English ambassador at Brussels, which, after the above abstract, will be sufficiently intelligible.1 "As for Barnes, he is now returning again into Flanders, with many vows and promises to continue to do good service. As he was at Dover with my pass, carrying a letter from Philipps to Owen (of Barnes own handwriting, wherewith I was before acquainted), he was suddenly stayed by order from the Lord Warden, upon suspicion that he was one Acton, a traitor of the late conspiracy. Whereupon, his papers and letters being sent to my Lord of Northampton, I thought fit not to defer any longer the calling of Philipps into question; which till then I had forborne, hoping by Barnes his means to have discovered some further matter than before I could do." ... CHAPTER VI. THE "DISCOVERY." WHEN the conspirators first undertook their enterprise, Parliament was appointed to meet on February 7th, 1604-5, but, as has been seen, it was subsequently prorogued till October 3rd, and then again till Tuesday, November 5th. On occasion of the October prorogation, the confederates employed Thomas Winter to attend the ceremony in order to learn from the demeanour of the assembled Peers whether any suspicion of their design had suggested this unexpected adjournment. He returned to report that no symptom could be discerned of alarm or uneasiness, and that the presence of the volcano underfoot was evidently unsuspected. Thus reassured, his associates awaited with confidence the advent of the fatal Fifth. In the interval occurred the event which forms the official link connecting the secret and the public history of the Plot, namely, the receipt of the letter of warning by Lord Monteagle. That the document is of supreme importance in our history cannot be denied, for the government account clearly stands or falls with the assertion that this was in reality the means whereby the impending catastrophe was averted. That it was so, the official story proclaimed from the first with a vehemence in itself suspicious, and the famous letter was exhibited to the world with a persistence and solicitude not easy to explain; being printed in the "King's Book," and in every other account of the affair; while transcribed copies were The gallant Eagle, foaring up on high: MONTEAGLE AND LETTER. sent to the ambassadors at foreign courts and other public personages.' Had a warning really been given, in such a case, to save the life of a kinsman or friend, 1 Copies were sent by Cecil to Cornwallis at Madrid, Parry at Paris, Edmondes at Brussels, and Chichester at Dublin. Also by Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton. the circumstance, however fortunate, would scarcely have been wonderful, nor can we think that the document would thus have been multiplied for inspection. If, on the other hand, it had been carefully contrived for its purpose, it would not be unnatural for those who knew where the weak point lay, to wish the world to be convinced that there really had been a letter. It is, moreover, not easy to understand the importance attributed to Monteagle's service in connection with it. To have handed to the authorities such a message, evidently of an alarming nature, though he himself did not professedly understand it, does not appear to have entitled him to the extraordinary consideration which he in fact received. The Attorney General was specially instructed, at the trial, to extol his lordship's conduct.' Whereever, in the confession of the conspirators, his name was mentioned, it was erased, or pasted over with paper, or the whole passage was omitted before publication of the document. All this is easy to understand if he were the instrument employed for a critical and delicate transaction, depending for success upon his discretion and reticence. On any other supposition it seems inexplicable. Moreover, Monteagle's services received most substantial acknowledgment in the form of a grant of "Lastly, and this you must not omit, you must deliver, in commendation of my Lord Mounteagle, words to show how sincerely he dealt, and how fortunately it proved that he was the instrument of so great a blessing, . . . because it is so lewdly given out that he was once of this plot of powder, and afterwards betrayed it all to me."-Cecil to Coke. (Draft in the R. O., printed by Jardine, Criminal Trials, ii. 120.) 3 £700 a year,' equivalent, at least, to ten times that amount in money of the present day. There still exists the draft preamble of the grant making this award, which has been altered and emended with an amount of care which sufficiently testifies to the importance of the matter. In this it is said of the letter that by the knowledge thereof " we had the first and only means to discover that most wicked and barbarous plot "-the words italicised being added as an interlineation by Cecil himself. Nevertheless, it appears certain that this is not, and cannot be, the truth; indeed, historians of all shades equally discountenance the idea. Mr. Jardine considers it "hardly credible that the letter was really the means by which the plot was discovered," and inclines to the belief that the whole story concerning it "was merely a device of the government... to conceal the means by which their information had been derived." Similarly Mr. J. S. Brewer holds it as certain that this part, at least, of the story is a fiction designed to conceal the truth. Mr. Gardiner, who is less inclined than others to give up the received story, thinks that, to say the least of it, it is highly probable that Monteagle expected the letter before it came." 1 6 4 For a right understanding of the point it is neces £500 as an annuity for life, and £200 per annum to him and his heirs for ever in fee farm rents. 2 See Thorold Rogers, Agriculture and Prices, v. 631, and Jessopp, One Generation of a Norfolk House, p. 285. 3 R. O. Dom. James I. xx. 56. 4 Criminal Trials, ii. 65. 5 Ibid. 68. Note on Fuller's Church History, x. § 39, and on The Student's Hume. |