Such an explanation cannot be deemed satisfactory. The distance to be covered was about 112 miles, and there were three days to do it, for not till November 8th were the fugitives surrounded. They in their flight had the same difficulties to contend with, as are here enumerated, yet they accomplished their journey in a single day, and they had not, like the king's couriers, fresh horses ready for them at every post.
But we have positive evidence upon this point. Father Greenway, who was at the time in the Midlands, close to the scene of action, incidentally mentions, without any reference to our present question,[311] that while the rebels were in the field, messengers came post haste continually, one after the other, from the capital, all bearing proclamations mentioning Percy by name.
It must also be observed that though the couriers, we are told, could not in three days get from London to Holbeche to hinder Percy's death, they contrived to ride in one from Holbeche to London with news that he was dead.[312]
Another circumstance not easy to explain is, that the man who killed Percy and Catesby,[313] John Streete by name, received for his service the handsome pension of two shillings a day for life, equal at least to a pound of our present money.[314] This is certainly a large reward for having done the very thing that the government most desired to avoid, and for an action, moreover, involving no sort of personal risk, killing two practically unarmed men from behind a tree.[315] If, however, he had silenced a dangerous witness, it is easy to understand the munificence of his recompense.
Against Catesby, likewise, there are serious indictments, and it seems impossible to believe him to have been, as commonly represented, a man, however blinded by fanaticism, yet honest in his bad enterprise, who would not stoop to fraud or untruth. It is abundantly evident that on many occasions he deliberately deceived his associates, and those whom he called his spiritual guides, making promises which he did not mean to keep, and giving assurances which he knew to be false.[316] It will be sufficient to quote one or two examples quite sufficient to stamp him as a man utterly unscrupulous about the means employed to gain his ends.