The Life of a Conspirator.
by Thomas Longueville.
PREFACE
The chief difficulty in writing a life of Sir Everard Digby is to steer clear of the alternate dangers of perverting it into a mere history of the Gunpowder Plot, on the one hand, and of failing to say enough of that great conspiracy to ill.u.s.trate his conduct, on the other. Again, in dealing with that plot, to condemn all concerned in it may seem like kicking a dead dog to Protestants, and to Catholics like joining in one of the bitterest and most irritating taunts to which they have been exposed in this country throughout the last three centuries.
Nevertheless, I am not discouraged. The Gunpowder Plot is an historical event about which the last word has not yet been said, nor is likely to be said for some time to come; and monographs of men who were, either directly or indirectly, concerned in it, may not be altogether useless to those who desire to make a study of it. However faulty the following pages may be in fact or in inference, they will not have been written in vain if they have the effect of eliciting from others that which all students of historical subjects ought most to desire--the Truth.
I wish to acknowledge most valuable a.s.sistance received from the Right Rev. Edmund Knight, formerly Bishop of Shrewsbury, as well as from the Rev. John Hungerford Pollen, S.J., who was untiring in his replies to my questions on some very difficult points; but it is only fair to both of them to say that the inferences they draw from the facts, which I have brought forward, occasionally vary from my own. My thanks are also due to that most able, most courteous, and most patient of editors, Mr Kegan Paul, to say nothing of his services in the very different capacity of a publisher, to Mr Wynne of Peniarth, for permission to photograph his portrait of Sir Everard Digby, and to Mr Walter Carlile for information concerning Gayhurst.
The names of the authorities of which I have made most use are given in my footnotes; but I am perhaps most indebted to one whose name does not appear the oftenest. The back-bone of every work dealing with the times of the Stuarts must necessarily be the magnificent history of Mr Samuel Rawson Gardiner.
CHAPTER I.
Nothing is so fatal to the telling of an anecdote as the prelude:--"I once heard an amusing story," &c., and it would be almost as unwise to begin a biography by stating that its subject was a very interesting character. On the other hand, perhaps I may frighten away readers by telling them at starting, this simple truth, that I am about to write the history of a young man of great promise, whose short life proved a miserable failure, who terribly injured the cause he had most at heart, for which he gave his life, a man of whom even his enemies said, when he had met his sad fate:--"Poor fellow. He deserved it. But what a pity!"
If the steady and unflinching gaze of one human being upon another can produce the hypnotic state, it may be that, in a much lesser degree, there is some subtle influence in the eternal stare of the portrait of an ancestor. There is no getting away from it unless you leave the room.
If you look at your food, talk to a friend, or read a book, you know and feel that his eyes are still rivetted upon you; and if you raise your own, again, towards his, there he is, gravely and deliberately gazing at you, or, you are half inclined to think, _through_ you at something beyond and behind you, until you almost wish that you could be thrown into some sort of cataleptic condition, in which a series of scenes could be brought before your vision from the history of the long-dead man, whose representation seems only to exist for the purpose of staring you out of countenance.
In a large country house, near the west coast of Wales, and celebrated for its fine library, hangs a full-length portrait which might well impel such a desire. It represents a tall man, with long hair and a pointed beard, in a richly-chased doublet, a lace ruff and cuffs, very short and fringed trunk hose, and a sword by his side. He has a high forehead, rather raised and arched eyebrows, a long nose, hollow cheeks, and a narrow, pointed chin. His legs are thin; his left hand is placed upon his hip; and with his right he holds a cane, which is resting on the ground. At the bottom of the picture is painted, in Roman characters, "Sir Everard Digby, Knight, OB. 1606."
Few people care for genealogies unless their own names are recorded in them. The keenest amateur herald in matters relating to his own family, will exhibit an amazing apathy when the pedigree of another person is offered for his inspection; the shorter, therefore, my notice of Sir Everard Digby"s descent, the better. He was descended from a distinguished family. It had come over from Normandy with William the Conqueror, who had granted it lands at Tilton, which certainly were in its possession in the sixteenth century, though whether the subject of my biography inherited them, I am not quite sure. The first Sir Everard Digby lived in the reigns of Henry I. and Stephen.[1] This powerful family sided with Henry VII. against Richard III.; and on one occasion, King Henry VII.[2] "did make Knights in the field seven brothers of his house at one time, from whom descended divers houses of that name, which live all in good reputation in their several countries. But this Sir Everard Digby was the heir of the eldest and chiefest house, and one of the chiefest men in Rutlandshire, where he dwelt, as his ancestors had done before him, though he had also much living in Leicestershire and other shires adjoining." He was the fourteenth in direct eldest male descent from Almar, the founder of the family in the eleventh century.
