THE

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. 12.]

JANUARY 1, 1815.

[VOL. II.

MONTHLY MAGAZINES have opened a way for every kind of inquiry and information. The intelligence and discussion contained in them are very extensive and various; and they have been the means of diffusing a general habit of reading through the nation, which in a certain degree hath enlarged the public understanding. HERE, too, are preserved a multitude of useful hints, observations, and facts, which otherwise might have never appeared.-Dr. Kippis.

Every Art is improved by the emulation of Competitors.---Dr. Johnson.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

On the GUNPOWDER PLOT.

To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine.
SIR,

have the effrontery to deny the truth of history, and to treat the conspiracy which has stamped a name on this meTHE appropriation of certain days in morable day as a mere fable, or rather, commemoration of remarkable events is as the invention of politic statesmen, for of very ancient usage, and of universal the wicked purpose of destroying a conextent. We find the practice common scientious and harmless community, among all nations in the east and west; whose only offence was that of adhering and though it has frequently degenerated to the creed and worship of their ancesinto superstition and licentiousness, tors. I am far from supposing that, nothing can be reasonably advanced among the most bigoted members of that against the institution itself, which is communion at the present period, any calculated to preserve the remembrance one can be found hardy enough to apoloof blessings that otherwise might have gize for such a diabolical act as that been soon forgotten, and to keep alive which was charged upon the conspirathat sentiment of local attachinent which, tors; but it is painful to reflect that the but for such associations, would imper- conduct of Garnet, the Jesuit, in conceptibly lose its influcuce. The day's set cealing his knowledge of the plot, has apart by public authority in this king met with a public justification from a dom for the purpose of celebrating ci- living prelate of high name in that cumstances purely national, are but few, church. The memory of Garnet has and therefore it might have been rea- been defended on the ground that he sonably expected that some of the num- could not reveal what had been imparted ber at least would have gained in reto him in his sacerdotal character: and verence by the lapse of time, and by thus the lives of a multitude, to say the peculiar occurrences which occa- nothing of the king and the two houses sioned their appointment. It has, how- of parliament, were to be devoted rather ever, happened differently, and we have than that the seal of confession should be lived to see the most extraordinary of broken. Here then we have the strongest these anniversaries treated with uncon- evidence that can be given of the full cern, though about twenty-five years existence of an independent jurisdiction ago an attempt was made by one party which takes upon itself to over-rule the in the senate to render the day still more obligations by which subjects of every conspicuous in the calendar by the description and persuasion are required establishment of a new religious service. to make known whatever plot or maThe very same body of men who were so chination may be formed against the zealous at that time for the public and state. In spite of this fundamental prinsolemn observance of the 5th of Novem-ciple of policy so essential to the being ber, are now grown indifferent to the festival, and there can be little doubt but that if a proposition should be made for its entire abolition, the mensure would receive their support as a proper sacrifice to liberality. Taking advantage of the spirit of indifference which prevails among Protestants, and of the laxity of those principles by which they are now distinguished, the Romish party NEW MONTHLY MAG.-No. 12.

of every government upon earth, the ecclesiastics of the Roman church are bound by their vows, or the decisions of their pontiff, to conceal whatever is communicated to them in confession, though in so doing a sovereign may be murdered, and the whole nation plunged into the horrors of civil war. It almost staggers belief to hear that such a preposterous and dangerous judgment should ever

VOL. II.

