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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Identification of the Writer of the
+Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605, by William Parker and Francis Tresham and William Vavasour
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605
+
+Author: William Parker
+        Francis Tresham
+        William Vavasour
+
+Release Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #29777]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANONYMOUS LETTER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Jane Hyland and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE IDENTIFICATION OF
+THE WRITER OF THE
+ANONYMOUS LETTER TO
+LORD MONTEAGLE IN 1605
+
+    "A strange letter, from a strange hand,
+    by a strange messenger; without date to
+    it, name at it, and (I had almost said)
+    sense in it. A letter which, even when it
+    was opened, was still sealed, such the
+    affected obscurity therein."
+
+               FULLER'S _Church History_, x. 32.
+
+
+LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL,
+HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.
+1916
+
+[Transcriber's note:
+[***] denotes an asterism, that is, a triangle comprising three asterices.
+A carat symbol ^ indicates that the ensuing letters of the word are
+superscript letters.]
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+One of the great mysteries of English history is the anonymous letter to
+Lord Monteagle, warning him not to attend the opening of Parliament,
+appointed for the Fifth of November, 1605, which is popularly supposed
+to have led to the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. The writer's
+identity was carefully concealed by the Government at the time; the
+intention being, as explained by Lord Salisbury, "to leave the further
+judgment indefinite" regarding it. The official statements are,
+therefore, as unsatisfactory as might be expected in a matter that, for
+State reasons, has not been straightforwardly related. The letter,
+however, remaining and in fair preservation, there was always the
+possibility of the handwriting being identified; and this, after the
+lapse of over three hundred years, is now accomplished.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                    PAGE
+
+    PREFACE                                                          v
+
+    SECTION
+
+    I. HISTORICAL ANALYSIS                                           1
+
+    II. THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE LETTER                             5
+
+    III. IDENTIFICATION OF THE HANDWRITING                           9
+
+    IV. THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OPINION OF VAVASOUR'S GUILT          19
+
+    V. FRANCIS TRESHAM'S CONFIDENCE WHEN IN THE TOWER               24
+
+    VI. THE VAVASOURS AS DEPENDANTS OF THE TRESHAM FAMILY           25
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF FACSIMILES
+
+
+    1. The anonymous letter as delivered to Lord Monteagle, October 26,
+    1605, warning him not to attend the opening of Parliament
+    appointed for the Fifth of November (From the original letter in
+    the Museum of the Public Record Office)                  _Frontispiece_
+
+    2. A page of the MS. entitled "A Treatise against Lying," etc.,
+    formerly belonging to Francis Tresham, of which the handwriting
+    was attributed by his brother, William Tresham, to William
+    Vavasour. Now in the Bodleian Library. (Laud MSS. 655,
+    folio 44)                                                        [1]
+
+    3. William Vavasour's handwriting in the letter to the Earl of
+    Salisbury, dictated and signed by Francis Tresham when dying in
+    the Tower, December 22, 1605 ("State Papers, Domestic," James I.,
+    ccxvi. 211)                                                      [1]
+
+        Stated by Vavasour to have been written by Mrs. Tresham.
+        On March 24, 1605-6, he confessed that he wrote it and signed
+        a note to it to that effect.
+
+    4. William Vavasour's handwriting in his _untrue_ statement, written in
+    the presence of the Lieutenant of the Tower, that No. 3 was
+    written by Mrs. Tresham. Dated March 23, 1605-6 ("State
+    Papers, Domestic," James I., ccxvi. 207)                         [1]
+
+       [***]To avoid detection of his falsehood, he writes a hand
+       quite different from his ordinary writing in Nos. 2 and 3, thus
+       producing a hand which is in itself identical with his former
+       disguised writing as seen in the anonymous letter (No. 1).
+
+    5. George Vavasour's handwriting on the last leaf, which he renewed
+    for Francis Tresham, of the MS. entitled "A Treatise against
+    Lying," etc. (Laud MSS. 655, folio 61)                _To face page 26_
+
+
+
+
+
+The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord
+Monteagle
+
+I
+
+HISTORICAL ANALYSIS
+
+
+Francis Tresham, of Rushton, in Northamptonshire, has recently
+(September 11, 1605) succeeded his father, Sir Thomas Tresham (a great
+sufferer for the Roman Catholic religion), in an inheritance of at least
+five thousand a year, in present money; after having, as he says, spent
+most of his time overburdened with debts and wants, and resolves within
+himself to spend his days quietly. His first cousin, Robert Catesby,
+being hard-up with funds exhausted in financing the scheme known as the
+Gunpowder Plot, seeing in Tresham the chance of obtaining a further
+supply (though previously distrusting him), induces him, in the
+interests of their religion, to join the conspiracy, of which he thus
+becomes the thirteenth, and last, sworn conspirator (October 14, 1605).
+Catesby is careful to impose the oath of secrecy before fully disclosing
+the plot; of which Tresham, on hearing, entirely disapproves, and
+endeavours to dissuade his cousin from, or even to defer it; meanwhile
+offering him the use of his own purse if he will do so. Finding he
+cannot prevail with him, he is very urgent that the Lords Monteagle and
+Stourton, particularly the former, may be warned, each having married
+Tresham's sisters; but Catesby can give no definite assurance. Tresham
+then intends, as he says, to get the conspirators shipped away, and to
+inform the Government by some unknown, or anonymous, means.