Five of his forefathers had borne the name of Everard Digby, one of whom was killed at the battle of Towton in 1641. Sir Everard"s father had also been an Everard, and done honour to the name; but literature and not war had been the field in which he had succeeded. He published four books.[3] The only one of these in my possession is his _Dissuasive from taking the Goods and Livings of the Church_. It is dedicated "To the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord High Chancellor of England, &c."
[1] Harleian MSS., 1364.
[2] _Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot_, Father Gerard, p. 87.
_N.B._--"The Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot," and "The Life of Father John Gerard," are both published in one volume, ent.i.tled _The Condition of Catholics under James I._, edited by Father John Morris, S.J.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1871. It will be to this edition that I shall refer, when I quote from either of these two works.
[3] See _Bibliographia Britannica_, Vol. iii. p. 1697. The books were:--I. _Theoria a.n.a.lytica ad Monarchiam Scientiarum demonstrans._ II. _De Duplici Methodo, libri duo, Rami Methodum refutantes._ III.
_De Arte Natandi; libri duo._ IV. _A Dissuasive from taking the Goods and Livings of the Church, &c._
The author"s style may be inferred from the opening of his preface:--"If my pen (gentle reader) had erst bin dipped in the silver streames flowing from Parna.s.sus Hill, or that Apollo with his sweet-sounding harp would vouchsafe to direct the pa.s.sage thereof unto the top of the high Olympus; after so general a view of great varietie far and neere, I might bouldly begin with that most excellent Poet Cicelides Mus[e[ogonek]] paulo maiora canamus." I leave my readers to judge how many modern publishers would read any further, if such a book were offered to them in these days! Still, it is interesting as showing the style of the times.
Father Gerard, an intimate friend of the Sir Everard Digby whose life I am writing, mentions[4] "the piety of his parents," and that "they were ever the most noted and known Catholics in that country"
(Rutlandshire); and Mr Gillow, in his _Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics_[5], states that they "had ever been the most staunch and noted Catholics in the county of Rutland." But here I am met with a difficulty. Would a Catholic have written such a pa.s.sage as the following, which I take from the _Dissuasive_? It refers to that great champion of Protestantism and Anglicanism, Queen Elizabeth.
[4] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
[5] P. 62.
"I cannot but write truely," he says, "that which the Clergie with the whole realme confesse plainely: That we render immortell thankes unto Almightie G.o.d, for preserving her most Roiall Majestie so miraculouslie unto this daie, giving her a most religious heart (the mirror of all Christian princes) once and ever wholly consecrated to the maintaining of his divine worship in his holy Temple. From this cleare Christall fountaine of heavenlie vertue, manie silver streames derive their sundrie pa.s.sages so happelie into the vineyarde of the Lorde, that neither the flaming fury of outward enimies, nor the scorching sacrilegious zeale of domesticall dissimulation, can drie up anie one roote planted in the same, since the peaceable reigne of her most Roial Majestie."
The writer of the notice of Sir Everard Digby in the _Biographia Britannica_[6] appears to have believed his father to have been a Protestant; but on what grounds he does not state. So familiar a friend as Father Gerard is unlikely to have been mistaken on this point.
Possibly, however, in speaking of his "parents," he may have meant his forefathers rather than his own father and mother. This seems the more likely because, after his father"s death, when he was eleven years old, Sir Everard was brought up a Protestant. In those times wards were often, if not usually, educated as Protestants, even if their fathers had been Catholics; but if Sir Everard"s mother had been remarkable for her "piety" as a Catholic, and one of the "noted and known Catholics" in her county, we might expect to find some record of her having endeavoured to induce her son to return to the faith of his father, as she lived until after his death. The article in the _Biographia_ states that Sir Everard was "educated with great care, but under the tuition of some Popish priests": Father Gerard, on the contrary, says that he "was not brought up Catholicly in his youth, but at the University by his guardians, as other young gentlemen used to be"; and in his own _Life_,[7] he speaks of him as a Protestant after his marriage. Lingard also says[8] that "at an early age he was left by his father a ward of the crown, and had in consequence been educated in the Protestant faith." I can see no reason for doubting that this was the case.
[6] Vol. iii. p. 1697.
[7] _Life of Father John Gerard_, p. clii.
[8] _History of England_, Vol. vii. chap. i.
At a very early age, Everard Digby was taken to the Court of Queen Elizabeth, where he became "a pensioner,"[9] or some sort of equivalent to what is now termed a Queen"s page. He must have arrived at the Court about the time that Ess.e.x was in the zenith of his career; he may have witnessed his disgrace and Elizabeth"s misery and vacillation with regard to his trial and punishment. He would be in the midst of the troubles at the Court, produced by the rivalry between Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Charles Blount; he would see his relative, Cecil, rapidly coming into power; he could scarcely fail to hear the many speculations as to the successor of his royal mistress.
