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John Gerard and the Gunpowder Plot

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

A. F. Allison
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Extract

When the Gunpowder Plot came to light in November, 1605, the Government tried to implicate the leading Jesuits on the mission, among them John Gerard who was known to have been on friendly terms with several of the plotters. He was publicly named as a traitor, the hue and cry was raised, but through the kindness of friends he remained safely in hiding and was well looked after until, in May, 1606, he escaped to the continent. He never returned to England but spent the rest of his life teaching and performing spiritual duties at English colleges abroad. He was in charge of the Jesuit novices at Louvain from 1609 to 1614 and when the novitiate was transferred to Liège in 1614 he accompanied it, becoming the first rector of the new house. In 1627 he was made spiritual director of the English College at Rome, a post which he held until his death in 1637.

Type
Articles
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1959 , pp. 43 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1959

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References

1. Lingard, History of England, 5th ed., 1849, vol.7, p.549.Google Scholar Morris, Life of Father John Gerard, 3rd ed., 1881, pp.417 Google Scholar et seq. Hughes, Rome and the Counter-Reformation in England, 2nd ed., 1944, pp.376–7.Google Scholar

2. I have not found a copy of the manuscript. The printed version (above, p.48) survives in a copy at the English College, Valladolid (Allison & Rogers 773). I am, indebted to the Rector of the College, Mgr. Edwin Henson, for depositing it with me temporarily and for allowing a micro-film of it to be made for the British Museum Library. Another copy was apparently at St. Edmund's College, Ware, in 1902 when the late Canon Burton catalogued the library, but it cannot now be found (Catalogue of Books in the Libraries at St. Edmund's College … printed in England and of Books written by Englishmen printed abroad to the year 1640. no. 176). The differences between the manuscript and the printed version are discussed in detail by John, Floyd in the “Admonition to the Reader” prefaced to the second edition of Knott's Modest Brief Discussion, 1630. (See note 16.)Google Scholar

3. His real name was Matthew Wilson but he was always known by his alias of Edward Knott and was called by it even in official documents.

4. Allison & Rogers 431.

5. ibid 898.

6. It is quoted verbatim on p.7 of the “Admonition to the Reader” which Floyd prefixed to the second edition of Knott's Modest Brief Discussion, 1630 (see note 16).

7. The English version quoted here it taken from Morris, op.cit., pp. 426-30. It is a retranslation from the Italian of Bartoli whose version was probably made from Gerard's original draft then in the archives of the English College, Rome, but now apparently lost. (Bartoli, Dell 'Istoria della Compagnia di Giesu, I'lnghilterra, 1667, pp.513-6.)

8. Allison & Rogers 899, 900. (See note 16 below.)

9. pp.307-8.

10. Apologia Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae … ex Anglico in Latinum fideliter conversa, written under the pseudonym Daniel à Jesu, 1631.

11. Spongia qua diluuntur calumniae nomine Facultatis Parisiensis impositae libro qui inscribitur Apologia Sanctae Sedis Apostolicae, written under the pseudonym Hermannus Loemelius, 1st ed. 4 to, 1631; the quotations are on pp.132 and 41 respectively.

12. Vindiciae Censurae Facultatis Theologiae Parisiensis, written under the pseudonym Petrus Aurelius, 1632, p. 16.

13. I propose to discuss the other books in the group in a later article.

14. Allison & Rogers 894, sig.X II-V.

15. ibid. 773, p.55. See note 2 above.

15a. The Jesuits maintained that Smith's behaviour, which had already attracted the notice of the government, would bring renewed persecution to the English Catholics.

16. ibid. 899, 900. 4 Sept. 1630 is the date of the Approbations. The quotations are from “An Admonition to the Reader”, p. 7.

