, took a
position so as to be seen by both. At the same time two other
individuals were secreted in the prison sufficiently near to hear all
that passed between the prisoners. They conversed freely respecting
their previous confessions and examinations--the excuses and evasions
which they had prepared, and many other matters connected with the plot.
During the conversation Garnet remarked to Hall, "They will charge me
with my prayer for the good success of the great action, in the
beginning of the parliament, and with the verses which I added at the
end of my prayer." He added, that in his defence he should state, that
the success for which he prayed related to the severe laws, which he
apprehended would, during the session, be enacted against the Romanists.
The verses alluded to were as follows:--

Gentem auferte perfidam
Credentium de finibus,
Ut Christo laudes debitas,
Persolvamus alacriter.

The next day Garnet and Hall were examined separately, when they were
charged with having held a private conference. Garnet denied the fact in
the most decided terms. The parties who heard the conversation were then
produced: nor could Garnet object anything against their statements.

Garnet said on his trial that he once thought of revealing the plot, but
not the conspirators. Cecil asked who hindered him from making the
discovery; to whom he replied, "You, yourself; for I knew you would have
racked this poor body of mine to pieces, to make me confess." Fuller
remarks on this assertion and in allusion to the interview with Hall,
that "never any _rack_ was used on Garnet, except a _witrack_, wherewith
he was worsted, and this cunning archer outshot in his own bow. For
being in prison with _Father Oldcorn alias Hall_, they were put into an
_equivocating room_ (as I may term it) which pretended nothing but
privacy, yet had a reservation of some invisible persons within it, ear
witnesses to all the passages betwixt them."

These confessions, denials, evasions, and palliations were defended by
Garnet under the plea of lawful _equivocation_, a doctrine then at least
taught very generally in the church of Rome. Under shelter of this plea
the jesuits were prepared, not merely to conceal or to deny any fact,
but also to aver what they knew to be false. It was urged, and in books
too, that such a course might be adopted on the ground that the parties
reserved in their own minds a secret and private sense. Thus any
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