Chapter LI
Reading edition
On the 4th of October, Father Garnet wrote a long letter to Father Parsons in Rome, who was then virtually the ruler of the Catholics of England, though that sturdy Yorkshireman, Father John Mush,[A] among secular priests, together with many others, resented being dictated to by Father Parsons, certainly a man of great genius, but indulging too much the mere “wire-puller” instinct and propensity to be reckoned a prince among ecclesiastical statesmen.
This letter of Father Garnet’s, to which reference has been just made, is a remarkable production. It begins as follows: —
“My very loving Sir,
“This I write from the elder Nicholas[A] his residence where I find my hostess with all her posterity very well; and we are to go within few days nearer London.”
The letter then says: —
“The judges now openly protest that the King will have blood and hath taken blood in Yorkshire.”[B]
There were four paragraphs at the end of the letter.
Now, a short but separate paragraph of three lines is carefully obliterated between the first and the third of these paragraphs.
The third paragraph ends thus: —
“I cease 4th Octobris.”
The fourth paragraph then continues: —
“My hostesses both and their children salute you. Sir Thomas Tresham is dead.”[C]
Here ends the body of the letter.