17. “Precor etiam ut procurent amoveri e collegio Anglorum Romae P. Tompsonum, alias Gerardum, ubi is agit confessarium, et e collegio Anglorum jVallisoleti Georgium Champion. Jesuitam laicum, qui illic agit janitorem, quia testimonium penes me habeo sacerdotis fide digni, priorem … ipso audiente dixisse, quod ‘fodiendo una cum aliis sub domo comitiorum’ (quae pulvere pyrio difflanda erat una cum rege ao regni ordinibus)’ indusium eius ita madidum erat sudore ac si in fluvium proiectum esset’. Et simile testimonium habeo alterius sacerdotis posteriorem dixisse,’ ipsum debuisse apponere ignem dicto pulveri, si is, qui ad id designatus erat, defecisset’. Verendum enim est, ne hie haeretici captent occasionem saeviendi in alumnos dictorum collegiorum, vel suspicandi Sedem Apostolicam dictae coniurationi favere, si permittantur eiusmodi homines non solum in seminariis apostolicis degere, sed etiam officia gerere.”

Propaganda Archives, Lettere antiche, vol.100, f.134. I am indebted to Mgr. Philip Hughes for his kindness in allowing me to take copies from his set of transcripts from these archives.

18. A copy of Fitzherbert's letter is at Stonyhurst (Anglia iv, no.92); it is printed by Morris, op.cit., pp.431-3. No copy of Gerard's letter appears to be extant in the original but a 17th century Italian translation of it, made for the historian Bartoli, is in the Jesuit General Archives (Anglia xxxviii, 1, f.170).

19. Bartoli, op.cit., p.516.

20. The references that follow are to the Jesuit General Archives, Anglia, Epist, Gen.I, ff.331,334,339. Blount's letters to the General are not extant.

21. Ad purgandum P. Joannem Thomsonum suspicione calumniae quam illi Praelatus iste… impingit, curavi & iam ea omnia feci quae existimavi innocentiae illius sistandae servire aliquo modo posse. (General Archives, Anglia, Epist. Gen. I, f.334.)

22. The myth, fostered by Dodd and perpetuated by J. G. Alger in D.N.B., that Smith finally left England in 1629 reappears in a recent work of some importance, Les Origines du Jansenisme by J. Orcibal (vol.2, p.339) published in Bibliothe'que de la Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique in 1947. Smith withdrew to France for a short period towards the end of 1629. In August Richelieu instructed Chateauneuf, French Ambassador Extraordinary in London, to arrange for Smith to accompany him on the ambassador's next return to France, on the understanding that Smith should stay in France for two months and that Richelieu would undertake to get him safely back to England (Avenel, Lettres, Instructions diplomatiques, et Papiers d'Etat du Cardinal de Richelieu, vol.3, p.423). In a letter to the Lord Treasurer, Weston—undated but assignable on internal evidence to this same year—Richelieu writes of” M. l'evesque de Chalcedoine, qui est refugie chez moi” (Avenel, vol.3, p.498). That Smith returned to England is certain; his letters to Propaganda written towards the end of 1630 and in the early months of 1631 are dated from London where he was living in the house of the French Ambassador. The date of his final withdrawal to France is given by John Southcote in his Notebook as 24 August 1631 (CRS.i.105).

23. Westminster Cathedral Archives, xxiv, no. 116.

24. Copia. Ego infrascriptus testor me audivisse P. Joannem Gerardum Societatis Jesu, dum Superior esset in Novitiatu Anglicano Leodij, iactantem quod dum foderet sub domo Parliamentaria Londini una cum alijs in actione pulveraria ipsius et eorum indusia erant ita madida sudore ac si ex aqua fuissent extracta. Londini 22 Iunij 1631. Anthonius Smithaeus. Concordat cum originali, Ita testor. G. Farrarus Notarius Apostolicus. (Westminster Cathedral Archives, xxiv, no.115. Printed in Morris, op.cit., p.436 n.) This is the copy that was sent in 1631 to the Agent of the English secular clergy in Rome, Peter Fitton, whose papers are now at Westminster. The attestation of 17 April 1631, which is in English and less precise as to detail, is known only in an 18th century transcript (see notes 44-5 below).

25. The authority for this early part of his career is the Valladolid Diary (CRS xxx 107-9).

26. Foley vii 609.

27. Foley says: “In 1623 in the Yorkshire Missions. His name then disappears from the catalogues”. The entry in the 1623 catalogue was evidently carried over in error from the previous year's statistics, for Pole was dismissed from the Society in August, 1622.

