Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/202

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176
A History of the Gunpowder Plot

either for him or for his Society the esteem of the strictest members of his religion. For it was well known that he had placed this weak and foolish woman under a vow of obedience to him, whereby she was compelled to become little better than a servant to him and his colleagues, who had the disposal of her fortune.

In answer to the oft-repeated question, 'Was Father Garnet guilty?' we may, at this late date, with all the evidence before us, safely assert that he was undoubtedly guilty of having committed high treason, and that the sentence of death passed on him at his trial was the inevitable result of his having known all about the plot from Greenway,[1] and that, too, outside the Confessional. He made no attempt to inform the Government of what was going on. Moreover, he actually was a party to sending Sir Edward Baynham to Rome.[2] In being hanged for treason, he only encountered the same fate which had been served out to Father Watson, whom he himself had helped to betray to the Government, merely because he and his fellow Jesuits were jealous of Watson and the anti-Jesuit party behind him. Garnet's fate, therefore, in the light of his betrayal of Watson, and his constant correspondence with Spain, and Spain's most

  1. If not also directly from Catesby, which is most probable.
  2. The Venetian Ambassador calls Baynham the 'special messenger sent to beg his Holiness to incite the Catholics to assist and support the good effects' of the proposed explosion at Westminster.