The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter Part 10

Also a "Mr. Wade" mentioned, by Walsingham to Leicester in a letter dated 3rd April, 1587, may have been really "Warde."--See Wright's "_Elizabethan Letters_," vol. ii., p. 335.

Again, "_The Calendar of State Papers_," Domestic Series, 1581-90, gives, page 93, a Thomas Warde, as an examiner for the Privy Council, taking down evidence in the cause of Robert Hungate and wife _v._ John h.o.a.re and John Shawe, in the year 1583.]

CHAPTER XXV.

Now what is the Evidence to support the preceding paragraphs (1), (2), and (3)?

As to paragraph (1), the Evidence is direct.

There was a tradition extant that _Mounteagle expected the Letter, told to a gentleman named Edmund Church his confidant_.--See Gardiner's "_Gunpowder Plot_," p. 10.

Moreover, the fact that the footman was in the street at about seven of the clock when the missive was given to him _is strongly suggestive of the fact that he had been anxiously sent thither by some one, so that he might be ready at hand to receive the doc.u.ment immediately on its arrival_.

As to paragraphs (2) and (3), the Evidence is indirect and inferential.

It is this:--Thomas Ward was manifestly on excellent terms with Mounteagle on the one hand and with the conspirators on the other.

For it is evident that no sooner had Mounteagle arrived back from his errand of mercy on that dark night of Sat.u.r.day, the 26th day of October, 1605, than he divulged to his servant almost all, if not quite all, that had pa.s.sed at Whitehall during his never-to-be-forgotten interview with Salisbury, the King's princ.i.p.al Secretary of State.[A]

[Footnote A: The days of the week and the dates of the month run parallel for the years 1605 and 1901. Thus both the 26ths of October are on a Sat.u.r.day. _What was the condition of the moon on that memorable Sat.u.r.day night?_]

That Lord Mounteagle had imparted to Thomas Ward almost all, if not quite all, that had pa.s.sed between Lord Salisbury and himself on the delivery to the latter of the peerless doc.u.ment to my mind is clear from the fact _that the faithful Ward, the very next day (Sunday) repaired to Thomas Winter_, one of the princ.i.p.al conspirators, _and told Winter that the Letter was in the hands of Salisbury_!--"_Winter's Confession._"

a.s.suming that Thomas Ward was a Ward of Mulwith, he would be a family connection of Thomas Winter as well as of Christopher Wright through Ursula Ward and Inglebies, of Ripley, in Nidderdale.

Now, what is proved by this very significant fact of _Thomas Ward's_ so unerringly darting off to _Thomas Winter_, one of the prime movers in this conspiracy of wholesale slaughter, when he (Ward) had all the adult male inhabitants of London and Westminster to make his selection from?

Plainly this: that the revealing conspirator (whoever he was) _must have "primed" Thomas Ward by previously telling Thomas Ward that Thomas Winter was one of the chiefest of those involved in the conspiracy_.

Again; as Winter had been formerly in Mounteagle's service (a circ.u.mstance doubtless well known to the revealing conspirator), _that revealing conspirator_ would naturally, nay inevitably, _bid Ward_ put himself _not only into speedy communication with Mounteagle_, in order to reach Salisbury, the princ.i.p.al servant of the King, _but, this done, also into speedy communication with Thomas Winter_, one of the chief promoters of the baleful enterprise, in order that by dint of _Winter's_ powerful influence the general body of the latter's co-conspirators might be warned, and not merely warned, but haply prevailed upon to take to their heels in instant flight.

Thus the great end aimed at by the curvilinear triangular movement--wherein (_ex hypothesi_) the Penman, Father Oldcorne, as well as the go-between, Thomas Ward, and the revealing Christopher Wright, was a party and responsible actor--would be, with clear-eyed, sure-footed, absolute cert.i.tude, secured and accomplished--nothing being left to the perilous contingencies of purblind, stumbling, limited chance.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Now, I maintain that there is Evidence, from a very unexpected quarter, that Thomas Ward had received from the revealing plotter a complete disclosure of every one of the material facts and particulars of the Plot, including the existence of the mine, the hiring of the cellar, the storing therein of the gunpowder, and even the names of the conspirators. And that, moreover, Thomas Ward had received the fullest power "to discover"

to his master, Lord Mounteagle, all that had been told to him (Ward) by the revealing plotter, _if_, in the exercise of his (Ward's) uncontrolled diplomatic discretion, he deemed it necessary in order to effect, _primarily_, the temporal salvation of the King and his Parliament, and, this done, in order to effect, _secondarily_, the escape of the conspirators themselves.

