Father Bartoli, in his Inghilterra (bk. v., ch. 13), has the following passage about Father Gerard, whom he knew personally at Rome: “At his first entrance into this prison (the Clink) he procured himself a habit of the Society, and continued to wear it from that time forward, even in the face of all London when he was being taken to his different examinations; so that the people crowded to see a Jesuit in his habit, while the preachers were all the more exasperated at what they thought an open defiance of them.”
Father Weston in his Narrative (Father Laurenson's copy, p. 93) gives it as one of the signs that warned Catholics that Anthony Tyrrel was wavering in his faith, that without any necessity, in the Clink prison, he would wear secular dress. His own clerical costume in prison he mentions as a matter of course. “Egressus sum sequenti die, mutato habitu in sæcularem” (p. 98).
On the back of a playing card (the seven of spades), which is attached to the original document, is written in Sir Edward Coke's handwriting:
“Polewhele 1
Walpole 1
PatCullen 1
Annias 31
Willms 1
Squier
Jarrard 1.”
Polewhele, Patrick Cullen or O'Collun, Williams, and Squire were all executed for high treason, the latter on the accusation of having, at Father Walpole's instigation, poisoned the pommel of Elizabeth's saddle. Annias apostatized after two years' imprisonment.
“One necessary condition,” says Father Garnett in another paper (P. R. O., Domestic, James I., vol. 20, n. 2), “required in every law is that it be just. For if this condition be wanting, that the law be unjust, then is it ipso facto void and of no force, neither hath it any power to oblige any. And this is a maxim, not only of divines, but of Aristotle and all philosophers. Hereupon ensueth that no power on earth can forbid or punish any action which we are bound unto by the law of God, which is the true pattern of all justice. So that the laws against recusants, against receiving of Priests, against confession, against Mass, or other rites of Catholic religion, are to be esteemed as no laws by such as steadfastly believe these to be necessary observances of the true religion.
“Likewise Almighty God hath absolute right for to send His preachers of His Gospel to any place in the world. ‘Euntes decete omnes gentes.’ So that the law against Priests coming into the realm sincerely to preach, is no law, and those that are put to death by virtue of that decree are verily martyrs because they die for the preaching of true religion.
“Being asked what I meant by true treason, I answer that that is a true treason which is made treason by any just law, and that is no treason at all which is made treason by an unjust law.”