Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/142

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118
A History of the Gunpowder Plot

sometimes doth punish corporaliter, non mortaliter, "corporally, yet not mortally."'

' . . . Here also was reported Robert Winter's dream, which he had before the blasting with powder in Lyttleton's house, and which he himself confessed and first notified, viz. That he thought he saw steeples stand awry, and within those churches strange and unknown faces. And after, when the aforesaid blast had the day following scorched divers of his confederates, and much disfigured the faces and countenances of Grant, Rookewood, and others; then did Winter call to mind his dream, and to his remembrance thought, that the faces of his associates so scorched, resembled those which he had seen in the dream.'

Sir Everard Digby pleaded guilty, stating, inter alia, that his firm friend, Catesby, had introduced him to the conspirators, whom he had joined 'for the restoring of the Catholic religion in England.' He requested that all his property might be preserved for his wife and children, and that he might be beheaded, instead of hanged. The last request would,[1] in all probability, have been granted, had not Digby, most unfortunately for himself, made reference to the fact 'that promises were broken with the Catholics.' This was too open a criticism of the King's duplicity not to be understood by all in Court, and brought Cecil to his feet, who denied that James had ever committed himself so far as to promise toleration to the Roman Catholics.

  1. Aubrey (who calls Sir Everard 'the handsomest gentleman in England') states that 'King James restored his estate to his son and heir.'