from this studious life and sent as a missionary (in 1586) to England, travelling thither in company with his colleague, Father Southwell, the poet. In 1587, he was appointed Superior of the Jesuits in England. From the date of his appointment until the year 1605, he lived chiefly in the neighbourhood of London, but acted entirely under the directions of Father Parsons from abroad. Such is, roughly speaking, briefly the history of the life of the man whose share in the Gunpowder Plot has proved one of the vexed questions of historical controversy.
His position as Superior of the Jesuits proved no easy one. The Jesuits were not only detested by the Protestants, but were also greatly disliked by most of the Roman Catholics themselves. Father Parsons, the greatest Englishman who has ever entered the Society, had to leave England because he knew that his presence had exasperated his co-religionists to such an extent that they threatened to betray him to the Government if he did not return at once to Rome.[1] Father Weston, Garnet's immediate predecessor, was a man of very peculiar character, superstitious, silly, and obstinate, and even hated by the Secular clergy, whom he endeavoured to place under the yoke of the Jesuits, with the result that open war was declared between the
- ↑ Father Heywood, his successor, was so unpopular with the English Romanists that he was recalled. He was imprisoned for seventeen months before returning to Rome.
