faithful agent, the notorious Parsons, to say nothing of his not having given the Government due warning as to Catesby's intentions,—cannot be commiserated.
That he died a martyr for the seal of the confessional, as has been asserted by Roman Catholic writers, is absurd, as may be seen by a perusal of the official account of his trial, when all the evidence gathered against him was conclusively shown to have no connection with what passed between him and Greenway sub sigillo, whilst his conversation with Catesby, in a house in Thames Street, London, on June 9, 1605, was also quite sufficient to incriminate him.
It is lucky for Garnet's admirers that the letters of Sir Everard Digby, written in the Tower, were not intercepted. Had they been seized, and produced at Garnet's trial, the question of the prisoner's moral guilt would have, there and then, been settled once and for ever.
Sufficient prominence has not been given to these letters in the works of writers on the Plot, and they have, of course, been ignored by Garnet's apologists altogether. The whole tone of Digby's disclosures suggests clearly that the writer laboured under the impression that the Jesuit[1] leaders knew of the plot and tacitly approved of its purpose—
'For my keeping it secret' says Digby, ' it was caused by certain belief, that those which
- ↑ Gerard excepted. It must be remembered that every one of the plotters had a Jesuit for his confessor.