[9] S. P. James I., Gun. P. Book, Part II. No. 135, Exam, of Sir E.
Digby--"He confesseth that he was a pencon to Quene Elizabeth about six yeres, and tooke the othe belonging to the place of a pencioner and no other."
He may have accompanied her[10] "hunting and disporting" "every other day," and seen her "set upon jollity"; he may have enjoyed the[11]
"frolyke" in "courte, much dauncing in the privi chamber of countrey daunces befor the Q. M."; very likely he may have been in attendance upon the Queen when she walked on[12] "Richmond Greene," "with greater shewes of ability, than" could "well stand with her years." During the six years that he was at Court, he probably came in for a period of brilliancy and a period of depression, although there is nothing to show for certain whether he had retired before the time thus described in an old letter[13]:--"Thother of the counsayle or n.o.bilitye estrainge themselves from court by all occasions, so as, besides the master of the horse, vice-chamberlain, and comptroller, few of account appeare there."
If Lingard is right, however,[14] he gave up his appointment at Court the year before Elizabeth"s death, and thus luckily escaped the time when, as he describes her, she was[15] "reduced to a skeleton. Her food was nothing but manchet bread and succory pottage. Her taste for dress was gone. She had not changed her clothes for many days. Nothing could please her; she was the torment of the ladies who waited on her person.
She stamped with her feet, and swore violently at the objects of her anger."
[10] Lord Henry Howard to Worcester.
[11] Letter of Lord Worcester, Lodge III. p. 148.
[12] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
[13] MS. Letter. See Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
[14] History, Vol. vii. chap. i.
[15] _Ib._, Vol. vi. chap. ix.
One thing that may have had a subsequent influence upon Digby, while he was at the Court of Elizabeth, was the violence shown towards Catholics.
In the course of the fourteen years that followed the defeat of the Spanish Armada before the death of the Queen,[16] "the Catholics groaned under the presence of incessant persecution. Sixty-one clergymen, forty-seven laymen, and two gentlemen, suffered capital punishment for some or other of the spiritual felonies and treasons which had been lately created." Although he had been brought up a Protestant, "this gentleman," says Gerard,[17] "was always Catholicly affected," and the severe measures dealt out to Catholics whilst he was at Court may have disgusted him and induced him to leave it.
[16] Lingard, Vol. vi. chap. iii.
[17] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.
I have shown how Father Gerard states[18] that Sir Everard Digby was educated "at the University by his guardians, as other young gentlemen used to be." It is to be wished that he had informed us at what University and at what College; when he went there and when he left; as his attendance at Court, together with a very important event, to be noticed presently, which took place, or is said to have taken place, when he was fifteen, make it difficult to allot a vacant time for his University career.
[18] _Ib._
The young man,--he did not live to be twenty-five,--whose portrait we have been looking at, is described in the _Biographia Britannica_[19] as having been "remarkably handsome," "extremely modest and affable," and "justly reputed one of the finest gentlemen in England." His great personal friend, the already-quoted Father Gerard,[20] says that he was "as complete a man in all things that deserved estimation, or might win him affection, as one should see in a kingdom. He was of stature about two yards high," "of countenance" "comely and manlike." "He was skilful in all things that belonged to a gentleman, very cunning at his weapon, much practised and expert in riding of great horses, of which he kept divers in his stable with a skilful rider for them. For other sports of hunting or hawking, which gentlemen in England so much use and delight in, he had the best of both kinds in the country round about." "For all manner of games which are also usual for gentlemen in foul weather, when they are forced to keep house, he was not only able therein to keep company with the best, but was so cunning in them all, that those who knew him well, had rather take his part than be against him." "He was a good musician, and kept divers good musicians in his house; and himself also could play well of divers instruments. But those who were well acquainted with him"--and no one knew him better than Father Gerard himself--"do affirm that in gifts of mind he excelled much more than in his natural parts; although in those also it were hard to find so many in one man in such a measure. But of wisdom he had an extraordinary talent, such a judicial wit and so well able to discern and discourse of any matter, as truly I have heard many say they have not seen the like of a young man, and that his carriage and manner of discourse were more like to a grave Councillor of State than to a gallant of the Court as he was, and a man of about twenty-six years old (which I think was his age, or thereabouts)." In this Father Gerard was mistaken. Sir Everard Digby did not live to be twenty-six, or even twenty-five. Gerard continues:--"And though his behaviour were courteous to all, and offensive to none, yet was he a man of great courage and of noted valour."
[19] Vol. iii. p. 180.
[20] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88.