The Gunpowder Plot: Terror & Faith in 1605 (19 page)

At the beginning of James’ reign, however, the Countess of Suffolk was in her prime, and Tassis was mesmerised by her.
She had already indicated Catholic sympathies and pro-Spanish feelings to an emissary from the Archdukes in Flanders before Tassis arrived in England; she had emphasised the prime importance of pensions and gifts in the delicate matter of establishing liberty of conscience. He allowed himself to be convinced that the key to ‘all the affairs of the bribes’ lay within her pretty grasp and that she was an essential ally in the preliminaries of the Anglo-Spanish negotiations.

Here, in Tassis’ opinion, was ‘a person of great judgement’. Catherine Suffolk was also a Catholic, although not publicly so, and planned to die ‘within the Catholic Faith’. Furthermore, she was an advocate of a Spanish marriage between King James’ son Henry and a daughter of Philip III, who would of course be a Catholic. It may be that Tassis’ lack of diplomatic training blinded him to the faults in this charming harpy. Charm she certainly had: gossip linked her name to that of Robert Cecil, who would leave her a jewel worth one thousand pounds at his death, although Cecil scarcely shared her Spanish sympathies. However, when the Constable of Castile finally arrived in England to negotiate the treaty with Spain, he had no difficulty in seeing through ‘her excessively grand pretensions’. Far too much weight, thought the Constable, had been placed on ‘the word of a fickle woman’. But by that time Catherine Suffolk had thoroughly infiltrated herself into the process by which Spanish money was to be paid over in return for English influence at court. She received at the least twenty thousand pounds, possibly more, as well as certain wonderful jewels.
²⁵

It was ironic that while Tassis bemoaned the weakness of the English Catholics, the Protestant English were equally indignant at the evident increase in Catholic strength since March 1603. King James’ generous relaxation of penalties, his friendly reception of Sir Thomas Tresham and his associates, was having exactly the effect which James himself had dreaded while in Scotland: the Catholics were beginning to ‘multiply’. That is, they were
visibly
multiplying.

There must always remain some considerable doubt about the figures of increase which were bandied about in late 1603 and afterwards, given the ambiguous nature of Church Papistry. Father Persons, in Rome, believed that by 1605 the Catholics in England had almost doubled since the death of Elizabeth. Were there really all of a sudden far more Catholics in England – or were they just finding the courage (with due respect to Tassis) to declare themselves? What Tassis did not know was exactly how bad things had been before. There was a sensible point to be made that the Catholics appeared to be more numerous only because Mass could be said more openly.
²⁶

Later Parliament declared that the number of priests in England had swollen from one hundred to one thousand within three years of the accession of King James. But this was inaccurate on two levels. There were probably already about two hundred and fifty priests present in 1603, while there were certainly not as many as a thousand, even in the deepest hiding, by 1606. Similarly, when King James arrived in England, he was told by the bishops that there were only 8,500 recusants in the country, whereas the true figure was more like 35,000. Yet by the end of 1603 it was believed that a hundred thousand people were attending Mass. The important point to the Protestant interest was not so much statistical as psychological. In the words of Sir Henry Spiller, in a subsequent speech in Parliament, ‘the strength of the Catholic body, with the suspension of persecution, at once became evident’.
²⁷

Claudio Aquaviva, General of the Jesuits, had delivered a stern warning to Father Garnet in July 1603 on the continued need for circumspection. ‘By the unfathomable mercy of Christ, our Lord,’ wrote Aquaviva, ‘I implore you to be prudent.’ He reiterated the need for prudence at the end of his letter, passing on a similar message from the Pope.
²⁸
But for many of the English Catholics, buoyed up by the King’s favourable reception of Percy and others – surely in Scotland James had given ‘his promise of toleration’ – it was not so easy to be prudent. Then there was the spectacle of a court riddled
with chic crypto-Catholics, high in the royal favour, which was hardly likely to encourage the rest to remain discreet. The difficulty of maintaining the ‘nil gain’ situation has been mentioned.
*
Most English Catholics were not even prepared to try.

‘It is hardly credible in what jollity they [the Catholics] now live,’ wrote Ralph Featherstonehalgh from Brancepeth in County Durham in mid-November. Among known Papists close to the King he instanced the eighteen-year-old Earl of Arundel, Suffolk’s nephew. From Lord Sheffield, the Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire, came a similarly outraged message: the Catholics were beginning ‘to grow very insolent and show their true intentions’ now that they were receiving ‘graces and favours’ from the King.
²⁹

Already the Catholics were ‘labouring tooth and nail for places in Parliament’, wrote Lord Sheffield with disgust. And it was true. The fear of the plague which haunted everyone at this time because it made all crowds potentially lethal carriers had at last diminished. The first Parliament of the new reign was to be held in the spring of 1604. Many Catholics hoped for great things from it. After all, in private talks, King James had frequently mentioned the need to refer the question of liberty of conscience to Parliament. They were expecting justice from their sovereign. But like their adventurous co-religionists Guido Fawkes and Tom Wintour in Spain, the Catholics in England were to be cruelly disappointed.

*
His place of baptism is also the key to Guy Fawkes’ birthplace in his parents’ house. The site is now occupied by numbers 32–34 Stonegate next to the Star Inn (then as now a York landmark). York Civic Trust have placed a plaque on the eastern end of Blackwell’s bookshop frontage (number 32): ‘Hereabouts lived the parents of Guy Fawkes of Gunpowder Plot fame who was baptized in St Michael le Belfrey Church in 1570.’ A house in Petergate has also been suggested but it does not lie in the parish of St Michael; the entry of Fawkes’ baptism can still be seen in the York Minster Archives (S/2).

