page_title: Henry Garnet
section_title: Trial
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Garnet / Gunpowder Plot / Trial
caption_attribution_description: Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), 12 3/4 in. x 9 in. (324 mm x 229 mm), More information
context_page_description: Henry Garnet, sometimes Henry Garnett, was an English Jesuit priest executed for his complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Born in Heanor, Derbyshire, he was educated in Nottingham and later at Winchester College before he moved to London in 1571 to work for a publisher. There he professed an interest in legal studies and in 1575, he travelled to the continent and joined the Society of Jesus. He was ordained in Rome some time around 1582.
  In 1586 Garnet returned to England as part of the Jesuit mission, soon succeeding Father William Weston as Jesuit superior, following the latter's capture by the English authorities. Garnet established a secret press, which lasted until late 1588, and in 1594 he interceded in the Wisbech Stirs, a dispute between secular and regular clergy. He preferred a passive approach to the problems Catholics faced in England, approving of the disclosure by Catholic priests of the existence of the 1603 Bye Plot, and exhorting English Catholics not to engage in violent rebellion.
  In summer 1605 Garnet met with Robert Catesby, a religious zealot who, unknown to him, planned to kill the Protestant King James I.
context_section_description: Garnet's trial took place on Friday 28 March 1606. He was taken to the Guildhall by closed coach; an unusual method, considering prisoners were usually walked to trial, though the authorities may have had some concern about support from a sympathetic crowd. The trial began at about 9:30 am and lasted all day.  In attendance were King James (hidden from public view) and several courtiers including Lady Arbella Stuart and Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk.  Garnet was introduced with his various aliases, which included "Whalley, otherwise Darcy, otherwise Roberts, otherwise Farmer, otherwise Philips". He was accused of having conspired with Catesby on 9 June 1605 to kill the king, his son, and to "alter and subvert the government of the kingdom and the true worship of God established in England". He was also accused of having conspired with several others to blow up the House of Lords with gunpowder. He pleaded "not guilty".
  Speaking for the government, Edward Coke accused him of involvement in every treason since 1586, the year he returned to England.  According to Coke, the provincial superior was involved in the Main and Bye Plots of 1603.  He had sent Edmund Baynham to Rome to gain papal approval for the 1605 plot, and while at Coughton in November, had prayed "for the success of the great action". Coke called Garnet "a doctor of five Ds, namely, of dissimulation, of deposing of princes, of disposing of kingdoms, of daunting and deterring of subjects, and of destruction". His supposed inappropriate relationship with Anne Vaux was mentioned, but his adherence to the doctrine of equivocation proved extremely damaging. Francis Tresham's deathbed letter, which claimed that Garnet had played no part in the so-called Spanish Treason, was read aloud.  Tresham claimed not to have seen Garnet "for fifteen or sixteen years before", despite government evidence that the two had met more recently. Garnet had not seen the letter and did not know that it referred to events before 1602, not 1605. He was unable to explain it, except by saying "it may be, my Lord, that he meant to equivocate."
  Statements regarding Jesuit-encouraged plots against Queen Elizabeth were read to the court, as well as some of the plotters' confessions. Garnet defended his use of equivocation with his own treatise on the doctrine. He had denied his conversation with Oldcorne as it was a secret, but said that in matters of faith, equivocation could never be lawful. When asked by Salisbury what he would do if the pope excommunicated King James, he "denied to answer". His defence of equivocation was scorned by Coke, who called it "open and broad lying and forswearing".  As for Tesimond's confession, the planned assassination had not at that point happened and so Salisbury said that Garnet could easily have alerted the government.  Salisbury attacked the idea that it had ever been made under the seal of the confessional, and claimed anyway that Garnet could have warned the authorities after his more ordinary conversation with Catesby about the death of innocents; the priest replied by saying that at the time, he did not understand the relevance of Catesby's questions. The Earl of Northampton said, in Latin, "quod non-prohibet cum potest, jubet" (what a man does not forbid when he can, he orders). Garnet's defence, that he had forbidden Catesby from proceeding, was futile.
  The jury took fifteen minutes to decide that Garnet was guilty of treason. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
caption: Sir Edward Coke accused Garnet of involvement in every treason since 1586.
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