to fulfil Father Garnet’s last instructions to lie low until matters had quieted down (although Anne did suffer another spell in prison for recusancy in 1608). The sisters then moved to Leicestershire, where they continued to harbour and protect priests, their names appearing together on recusant rolls from time to time until Eleanor’s death in 1626. Anne’s toil over decades was acknowledged by at least two dedications in works by eminent Jesuits, translated into English, one of which, by Leonard Lessius, printed in St Omer in 1621, had the appropriate title of
The Treasure of Vowed Chastity in Secular Persons
…
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She never gave up her work for the ‘customers’. In 1635, the year of her death at the age of seventy-three, her name was reported to the Privy Council for harbouring a Jesuit school for the education of young English Catholic gentlemen at her mansion, Stanley Grange, near Derby.

It was Anne Vaux, in the early stages of her grief at the death of Father Garnet, who was responsible for nurturing the story of a miraculous straw-husk bearing his martyred image. She was, wrote one who knew her, ‘sometimes too ardent in divine things’ – although the priests she protected over so many years would not have agreed.
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