*
St Peter’s School, York, still survives. Although it has moved its site since the days of Guy Fawkes, the school retains a strong tradition of interest and even fondness for its best-known old boy. Guy Fawkes was however tactfully described by a recent head boy as ‘not exactly a role model’ (
The Times,
5 November 1992).

*
No entry concerning the marriage or baptism has been found in the register of Farnham Church, near Scotton, although the marriages of Fawkes’ sisters Elizabeth and Anne are recorded in 1594 and 1599 respectively.

*
The Dukedom of Norfolk was still under attainder [prohibited from use], following the execution of the 4th Duke in 1572, and was not restored until 1660; Prince Charles, the King’s younger son, was not created Duke of York till January 1605.

*
There is a comparison to be made with racist outcries in the 1960s against Asian immigrants from the former British Empire into Great Britain by those who professed themselves in favour of immigration but ended by saying: ‘If only they wouldn’t have such big families.’

CHAPTER SIX

Catesby as Phaeton

            Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds
            Towards Phoebus’ lodging; such a waggoner
            As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
            And bring in cloudy night immediately.

Romeo and Juliet

T
he New English Parliament was summoned on 31 January 1604. Six weeks later, the King and Queen journeyed in splendour from the Tower of London for the official Opening ceremony. This was the first public procession of the reign. The fear of plague which had marred the coronation and restricted its pomp had now at last receded: so ‘the city and suburbs’ became ‘one great pageant’. Among those who walked from Tower Bridge to Westminster was Shakespeare’s company of players, wearing the King’s livery.

A good time was had within the Tower by the Royal Family in the days leading up to the solemn procession. There was a striking contrast between the dignified royal apartments and the dungeons for state prisoners – not far away – that the ancient edifice also housed. As John Taylor, the Water-Poet, put it:

For though the Tower be a castle royal,
Yet there’s a prison in it for men disloyal.
¹

During this time the ten-year-old Prince Henry was more interested in the spectacle of the zoo, also within the Tower’s
confines. He watched a lion being baited by three dogs: two of them died, but, when one looked likely to recover, Prince Henry ordered the dog to be cosseted and spared further ordeals: ‘He that hath fought with the King of Beasts shall never fight inferior.’
²

It was all part of the Prince’s high profile as the King’s heir. His appearance in the royal procession on its way to Whitehall was the first opportunity that the public – as opposed to the court – had had of inspecting the boy they took to be their future sovereign. King James rode a white jennet (possibly one of the Spanish horses presented by Tassis the previous October) under a canopy carried by Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. His duties included listening to two speeches by Ben Jonson and several by the playwright Thomas Dekker, delivered under seven wooden arches specially erected for the occasion and intricately carved. King James was said to have borne ‘the day’s brunt with patience’, although crowds, even when not plague-ridden, always made him uncomfortable and aroused his latent fears about his own security. Anne of Denmark on the other hand charmed everyone with that wave-from-the-elbow so characteristic of royalty down the ages. In return she was greeted outside St Paul’s Cathedral by musicians from her native country to make her feel at home. But it was the tall, good-looking boy, Prince Henry, bowing this way and that to acknowledge the cheers, who provided the novel focus of attention.
³

Spectators could not fail to be impressed that an Opening of Parliament was now a family occasion and an opportunity to express loyalty to the composite image in public. ‘Men disloyal’, in Taylor’s phrase, might of course see such a state occasion as a perfect opportunity to wipe out the major royal players at one fell swoop.

Prince Henry had also accompanied his father to an ecclesiastical conference held earlier in January at Hampton Court. King James, wrapped in furs against the cold, presided over a series of theological discussions which were intended to sort out the Puritan element in the Protestant Church, with its
tiresomely obstreperous attitude to royal authority. Afterwards some Catholics – notably Father Tesimond – believed that ‘all our miseries’ had begun at that point, with the King pronouncing ‘emphatically and virulently’ against the Catholic Church, in order to balance his hostility to the Puritans. Yet not all the King’s pronouncements at that time were anti-Catholic. Once again he invoked the hallowed name of Mary Queen of Scots when he complained how the equivalent of the Puritans in Scotland had misused ‘that poor lady my mother’, and had then ill-treated him during his minority. Now the Puritans were once more making trouble about the episcopacy: what institution would be next – the monarchy? ‘It is my aphorism ‘‘No bishop, no King’’,’ he commented drily.
⁴

On 19 February, however, King James did publicly announce ‘his utter detestation’ of the Papist religion which he condemned as ‘superstitious’. Three days later a proclamation ordered all Jesuits and priests out of the realm, while the fines for recusancy were once more imposed. On 19 March the King’s speech in Parliament effectively crushed those Catholic hopes for liberty of conscience which had sprung up in the warm climate of his Scottish promises.
⁵
The pro-Papist and pro-Spanish courtiers were still in place, indicating that the King’s amiable personal tolerance had not changed. The pro-Spanish Queen still wrote lovingly to the Pope and heard Mass in private. But the negotiations for the Anglo-Spanish Treaty were winding on without reference to the subject of Catholic toleration, since Philip III had officially abandoned his interest in the subject.

Instead, the Constable of Castile, with his powers to clinch the deal, was in Flanders
en route
for England. He would shortly be negotiating with the jewellers of Antwerp for suitable presents for King James. A careful man (or a pessimist), he hoped to acquire them sale or return, in case the treaty fell through at the last moment. But that did not now seem a likely prospect. The King would get his jewels. In any case, secure on his throne, James wanted nothing more from his Papists. The days of bargaining were over.