The first inquiry of the court was not whether Henry Garnet had applied the match. Guy Fawkes had been discovered amidst the powder beneath the Parliament; other men had fled, several had fallen by the sword, and the survivors stood condemned. Garnet appeared later, indicted for having fostered the conspiracy and, above all, for having possessed knowledge thereof without reporting it. He was the superior of the Jesuits in England; yet, to establish what he had done, the commissioners were obliged to unravel a tangle of conversations, letters, and a delicate boundary: what does a priest learn within the sacrament of penance, and what may he lawfully conceal from his sovereign?
On October 26, 1605, Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter advising him against attending the forthcoming opening of Parliament. It forewarned of a “terrible blow,” yet disclosed neither who would strike nor by what means. James I commanded searches to be made. During the second search, upon the evening of November 4, the officers of Sir Thomas Knyvett discovered Fawkes and the powder beneath Westminster; he was taken that very night. The plot had been aimed at the opening of Parliament appointed for the morrow, November 5, yet was laid bare before it could be brought to execution.
The fugitives sought to gather support in the Midlands. Catesby and Percy were slain in the pursuit; others were apprehended. Garnet was not upon the road. The prosecution portrayed him as the prime mover of the conspirators, the master of that doctrine which rendered regicide lawful, and the deviser of their oaths. This characterisation proceeded from crown lawyers determined to fix upon the Society of Jesus the authorial guilt of the entire design. Throughout the proceedings, Garnet acknowledged certain dealings and admitted having concealed what had come to his ears; he denied having been an artisan of the enterprise.
The trial of the surviving conspirators had been held at Westminster in January. On March 28, 1606, at the Guildhall, Garnet was brought before a fresh commission. The prosecution rehearsed a protracted narrative of earlier plots, of priests dispatched beyond the seas, and of alleged endeavours to procure a Spanish invasion. All these former matters served to contend that the treason of the powder was no mere design of a few gentlemen, but the consummation of a Jesuit policy. This history carried great rhetorical weight; it did not, in itself, demonstrate what Garnet had known, nor at what hour.
The darkest nexus began with an inquiry posed by Catesby. According to the prosecution, Catesby had asked whether the innocent might be sacrificed alongside the guilty for the advancement of the Catholic cause, to which Garnet was said to have answered that such might be lawful. Garnet challenged the construction placed upon this discourse: he maintained he had resolved a general proposition in divinity, not given warrant for an act of slaughter.
The difficulty turned not solely upon the moment at which Garnet had learned of the enterprise. He asserted that he had received certain particulars under the sacramental seal of confession. To disclose them would have violated, in his view, a sacred obligation; in the eyes of his accusers, no spiritual duty could justify leaving the King and the realm in peril of destruction. Garnet affirmed that upon hearing Greenwell speak of the plot, he had been seized with horror and had charged him to turn Catesby from his course. The prosecution countered that he had continued to succour the conspirators and had offered prayers for the prosperity of their design. The trial thus set the secrecy of the confessional against the allegiance of a subject who admitted knowledge, yet denied command.
The court examined him closely as to the times he had spoken with Catesby and Greenwell, their conferences outside the confessional, and his conduct once he perceived the plot was advancing. He did not dispute that knowledge had reached him; he insisted that its source, his intentions, and his criminal guilt were not to be confounded.
The Earl of Salisbury turned to a colloquy between Garnet and his fellow Jesuit Hall, overheard by two appointed witnesses. A particular prayer was cited therein, and subsequently pressed against him as evidence that he had implored heaven for the success of the enterprise. Garnet acknowledged the prayer, but averred that he then stood in dread of new penal statutes against the Catholics. The interpretations were at direct variance: to the court, a petition uttered at such a juncture confirmed his adherence; to the prisoner, it signified no approval of the massacre.
The prosecution caused to be read a letter from Francis Tresham, who had died in the Tower before the trial. According to the King’s counsel, being too feeble to write, Tresham had dictated it to his servant in his final hours: he asserted that he had not seen Garnet for sixteen years, desiring to retract his earlier accusation. Garnet acknowledged having seen Tresham during that period; pressed upon this retraction, he suggested that the dying man might have had recourse to equivocation. Anne Vaux was called in turn. She deposed that she had entertained Garnet and Tresham at dinner in her house three or four times since the King’s accession, and divers times before; she recalled that Garnet ever exhorted them to quietness and prayer. She likewise placed them together at Tresham’s seat in Northamptonshire, and at Erith during the preceding summer. Garnet confirmed her deposition. These encounters refuted the letter concerning the sixteen years, yet did not establish that Garnet had commanded the blowing up of the Parliament.
Garnet answered also to the charges of having prepared an insurrection and sought aid from foreign princes. He admitted having been consulted regarding a Spanish intervention and having furnished letters of commendation. He maintained that these overtures were intended solely for the relief of Catholics, not for the destruction of the King; he conceded, however, that he had kept silent regarding the intentions of men whom he knew to be embarked upon a bloody course. The court reproached him with having failed to prevent that which he professed to abhor, notwithstanding the authority he wielded as provincial over the members of his order.
At the close of the hearing, the records of his examinations were read aloud. The commissioners confronted him with his former statements, his letters, and the depositions of Hall and Mistress Vaux. Garnet entreated the jury not to condemn him upon mere presumptions, reiterating that he had taken no direct part in the treason. The jury withdrew for less than a quarter of an hour. They returned a verdict of guilty. Being asked what he could allege why judgment should not pass, Garnet commended himself to the mercy of God and the King.
On May 3, he was conducted to the scaffold erected near Saint Paul’s. The ministers who attended him urged him to reveal any further treasons. He answered that he was prepared for death. In his public address, he craved the King’s forgiveness for having concealed that which had come to his knowledge. He condemned the design of the plot, declaring that he would have detested it had it taken effect. For the rest, he referred to the confessions exhibited at his trial, denying to the last that he was the man who had laid the powder.
Whilst at prayer, he paused several times to look about him and reply to the voices from the crowd. The Recorder warned him that he was upon the brink of eternity; Garnet replied that he used no equivocation and knew no more than what he had freely confessed. He asked that he might be forewarned before the drop fell. He was answered that he must look for no other issue. Thereupon he was hanged.