The Evidence to which I refer is deducible from the testimony of none other than Francis Tresham, Evidence which he gave to Thomas Winter in Lincoln's Inn Walks on Sat.u.r.day night, the 2nd day of November, just one week after the delivery of the Letter to Lord Mounteagle, and just one day after the Letter had been shown by Salisbury to the King.[89]

Thomas Winter, in his "_Confession_," writes thus: "On Sat.u.r.day night I met Mr. Tresham again in Lincoln's Inn Walks, where he told such speeches that my Lord of Salisbury should use to the King, as I gave it lost the second time, and repeated the same to Mr. Catesby, who hereupon was resolved to be gone, but stayed to have Mr. Percy come up whose consent herein we wanted. On Sunday night came Mr. Percy and no 'nay,' but would abide the uttermost trial."[90]

To what purport can these "speeches" have been, I should like to know, which so mightily wrought on the nerves of even the doughty Thomas Winter that they were potent enough to break down and sweep away the barriers formed by the strong affection which he naturally must have harboured for the pet scheme and the darling project that had cost himself and his companions the expenditure of so much "slippery time,"[91] so much sweat of the brow, and so much treasure of the pocket? Yea, indeed, to what purport can these "speeches" have been?

CHAPTER XXVII.

In the King's Book, after describing Salisbury's first visit to James in "the privie gallerie" of Whitehall Palace, it is stated that it was arranged that there should be another meeting on the following day, Sat.u.r.day, the 2nd of November.

The precise words of the Royal Work are these: "It was agreed that he [_i.e._, Salisbury] should the next day repair to his Highness; which he did in the same privie gallerie, and renewed the memory thereof, the Lord Chamberlaine [_i.e._, Suffolk] being then present with the King. At what time it was determined that the said Lord Chamberlaine should, according to his custom and office, view all the Parliament Houses."

This pre-arranged meeting with the King on the Sat.u.r.day was duly held just one week after the delivery of the Letter, Salisbury and Suffolk the Lord Chamberlaine being present thereat; and I suggest that, most probably, Mounteagle himself was, if not then actually within ear-shot, yet not afar off.

Now it is evident from Lingard's "_History_" that Tresham had told Winter that the Government had already intelligence of the existence of "the mine."[92]

Tresham also told Winter that he (Tresham) knew not how the Government had obtained this knowledge (vol. ix., p. 72).

The inevitable inference, therefore, that reason demands should be drawn from these statements of Tresham is that Mounteagle must have _either_ sent for his brother-in-law, _or_ gone himself to see him, and that Mounteagle then must have told the terrified Tresham that he (Mounteagle) knew for a fact that a mine had been digged,[A] and that the same information probably that very day (Sat.u.r.day) would be imparted to the King's Government likewise.[93]

[Footnote A: I hold that the probabilities are that Christopher Wright told Thomas Ward of the existence of the mine: that Thomas Ward told Mounteagle: that Mounteagle told Tresham: and that Tresham told Winter.

Thus would be the concatenation complete, naturally and easily, with no link missing.]

This explanation, moreover, stands unspeakably more to reason than the one which woodenly says that Tresham himself revealed the dread secret respecting the mine to Mounteagle, and that then, out of his own mouth, the unhappy man hazarded self-condemnation in the presence of the astute Winter only one day after his (Tresham's) life had been in the gravest possible jeopardy at Barnet, near White Webbs, from the poniards of the infuriated Catesby _and_ Winter.[94]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Again, on Monday, the 4th instant, Mounteagle offered to accompany his distant connection, the Earl of Suffolk, to make the search in the cellar.

Whyneard, keeper of the King's wardrobe, declared to the two n.o.ble searchers that Thomas Percy had hired the house and part of the cellar or vault under the same, and that "the wood and coale" therein were "the said gentleman's own provision."

Mounteagle, on hearing Percy named, let drop--probably in an unguarded moment--words to the effect that perhaps Thomas Percy had sent the Letter.

Now, guarded or unguarded, to my mind, the fact that Mounteagle, in any shape or form, mentioned Percy's name on that momentous occasion tends to show that Mounteagle knew all the material facts and particulars of the Plot, including even the names of the conspirators.[95]

But Mounteagle, I hold, was resolved to do his duty to his King and his country on the one hand, and to his friends--his reprobate, insane, but (he full well knew) grievously provoked friends--on the other.

He was determined, spurred on, I suggest, by Thomas Ward, to save the King and Parliament from b.l.o.o.d.y destruction by gunpowder on the one hand, and to save his own kith and kin and boon companions on the other: of whose guilt, or otherwise, he did not const.i.tute himself the judge, still less the executioner.

To this end the young peer watched and measured the relative value and effect of every move on the part of the Government like a vigilant commander, bent, indeed, on securing what he deemed to be the rights and interests of the wronged and the wrong-doers alike.

And, most probably, being driven into a corner at the last and compelled so to do by the imperious exigencies of his _primary and supreme duty_, namely, the saving of the King and Parliament from being rent and torn to pieces in a most h.e.l.lish fas.h.i.+on, truly "barbarous and savage beyond the examples of former ages," Mounteagle actually himself told Salisbury to inform Sir Thomas Knevet and his band of armed men to keep a sharp lookout for a certain tall, soldierly figure, "booted and spurred," in the neighbourhood of the cellar, before the clock struck the hour of midnight of Monday, November the 4th. If this were so, it accounts for the efforts of Knevet, Doubleday, and others being so speedily crowned with success.

Fawkes was probably _taken into custody_ in the court adjoining Percy's house and the House of Lords' cellar, and a few moments afterwards _secured_ by being bound with such things in the nature of cords as Knevet and his men had with them.--See Gardiner's "_Gunpowder Plot_," pp.