Chapter LXVIII

We now come to the second and latter part of Father Oldcorne’s Declaration to Humphrey Littleton, from the whole of which Declaration Littleton drew the conclusion that Oldcorne answered “the action was good, and seemed to approve of it.”[A]

“And thus I applied it to this fact of Mr. Catesbie’s; it is not to be approved or condemned by the event, but by the proper object or end, and means which was to be used in it; and because I know nothing of thes, I will neither approve it or condeme it, but leave it to god and ther owne consciences, and in this wary sort I spoke to him bycause I doubted he came to entrap me; and that he should take noe advantage of the words whither he reported them to Catholics or Protestants.”[B]

Now, in the first place, let it be remembered that these words were spoken not before but after Wednesday, the 6th of November, when, as Oldcorne himself has left on record, and which indeed we have seen already, Father Tesimond came from Coughton to Huddington, and from Huddington to Hindlip; and when “he said that there were certain gentlemen that meant to have blown up the Parliament House, and that their plot was discovered a day or two before.”[A]

Again; Fawkes, we are told by Eudæmon-Joannes,[169] explained at the Trial of the conspirators why the prisoners pleaded “‘Not guilty,’ which was that the Indictment contained ‘many other matters, which we neither can, nor ought to countenance by our assent or silence,’ though none of them meant to deny that which they had not only voluntarily confessed before, but which was quite notorious throughout the realm.”[170] (The italics are mine.)

Now, seeing that Oldcorne told Littleton that “he knew nothing” as to the “end or object” the plotters had in their Plot, nor “the means which was to be used in it,” when the whole of England, not to say Europe, had been ringing with a knowledge of not only the end or object, but also the means, for the last past few days, and perhaps weeks, at the very least, I draw this inevitable conclusion: —

That because Oldcorne was a man as morally good as he was intellectually clever, he must have met his questioner’s inquiry with this nescience, by reason of some antecedent, official, and professional duty; or, at least, semi-official and quasi-professional duty, which had been imposed upon him, ab extra, from the outside, prior in time to Humphrey Littleton’s coming to him to be resolved of his doubts as to the moral rightness or wrongness of the Gunpowder Plot.[171]

In other words, that Oldcorne felt instinctively that he could recognise in a private individual, like Humphrey Littleton, no valid right, title, claim, or demand to call forth an answer, which might discover or disclose to Littleton the secret of the repentant Christopher Wright.

Yea, neither in Justice, nor in Equity, nor in Honour could the grand Yorkshireman betray to Humphrey Littleton the secret of trust that in a semi-official, quasi-professional mode or fashion had come to be entrusted to him by another, as that other’s private property and exclusive possession.

That other was Christopher Wright, the penitent revealing plotter, and whomsoever he had, explicitly or implicitly, willed should share a knowledge of the mighty secret. But to none other or others beside. And certainly not to men probably prompted by sinister motives and crooked aims.

For a knowledge of truth in action, truth in the result, truth in the event, truth in the external, and every other kind of truth in relation to the Gunpowder[A] Plot, integral or partial, was irrevocably held in trust by Edward Oldcorne, not for Humphrey Littleton, or the like of him, but for Christopher Wright and men that were true of heart.

This was an obligation, that flowed from the truth expressed by the luminous maxim, “Qui prior est tempore potior est jure.” “He who is first in time is the stronger in point of right.”

The Jesuit could never that trust, that confidence betray. If needs be, he must be “true till death.” For it was not necessary that he should live. But it was necessary that he should live undishonoured.