498

Dr. Watkins on the Gunpowder Plot.

have been acted upon, but it is sufficient to rouse the indignation of every ingenuous mind to find that the rule is still in active operation ainong a body of men of wide influence, who are upheld in the exercise of it by the casuistry of their superiors. If Garnet was right in so using the sigillum confessions with which he was entrusted, and which encouraged the coufederates in their abominable design, it follows that any priest of the present day may lawfully act in the same manner, nay, that he is under the necessity of so doing, consequently no state can be safe where the laity and their spiritual guides are hos tile to the civil and ecclesiastical polity, and where they possess the means of disturbing the executive government, in the hope of establishing their own religion. But it is said by the same eminent casu st and controvertist, who has ventured to justify the provincial of the Jesuits, that the plot for which that man suffered at Tyburn was a mere political contrivance of the secretary Cecil, and for this he appeals to two writers of no credit, who lived long after the fact, and whose authority as historians cannot be admitted, because neither of them produces any voucher for what he asserts. The first of these is Francis Osborn, who, in his slender tract intituled, Memoirs of James the First, barely observes that, "The discovery appeared no less admirable than the treason, to such as took the printed report for authentick, that a letter was sent to the Lord Morley, and from him to his majesty. &c. a neat device of the treasurer's (Historical Memoires on the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James, 8vo. 1658.")

Such is the vague and ambiguous remark of an inaccurate writer fifty-three years after the transaction, and without Jetting the reader know whether the conspiracy itself was the device of Cecil, or only the discovery of it. But take it either way, and supposing that the minister was indeed apprized of the plot, the perpetration of which he frustrated by his ingenuity, how does this free those who were engaged in that abominable project from the intention of carrying it into effect? Their guilt remains the sanie, let Cecil's hypocrisy and malice be as black as it is represented. It would, however, be an act of gross injustice to suffer the memory of a great statesman to remain unvindicated from a foul charge which has nothing but the virulence of his enemics

[Jan. 1,

for its support. Without ascribing the conduct of Osborn to the vilest of motives, that of party violence, it is enough to disprove what he has asserted, by convicting him of an arrant falsehood in his very account, for he scruples not to say that "the King of Spain sent an agent on purpose to congratulate King James on his great preservation; a flattery so palpable," says Osborn, "as that the pope could not refrain laughing in the face of Cardinal D'Ossat when he first told it him. Nor could he forbear to inform his king of it, as may be found in his printed letters." But how could the cardinal have any conversation with the pope on this subject when he died many months before it happened? This blunder is sufficient to ruin the credit of Osborn as an historian, but it is not the only one which he has committed, for he says, "I never found any signal fa vour or respect given from the court to Lord Morley; which renders this conjecture the more probable, who did report, as from the French embassadour then resident, that the first intimation of the powder treason came from his master, who received it from the Jesuits.". In the first place, it is so far from true, that Monteagle did not receive any mark of royal favour, that he actually did ob tain, besides an immediate pension of five hundred a-year for his natural life, the farther grant of an estate worth two hundred a-year more for himself and his heirs. In the second place, that man must be credulous in the extreme, who could believe that the Jesuits were such arrant fools as to reveal a secret which not only affected the interests of their church, but the reputation of their own order. Had the fact been as it is here stated, these fathers would have stated it publicly afterwards, for the justification of their community, nor would they have sat silent under the accusation which was then generally brought against them of having been privy to this horri ble contrivance. Above sixty years after Osborn's stupid tale had been pub lished, it was received by Bevil Higgons, the nonjuror, who gives it, however, with laudable caution, as a hearsay report only, without either expressing his own opinion upon it, or telling his readers where he had it. His words are these-" The common opinion concern ing the discovery of this letter to the Lord Monteagle has not been univer sally allowed to be the real truth of this matter; for some have affirmed that this design was first hammered in the

1815.]

