either religion will direct their historical reasoning and researches to better objects than mere sectarian accusation and recrimination.

In consequence of the political jealousy between Catholics and Protestants which has prevailed in this country ever since the Reformation, almost every point of English history which was supposed to have the remotest bearing upon the respective merits of the two systems of religion has been obscured and misrepresented. This has been particularly the case with the Gunpowder Treason. The outlines of the transaction were indeed too notorious to be suppressed or disguised that a design had been formed to blow up the Parliament House, with the King, the Royal Family, the Lords and Commons, and that this design was formed by Catholic men and for Catholic purposes, could never admit of controversy or concealment : but the details of the conspiracy, -the causes which led to it, the motives and objects of the conspirators, -the extent to which the knowledge of it prevailed amongst Catholics in England and abroad, and the degree of encouragement it received from the Catholic clergy, have been, ever since the date of its occurrence to the present time, subjects of doubt and dispute.

It was not to be expected that at the period in which this transaction took place, a full or fair narrative of the Gunpowder Plot should be published by the Government. The practice of those days was to hold the people in leading-strings on political subjects, and so much light only was given them respecting occurrences of state as the Privy Council thought convenient and useful for the attainment of their objects. Where the whole truth would not produce the intended effect, a part only was published; and where the part would not exactly suit the purpose, no scruple was made of garbling and altering it.

Before the trials of the conspirators, an anonymous narrative, entitled 'A Discourse of the manner of the Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot,' was printed by the King's printer, and published by authority of the Government. This publication, which was industriously ascribed to the pen of the King, was not only dispersed profusely in England, but was sent, together with the King's speech on opening the Parliament, to the ambassadors at foreign courts, translated into several languages, and circulated with the utmost diligence in every part of Europe. And no doubt the story which it cost so much pains to distribute, was the result of corresponding care in the manufacture. The same skilful artificer, who had been employed to shape the stories of the treasons of Lopez and the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeth's time to suit the objects of the state, was still in the service of the Government; the same statesman, who directed Bacon to prune the depositions and pervert the facts on the latter of those occasions, was still an active minister of the Crown; and a careful comparison of Bacon's acknowledged narratives of both the cases above mentioned with the Discourse of the Gunpowder Plot' produces a strong impression that all of them were composed by the same mind and written by the same hand. Nor is the resemblance confined to the similarity of the style and language; the whole scheme of the Discourse' is the same as that of the Declaration of the Earl of Essex's Treasons,' viz., to surround fictions by undoubted truths with such apparent simplicity and carelessness, but in fact with such consummate art and depth of design, that the reader is beguiled into an unsuspecting belief of the whole narration. The fidelity of the story is in both cases vouched by the introduction of depositions and documents which might be garbled at the discretion of the writer,

without fear of detection, as the originals were in his power, but which give an air of candour and authenticity, and thus complete the deception. At all events, whether this conjecture be well or ill founded, and whether the Discourse of the manner of the Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot' was written by Bacon or by some other courtier, or by the King himself, there is no doubt that it is a narrative of no historical authority; it is merely the Court version of the transaction, given to the world for the express purpose of leading the public mind in a particular direction. Of several hundreds of examinations which had been taken, two only were published in this narrative, namely, a Declaration of Guy Fawkes, and a Confession of Thomas Winter. That both of these were carefully settled and prepared for the purpose of publication is not only highly probable from a comparison of them with the other statements of the same individuals, which are still extant; but is demonstrated as a fact by the interlineations and alterations observable upon the originals.

·

A few instances of this species of dishonesty deserve to be particularly noted, in order to prove how little reliance is to be placed upon the statements contained in the Discourse.' The Declaration of Fawkes is artfully published without a date; but it appears from the original at the State-Paper Office that it was made on the 17th of November, 1605*. Between that time and the printing of the ' Discourse,' it was discovered that an English officer named Owen, in the service of the Archduke Albert in Flanders, had encouraged the Flot, and an urgent requisition was immediately made by Lord Salisbury to the Archduke, through the ambassador at Brussels, that Owen should be given up to take his Trial with the rest. The Archduke hesitated, and while the *See post, p. 140.

In

negotiation was proceeding, the King's Book,' as the Discourse' was called, was published. Fawkes's Declaration, as signed and acknowledged by himself, Owen is not mentioned; but in the soidisant "true copy" of it in the Discourse, Fawkes is made to say that he went over to the Netherlands expressly" to acquaint Owen with the particulars of the Plot," these words being inserted probably after the document was in print. In this instance, the motive for the interpolation is almost as clear as the fact. Again, in the same Declaration as published in the Discourse,' the name of Robert Winter is given as one of the conspirators who worked in the mine; and at the end of the paper, Keyes is mentioned with Rookwood, Digby, and others, as having been introduced at a later period, after the mine had been abandoned. The fact as disclosed by Fawkes, and confirmed by all the evidence, was, as the Government well knew, that Keyes was one of the miners, and that Robert Winter was not taken into the plot until afterwards;-and so the statement originally stood in the copy of this Declaration at the StatePaper Office. But in the original paper the names are reversed by an interlineation written in a different hand and in a different ink from the body of the Declaration. It is clear that this alteration was designedly made, though the particular object to be gained by it cannot be easily ascertained. Possibly, as Robert Winter was a man of wealth and consequence, and Keyes was wholly insignificant, it may have been thought desirable to assign the former a prominent place among the original conspirators. Another instance occurs in the Confession of Thomas Winter; the original is lost; but in a contemporaneous copy of it in the State-Paper Office, there is a marginal remark in the handwriting of the King, designating in a particular passage what he calls " an

uncleare phrase;" this obscurity is accordingly removed by an interlineation, and the document is published in the Discourse' in its altered and approved shape.

Many other instances of interpolation, and still more of the suppression of facts in this Narrative, might be pointed out; the above are perhaps sufficient to show that it ought not to be depended upon as a source of history.

In order to form a fair judgment of the causes which produced the Gunpowder Treason, and to comprehend the motives of those who were engaged in it, it is necessary to consider generally the state of the English Catholics at that precise period, and to take a summary view of the penal restrictions and liabilities to which, at the commencement of the reign of James I., the adherents to the Roman Church were subject.

The laws passed against recusants in the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth were extremely severe; and whatever may have been the object with which they were passed, and without discussing the debateable question of their necessity for the preservation of the Protestant establishment from the practices of dis affected and turbulent fanatics, at that time excited and encouraged by the mischievous interference of the Pope, it may be observed, that their effect undoubtedly was to withdraw from the Catholics the common rights and liberties of Englishmen, and to place all persons, however loyal to the existing Government, who adhered from conscience and principle to the ancient religion, in a state of unmerited persecution and suffering. By these laws, Catholics were not only forbidden to use the rites and ceremonies of their own faith, but were required to attend upon the services of a church which, if conscientious and consistent, they were bound to