persisted in saying that she had known
nothing of the plot.

She was told--not improbably by Sir William Wade, and if so, we may be
sure, not very tenderly--that Garnet had been one of the chief
criminals. A few sorrowful lines remain showing the spirit in which she
heard it. They were written on the 12th of March.

"I am most sore to here that Father Garnet shoulde be ane wease pryue to
this most wicked actione, as himselfe euer cauled it, for that hee made
to mee maney greate prostertations to the contrari diuers times sence.

"Anne Vaux." [Gunpowder Plot Book, article 201.]

After this, Garnet gave up the fiction of his total ignorance of the
conspirators' object. In his fourth examination, on the 13th of March,
he said that on the demise of Queen Elizabeth, he had received a letter
from the General of the Jesuits, stating that the new Pope Clement had
confirmed the order of his predecessor that no such plot should be set
on foot, and that Garnet had accordingly done what in him lay to turn
Catesby from the idea. Catesby, however, thought himself authorised by
two briefs received by Garnet about twelve months earlier, commanding
the Roman Catholics of England not to consent to any successor of
Elizabeth who should refuse to submit to Rome. These Garnet had shown
to Catesby before destroying them. It is evident from these admissions,
not only that Garnet had been privy to the plot from the first, but also
that it was known at Rome, and controlled from the Vatican--forbidden
when success appeared unlikely, and smiled on as soon as it seemed
probable.

Shortly after this, a letter came from Anne Vaux--a letter which sadly
reveals the character of its writer, and shows how different life might
have been for this poor passionate-hearted woman, had she not been
crushed under the iron heel of Rome.

"To live without you," she writes to Garnet, "it is not life, but death!
Now I see my los. I am and euer will be yours, and so I humbly beseche
you to account me. O that I might see you!"

Her second examination took place a few days later, on the 24th of
March. She now acknowledged that Tresham Catesby, and Garnet, used to
meet at her house at Wandsworth: and that Garnet was wont to say to
them, when they were engaged in discussion,--"Good gentlemen, be quiet;
God will do all for the best; and we must get it by prayer at God's
hands, in whose hands are the hearts of princes." The confession was
carried to Gar