Note 40 — Chapter XI

— It is also said that Catesby “peremptorily demanded of his associates a promise that they would not mention the project, even in Confession, lest their ghostly fathers should discountenance and hinder it.” — See “The Month,” No. 369, pp. 353, 4. — This would be to make assurance double sure. But, happily, the “best laid schemes o’ men gang aft agley.” “For there is on earth a yet auguster thing, veiled though it be, than Parliament or King” — the human conscience, which is “prophet in its informations, a monarch in its peremptoriness, a priest in its blessings and anathenas” (John Henry Newman). Also, “Conscience is the knowledge with oneself of the better and the worse” (James Martineau).