The Gunpowder Plot-Lord Mounteagle receives a letter-Fac-simile of the letter-Salisbury is made acquainted with the letter-Its interpretation-Search under the Parliament House-Seizure of Fawkes-The other Conspirators-Their preparations during eighteen previous months-Their proceedings after the discovery-They resist the sheriff-Some killed, others taken prisoners-Feelings of the Roman Catholics-Ben Jonson-Trial of Fawkes and others-Garnet the Jesuit-His conviction-His doctrine of Equivocation.

IN the last week of October, 1605, the king was contemplating "his return from his hunting exercise at Royston, upon occasion of the drawing near of the parliament time, which had been twice prorogued already."* Whilst James was at his favourite sports, hunting according to a more discreet fashion than that of the old Norman kings, his "little beagle," for so he called Robert Cecil, now earl of Salisbury, was diligently carrying forward the business of the State. Salisbury was at his post at Whitehall on the night of the 26th of October, when his wonted meditations upon the difficulty of providing money for his extravagant master and his rapacious followers, were disturbed by the demand for an audience of a Catholic peer, lord Mounteagle. The position of this nobleman, who had been called to the House of Peers in the parliament of 1604, was a very equivocal one. He was the son of a

"A Discourse of the Manner of the Discovery of the late intended Treason," &c. Published officially. Reprinted in "Harleian Miscellany."

VOL. IIL

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LORD MOUNTEAGLE RECEIVES A LETTER.

[1605 Protestant peer, lord Morley; but, when very young, married a daughter of sir Thomas Tresham, who was a pervert to Rome under the guidance of missionary priests, and, during the reign of Elizabeth, a most uncompromising recusant. Lord Morley's son then became involved with several leading Roman Catholics in the conspiracy of Essex, and in their invitations to the king of Spain to invade England and to depose the queen. Upon the accession of James, when the king was either balancing the advantages of being Catholic or Protestant, or holding out to the Papists professions of toleration which he had no intention of accomplishing, Mounteagle was a satisfied recipient of court favours, whilst the old severities against recusants had been renewed, and the Roman Catholics in general were becoming hopeless of power, or even of indulgence. A strange incident had occurred on that night of the 26th of October, when Mounteagle broke in upon the quiet of the secretary of state. The catholic peer had a house at Hoxton, from which he had been absent a month, when he suddenly arrived that evening to supper. Very opportune was the return, as we learn from the official "Discourse:"" 'Being in his own lodging ready to go to supper, at seven of the clock at night, one of his footmen, whom he had sent of an errand over the street, was met by a man of a reasonable tall personage, who delivered him a letter, charging him to put it in my lord his master's hands; which my lord no sooner received, but that, having broken it up, and perceiving the same to be of an unknown and somewhat unlegible hand, and without either date or superscription, did call one of his men unto him, for helping him to read it."* It appears from another account, that the letter was read aloud, of course in the presence of the lord's attendants. It was as follows:

My lord out of the love i beare to some of youer frendz i have a caer of youer preservacion therefor i would advyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to devyse some exscuse to shift of your attendance at this parleament for god and man hathe concurred to punishe the wickednes of this tyme and thinke not slightlye of this advertisment but retyere youre selfe into youre contri wheare yowe maye expect the event in safti for thowghe theare be no apparance of anni stir yet i saye they shall receyve a terrible blowe this parleament and yet they shall not seie who hurts them this cowncel is not to be contemned because it maye do yowe good and can do yowe no harme for the dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter and i hope god will give yowe the grace to mak good use of it to whose holy proteccion i comend yowe." The letter is addressed 'To the right honorable the lord Mowteagle.'

There have been many conjectures as to the writer of this extraordinary letter. One probable guess is that Francis Tresham, the brother-in-law of Mounteagle, gave him this warning to save his own life, though in such obscure terms as should not lead to discovery of the conspiracy in which Tresham and others of Mounteagle's friends were engaged. Greenway, the Jesuit, whose relation of the plot, although written to exculpate himself and others, contains many curious details, gives in his manuscript what seems "to have been the opinion of the conspirators themselves. They attributed it to Tresham, and suspected a secret understanding between him and lord

As we give a fac-simile of this letter, now in the State Paper Office, our readers will be able to judge how far it is "unlegible."