Dr. Watkins on the Gunpowder Plot.

forge of Cecil. Though this account
should not be true, it is certain that the
court of Engla d had notice of this plot
from France and Italy, upon which Cecil
framed that letter to the Lord Mon-
teagle." Higgons does indeed affirm
roundly, that a communication of the
design was made from abroad, but he
neither says who gave the intelligence,
nor what authority he had for the decla-
ration that such information ever was
made. This writer is of too insignificant
a character to render his short view of
English history a book of reference in
any case, but much less so on any cir-
cumstance of remote date and of public
importance. Nothing could be more
preposterous than to impeach the inte-
grity of our national records on the faith
of two or three miserable pamphleteers,
who were without credit among their
contemporaries, and who had not the
common honesty to tell where they
gleaned the stories which they have pre-
sumed to set up in opposition to the so-
lemn proceedings of the courts of law,
and to the public acts of the legislature.
It is ludicrous to see such writers as
Osborn and Higgons brought forward
in the capacity of historical vouchers to a
fact of which they could have no know-
ledge. The former of these men was a
dealer in paradoxes, of which he was so
fond, as to bring upon himself the charge
of atheisin, on account of his singular
mode of treating religious and moral
subjects. Though this censure appears
to have been too severe, the whole
tenour of his works marks the author as
a man who aimed to think and write dif-
ferently from the rest of the world. Of
Higgons it is quite sufficient to state,
that he was a bigotted partizan, disaf-
fected to that government by which he
had been prosecuted for his intemperate
productions. Neither the one nor the
other of these men had the talents, in-
dustry, and impartiality requisite for the
discussion of historical questions, and
for the clearing up of doubtful circum-
stances. Any tale was acceptable to
them which served to blacken the cha-
racter of a minister whose memory they
detested, and as Cecil had rendered him
self obnoxious to the puritans, his name
is never mentioned by Osborn, who was
of that sect, without some illiberal
invective, or scurrilous insinuation.
Strange, however, to say, the Romish
party contrived to represent this emi-
nent statesman as the patron of the
Dutch Presbyterians and Republicans,
which will account, in some measure,

499

for the calumny thrown upon him by the nonjuror. Certain it is that the papists looked upon Cecil as their most inveterate enemy, and hence they spared no pains to make him feel the deadly force of their malice, not only by vilifying his character but by making repeated attempts upon his life. As, therefore, he was an object of hatred to so many parties, it is not to be supposed that any of them would have omitted so fair an opportunity of rendering him infamous, if they could have brought this charge fairly against him in his life time. Admitting that the press in this country was under too much restraint to allow of sach a publication without endangering the safety of the author and printer, the case was different at Douay, Louvain, and Rome, where men of the first rate talents were continually employed in the defence of their community, and in calumniating the reformation. Of all men the Jesuits were the most active in this literary warfare; and, as they were implicated in this black transaction more than the other religious orders, it became their interet to lay open the fraud which had been committed to bring them into disgrace, and to involve the Catholics in ruin. That they made no effort of this kind can be attributed only to their utter ignorance of any such trick having been played upon them, and not to the want of inclination, or to the prevalence of some peculiar policy which kept them silent under an opprobrium the most mortifying, since it subjected them to the reproach of the members of their own church, as well as that of the church of England.

Long after the death of Cecil, and when all who could throw any light upon the subject were also gone off the stage, this wretched romance was trumped-up, soon after which the author of it died, without leaving the smallest clue by which tuture inquirers might be enabled to judge of its truth or its falsehood. From that day to this no writer has confirmed the declaration of Osborn, by the production of the smallest document tending to prove that the Gunpowder Treason was a plot of Protestant contrivance, designed to render the Catholics odious. On the other hand, no event of ancient or modern history stands better attested, for the conspirators were men of family, property, and education. So far were they from denying the crime for which they suffered, that these infatuated men boasted of it as the cause of righteousness; and even Father Garnet had no

Character of Dr. Vanderkemp.

thing more to urge in extenuation of his
conduct, than that of having concealed,
as he thought himself bound to do, that
which was imparted to him in confession.
Dr. Warton, an English Jesuit at Bruges,
in 1637, freely avowed his knowledge of
the plot, both in the contrivance and in
the act, which declaration, as it com-
pletely clears away the charge brought
against Cecil, so does it as strongly prove
that the conspiracy was from the begin-
ning to end a Jesuitical, and not a Pro-
testant, device.
Nov. 5, 1814.