very man. of the plot were buried in the grave of the miserable On the 15th of January, 1606, a royal proclamation was issued against Garnet, Greenway, and Gerrard, all three English Jesuits who had been lurking in the country for years. The trial of the surviving chief conspirators commenced on the 27th of January, having been delayed nearly two months, mainly in order to bring in the priests, and to get possession of the persons of Baldwin, a Jesuit, Owen, and Sir William Stanley, then residing in the Flemish dominions of the Spaniards, who refused to give them up. The prisoners, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, Thomas Winter, Ambrose Rook wood, John Grant, Guido Fawkes, Robert Keyes, and Thomas Bates, with the single exception of Digby, who confessed the indictment, pleaded not guilty; not, as they observed, because they denied a full participation in the powder plot, but because the indictment contained many things to which they were strangers. The evidence produced consisted entirely of the written depositions of the prisoners and of a servant of Sir Everard Digby. No witness was orally examined. There was nothing developed on the trial to connect the conspiracy with many English Catholics beyond the actual plotters. Indeed, the papists in general regarded the whole affair with horror, and Sir Everard Digby pathetically lamented that the project, for which he had sacrificed everything he had in the world, was disapproved by Catholics and priests, and that the act which brought him to his death was considered by them to be a great sin. In general the principal conspirators again denied that either Garnet or any other Jesuit was aware of the project of the powder, though several allowed that they had frequent conference both with Garnet and Greenway. In extenuation, they pleaded the sufferings they and their families and friends had undergone, the violated promises of the king, who before his accession had assured them of toleration, their despair of any relief from the established government, their dread of still harsher persecution,and their natural desire to re-establish what they consi dered the only true church of Christ. They were all condemned to die the usual death of traitors, and sentence was executed to the letter-for this was not an occasion on which the government was likely to omit an iota of the torturing and bloody law. Sir Everard Digby, Robert Winter, John Grant, and Thomas Bates, suffered on the 30th of January; Thomas Winter, Rookwood, Keyes, and Guido Fawkes-" the Devil of the Vault"--on the next day: they all died courageously, repenting of their intention, but professing an unaltered attachment to the Roman church. The scene chosen for their exit was the west end of St. Paul's churchyard. END OF VOL. IX. London: Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, Stamford Street. |