named Bilson," afterwards Bishop of Worcester and
Winchester, has left on record his account of the matter: namely, that
Garnet when at Winchester was a youth of such incorrigible wickedness,
that the Warden dissuaded his going to the University, for the sake of
the young men who might there be corrupted by his evil example. The
reader can accept which version he may see good. On leaving school,
Garnet proceeded to London, where for about two years he was employed as
corrector of the press by the celebrated law-printer, Tottel. At the
end of this time, he was received into the Church of Rome, and
subsequently travelled abroad, first to Spain, and afterwards to Rome,
where on 11th September, 1575, he entered the Society of Jesus. In the
Jesuit College at Rome he studied diligently, under Bellarmine and
others: and he was before long made Professor of Hebrew, and licenced to
lecture on mathematics. In 1586, on the recommendation of Parsons, he
was appointed to the Jesuit Mission to England, where he landed on July
7th. It is said that he was so remarkably amiable and gentle that
Aquaviva, the General of the Jesuits, objected to his appointment on the
ground that the post required a man of sterner and more unyielding
character. Bellarmine records that his sanctity of life was
incomparable; but Jesuits are apt to entertain peculiar notions of
sanctity. As was then usual, Garnet on coming to his native country
adopted a string of aliases--Walley, Darcy, Mease, Roberts, Parmer, and
Phillips. Walley, however, was the name by which he was best known.
Two years after he joined the Mission, he was promoted to be its
Superior. For some years he lived in the neighbourhood of London,
following various occupations to disguise his real calling, but chiefly
that of a horse-dealer. That he was implicated in the intrigues with
Spain before the death of Elizabeth, he never attempted to deny: but
during the lull in the penal legislation which followed the accession of
James, Garnet purchased a general pardon for all past political
offences. He was frequently at Harrowden, the house of Lord Vaux, whose
daughter Anne travelled everywhere with him, passing as his sister, Mrs
Perkins. About 1599, as "Mr Mease, a Berkshire man," he took the house
in Enfield Chase, named White Webbs, for the meetings of the Romanists,
after which he was "seldom absent from it for a quarter of a year
together." (Examination of James Johnson, servant i