 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 <unk> cum potest , <unk> " ( what a man does not forbid when he can , he orders ) . Garnet 's defence , that he had forbidden Catesby from proceeding , was futile . 
