The Gunpowder Plot
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was an attempt by Catholic rebels to kill Protestant King James I of England, his eldest son and much of the English court and government by exploding gunpowder beneath a session of the Houses of Parliament. The plotters would then have seized the king’s younger children and formed a new, Catholic, government around which they hoped England’s Catholic minority would rise and rally. The plot failed and the plotters were discovered, tracked, arrested and executed. More on the Gunpowder Plot
The Jesuits are Blamed
The conspirators feared that a violent anti-Catholic backlash would happen if the Plot failed, but this didn't occur; the King even acknowledged that the plot was due to a few fanatics. Instead, the persecution was limited to one very specific group, Jesuit priests, which the government decided to portray as the fanatics. Although the Jesuits were already illegal in England because they were a form of Catholic priest, they were especially hated by the government for encouraging people to remain true to Catholicism despite the legal onslaught aimed at turning them Protestant. For the Jesuits, suffering was an integral part of Catholicism, and not-compromising was a Catholic duty.By portraying the Jesuits, not just as members of the Gunpowder Plotters, but as their leaders, the post-plot government of England hoped to alienate the priests from the mass of horrified Catholics. Unfortunately for two Jesuits, Fathers Garnet and Greenway, they did have a connection to the plot thanks to the machinations of leading conspirator Robert Catesby.
Catesby and Henry Garnet
Catesby's servant, Thomas Bates, reacted to news of the plot with horror and was only convinced once Catesby had sent him to give confession to Jesuit, and active rebel, Father Greenway. This incident convinced Catesby he needed a religious judgement to use as proof, and he approached the head of the English Jesuits, Father Garnet, who at this point was also a friend.Over dinner in London on June 8th Catesby led a discussion which enabled him to ask "whether for the good and promotion of the Catholic cause, the necessity of time and occasion so requiring, it be lawful or not, amongst many Nocents, to destroy and take away some innocents also". Garnet, apparently thinking that Catesby was just pursuing an idle discussion, answered: "That if the advantages were greater on the side of the Catholics, by the destruction of innocents with the nocents, than by the preservation of both, it was doubtless lawful." (both cited from Haynes, The Gunpowder Plot, Sutton 1994, p. 62-63) Catesby now had 'the resolution of the case', his official religious justification, which he used to convince, among others, Everard Digby.
Garnet and Greenway
Garnet soon realised that Catesby meant, not only to kill someone important, but to do it in a particularly indiscriminate way and, although he had supported treasonous plots before, he was far from happy with Catesby's intent. Shortly after, Garnet actually found out exactly what this intent was: a distraught Father Greenway, the confessor to Catesby and other plotters, approached Garnet and begged the Superior to listen to his 'confession'. Garnet at first refused, guessing correctly that Greenway knew of Catesby’s plot, but he eventually relented and was told all.
Garnet Resolves to Stop Catesby
Despite having lived, effectively on the run, in England for years, having heard of many plots and treasons, the Gunpowder Plot still deeply shocked Garnet, who believed it would lead to the ruin of him and all other English Catholics. He and Greenway resolved upon two methods of stopping Catesby: firstly Garnet sent Greenway back with a message expressively forbidding Catesby from acting; Catesby ignored it. Secondly, Garnet wrote to the Pope, appealing for a judgement on whether English Catholics could act violently. Unfortunately for Garnet, he felt bound by confession and could just give vague hints in his letters to the pope, and he received equally vague comments back which Catesby also ignored. Furthermore, Catesby actively delayed several of Garnet's messages, stranding them in Brussels.
