Father Garnett, in a letter(47) to Father Persons at Rome, dated Sept. 6, 1594, thus describes the capture of the servants. "The Friday night before Passion Sunday" [March 15] "was such a hurly-burly in London as never was seen in man's memory; no, not when Wyatt was at the gates. A general search in all London, the Justices and chief citizens going in person; all unknown persons taken and put in churches till the next day. No Catholics found, but one poor tailor's house at Golding-lane end, which was esteemed such a booty as never was got since this Queen's days. The tailor and divers others there taken lie yet in prison, and some of them have been tortured. That mischance touched us near; they were our friends and chiefest instruments. That very night had been there _Long John_ with the little beard, once your pupil" [in the margin is written _John Gerard_], "if I had not more importunately stayed him than ever before. But soon after he was apprehended, being betrayed we know not how; he will be stout I doubt not. He hath been very close, but now is removed from the Counter to the Clink, where he may in time do much good. He was glad of Mr. Homulus(48) his company, but he had been taken from him and carried to Newgate, whence he hopeth to redeem him again."
Father Gerard tells the story thus. "The hidden traitor, wholly unknown to his master, was watching his chance of giving us up without betraying his own treachery. At first he settled to have me seized in a house" in Golding-lane "which had been lately hired in London to answer my own and my friends' purposes. From his master's employing him in many affairs, he could not help knowing the place which his master had hired for my use. Consequently he promised the magistrates to tell them when I was coming, so that they might surround the house during the night with their officers, and cut off my escape. The plan would have succeeded, had not God provided otherwise through an act of obedience.
"My Superior had lately come to live four or five miles from London.(49) I had gone to see him, and had been with him a day or two, when, having business in London, I wrote to those who kept the house to expect me on such a night, and bring in certain friends whom I wanted to see. The traitor, who was now often seen in the house, which belonged ostensibly to his master, learnt the time, and got the Priest-hunters to come there at midnight with their band.