28. The Jesuit Mission to England was constituted a Vice-Province in 1619, a Province in 1623.

29. Jesuit General Archives, Anglia, Epist.Gen.I, f.164.

30. The Notebook kept by Southcote, in which he recorded the dates of a number of important events affecting the secular clergy in England from 1622 to 1637, is preserved in the archives of the Bishop of Southwark; it is printed in CRS i 97-116.

31. Westminster Cathedral Archives, B..7, no.59 (formerly Stonyhurst MSS. Anglia viii). Southcote writes under the alias of Clerk.

32. Westminster Cathedral Archives, xxvii, no. 18.

33. A Comtek Satyre, entituled, Hterarchomachta, or the Anti-Bishop. Written by one Reverardus. MS. at English College, Rome: C.1.17. I am indebted to Rev. Cyril Murtagh who located it and to Rev. Anthony Kenny who has had it microfilmed for me. Internal evidence shows that the play was written in 1629. The author is not known. In Westminster Cathedral Archives, misplaced among documents for 1629, is an extract in Fitton's hand “ex litteris scriptis a Vicario generali Episcopi Chalcedonensis [presumably Southcote]” which belongs to about the same period—early 1633—as the letter by Southcote from which we have already quoted; the Vicar General's words are: “Circumfertur hie Comedia quaedam cui titulus est Anti-Episcopus. De qua scias velim quod nee clerus nee Episcopus Chalcedonensis earn unquam probaverint, sed iis insciis ante triennium composita fuit, nee usque adhuc explorare potuimus quis fuerit eius Author” (Westminster Cathedral Archives, xxiii, no.41).

34. Westminster Cathedral Archives, xxvii, no.38.

35. Printed in CRS xxii 178-9.

36. Marini transcripts, British Museum Add.MSS. 15389, f.iiov.

37. Smith to Propaganda, 13 July, 1626. Propaganda Archives, Anglia 347, f.195. Six years later, Fitton wrote from Rome to Southcote in England asking him if he could remember the names of these Jesuits; Southcote replied (13 July, 1632): “Those seaven Jesuits putt out of their order here in England within the space of three yeares, my Lord [i.e. Smith] can best name unto you: three or 4 I remember, videlicet Robert Rookwood, Anthony Smith, John Dukes, Ferdinando Pulton” (Westminster Cathedral Archives, B.47, no.65—formerly Stonyhurst MSS, Anglia viii).

38. Ushaw Collection MSS. i, no. 15.

39. 2nd ed. 1880, pp.433-4; it does not appear in the first ed.

40. Vol.2, p. 168.

41. Pp.180 et seq.

42. Narrationem hanc sequentem nos infrascripti accepimus a viro quodam Catholtco et fide digno qui illam nobis narravit partim ex ore perillustris D. Domini Joannis Fortescue partim ex ore conjugis ejus Dominae Heienae Fortescue qui Audomari diem suum sancte obiere.

43. See John Gerard. The autobiography of an Elizabethan, tr. Caraman. 1951. pp.172 to end.

43a. It was not published until 1871 when it appeared in an English translation.

44. This and the Ushaw transcript of Anthony Pole's attestation of 17 April, 1631 (Ushaw Collection MSS. i, no. 14) were among the papers which passed on the death of Alban Butler in 1773 to his nephew Charles, the historian, and on Charles Butler's death in 1832 to John Kirk of Lichfield. Kirk identifies the transcribers in a note.

45. Dicconson's original papers which Kirk handled cannot now be traced. They are not, apparently at Ushaw or Oscott, and I have failed to find them at Westminster. Fortunately, Kirk made a copy of Dicconson's note. He was at this time (c.1820) gathering materials for a proposed continuation of Dodd's Church History. At about the same time, Bishop Poynter had the 17th century Roman Agency papers brought back from Italy and incorporated in the London District Archives (now Westminster Cathedral Archives). The existence in Poynter's possession of a 17th century copy of Anthony Pole's second attestation (see note 24 above) led to an exchange of letters between Kirk and Poynter in November, 1821, in the course of which Kirk sent Poynter transcripts in his own hand of the documents which he possessed relating to the affair. I have quoted Dicconson's note from Kirk's transcript (Westminster Cathedral Archives, Main Series, under date 20 Nov., 1821).