Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/195

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The Fate of Father Garnet
169

'4. Greenway had asked him who should be the Protector?[1]

'But Garnet said, That was to be referred till the blow was past. These prove your privity besides Confession, and these are extant under your hand. Garnet answered, Whatsoever was under was true. And for that he disclosed not to his Majesty the things he knew, he confessed himself justly condemned; and for this did ask forgiveness of his Majesty. Hereupon the Recorder led him to the scaffold to make his confession publick.

'Then Garnet said, "Good countrymen, I am come hither this blessed day of the Invention of the Holy Cross, to end all my crosses in this life: the cause of my suffering is not unknown to you; I confess I have offended the King, and am sorry for it, so far as I was guilty, which was in concealing it; and for that I ask pardon of his Majesty. The treason intended against the King and State was bloody, myself should have detested it, had it taken effect. And I am heartily sorry that any Catholicks ever had so cruel a design."

'Then turning himself from the people to them about him, he made an apology for Mistress Anne Vaux, saying, "There is an honourable gentlewoman who hath been much wronged in report: for it is suspected and said, that I should be married to her, or worse. But I protest the contrary: she is a virtuous gentlewoman, and for me a perfect pure virgin."

'For the Pope's breves, Sir Edward Baynham's

  1. After the explosion had taken place at Westminster.