ce of rustic stupidity; for Sir W. Wade writes to Lord Salisbury
a little later that he "appeareth to be of better understanding and
discourse than, before, either of us conceived him to be." (Additional
Manuscript 6178, folio 56.) That Fawkes was tortured there can be no
doubt, from the King's written command, and the tacit evidence of
Fawkes's handwriting. Garnet says he was half-an-hour on the rack; Sir
Edward Hoby, that he "was never on the rack, but only suspended by his
arms upright." Nothing could induce him to betray his companions until
he was satisfied that all was known: and with a base treachery and
falsehood only too common in the statecraft of that day, he was deceived
into believing them taken before they were discovered. Lying is
wickedness in all circumstances; but the prisoner's falsehood was based
on a worthier motive than the lies which were told to him. There was,
indeed, in the fearless courage and unflinching fidelity of Guy Fawkes,
the wreck of what might have been a noble man; and he certainly was far
from being the vulgar ruffian whom he is commonly supposed to have been.
In person he was tall and dark, with brown hair and auburn beard.

HENRY GARNET.

If Catesby be regarded as the most responsible of the Gunpowder
conspirators, and Fawkes as the most courageous, Garnet may fairly be
considered the most astute. Like the majority of his companions, he was
a pervert. His father, Brian Garnet, was a schoolmaster at Nottingham,
and his mother's maiden name was Alice Jay. He was born in 1555,
educated at Winchester College, in the Protestant faith, and was to have
passed thence to New College, Oxford. This intention was never carried
into effect: his Romish biographers say, because he had imbibed at
Winchester a distaste to the Protestant religion; adding that "he
obtained the rank of captain [of the school], and by his modesty and
urbanity, his natural abilities and quickness in learning, so
recommended himself to the superiors, that had he" entered at Oxford,
"he might safely have calculated on attaining the highest academical
honours. But he resolved, by the grace of God, upon embracing the
Catholic faith, although his old Professors at Winchester, Stemp and
Johnson, themselves Catholic in heart, together with another named
Bilson, at first favourable, but afterwards hostile to Catholicity, made
every exertion to persuade him to remain." Unhappily for this rosy
narrative, the "other