+
+Tresham has a serving-man named William Vavasour, who attended Sir
+Thomas Tresham, and who, with his elder brother, George Vavasour (whose
+education Tresham has particularly encouraged), and their sister Muriel
+(gentlewoman to Lady Monteagle who is the daughter of "Muriel" Lady
+Tresham) are favoured dependants of the Tresham family, being the
+children of an old and much valued Catholic servant. Both George and
+William are confidentially employed by Tresham as amanuenses, in
+transcribing religious, or treasonable, treatises of the time.
+
+Lord Monteagle unexpectedly orders a supper to be prepared (October 26,
+1605) at his house at Hoxton (belonging to his brother-in-law Tresham),
+and where he has not been for some months. As he is about to go to
+supper, a letter is handed to him by his footman, to whom it has been
+given in the street by "an unknown man of a reasonable tall personage,"
+who knows that he will find him at so unfrequented a residence.
+Monteagle opens the letter, which is anonymous, pretends he cannot
+understand it, and shows it to his secretary, Thomas Ward, who, he is
+aware, is familiar with some of the conspirators; whom Ward, the next
+evening, tells of the receipt of the letter, which Monteagle at once
+takes to Whitehall, about three miles away, where he finds the Earl of
+Salisbury (Principal Secretary of State) with other lords of the Council
+together assembled, "ready for supper." The Government censor, or
+suppress, the name of the place where the letter was delivered. The
+conspirators and the Jesuit priests, who are involved in the plot
+through the confessional, at once suspect Tresham; and Catesby and
+Winter directly charge him with having betrayed them, which he denies,
+while urging them to escape to France, and giving them money for the
+purpose. Although Tresham is a sworn conspirator, he alone remains
+behind and at large, after Fawkes's arrest (November 4-5, 1605), and
+flight of the others into the country, and offers his services to the
+Government. A week later he is taken to the Tower, where being ill, his
+wife and serving-man, William Vavasour, and a maid servant constantly
+attend him; an indulgence _never under any circumstances_ permitted to
+anyone who was really a prisoner and upon a capital charge there.
+Becoming worse, he dictates a letter for Vavasour to write to Lord
+Salisbury, retracting a statement that he has been induced to make
+respecting Father Garnet, and dies (December 23, 1605). This letter, or
+dying statement, being misunderstood, is considered to be so incredible
+that the writing is particularly inquired into. Vavasour thereupon, in
+the presence of the Lieutenant of the Tower, writes an _untrue_
+statement (consequently using a hand quite different from his ordinary
+writing and, _in itself, identical with the writing of the anonymous
+letter_), asserting that his master's dying statement was written by
+Mrs. Tresham (though in every way proper for Vavasour to have written),
+which she at once repudiates and says that Vavasour wrote it. He is then
+examined in the Tower by Chief Justice Popham and Attorney-General Coke,
+when he confesses that he wrote the dying statement at his master's
+dictation; and had denied it "for fear." Fear of what? In case the
+writing should bring into question some other and less innocent letter
+written by him for his master.
+
+Upon Tresham's death in the Tower, the Lieutenant writes to Salisbury
+(December 23, 1605) of the "marvellous" confidence shown by Tresham and
+his friends that had he survived, they feared not the course of justice.
+Later, having left no male issue, his inheritance passes to his brother,
+who is described as of Rushton, when created a baronet on the
+institution of that Order by James the First, the very king whom the
+plotters intended to destroy; and although a baronetcy at that time was
+merely a monetary distinction or transaction, _some_ discrimination was
+no doubt made in the bestowal or disposal of that dignity, which
+probably would not have been conferred upon Catesby's son, who was then
+living, even if he had been able to afford it after the forfeiture of
+his family inheritance.
+
+The Attorney-General, at Father Garnet's trial (March 28, 1606),
+pronounces Vavasour as being, in his opinion, "deeply guilty" in the
+treason; yet he is not even brought to trial, while other serving-men
+are tried and executed; although Lord Salisbury expressly declares that
+he will esteem his life unworthily given him, when he shall be found
+slack in bringing to prosecution and execution ALL who are in any way
+concerned in the treason; and his exertions in the matter are accounted
+to be so successful, that he is rewarded with the Order of the Garter.
+
+Francis Tresham's inheritance remains in the family; and his
+serving-man, the "deeply guilty" William Vavasour, goes free.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: _These facsimiles are issued separately in order to
+facilitate comparison._]
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THE OFFICIAL STORY OF THE LETTER
+
+
+The authentic, or rather the official, story of the delivery of the
+letter, as published by the Government at the time, states that on
+Saturday, October 26, 1605, Lord Monteagle "being in his own lodging,
+ready to go to supper, at seven o'clock[2] at night, one of his footmen
+(whom he had sent on an errand over the street) was met by an unknown
+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 open, and perceiving the same
+to be of an unknown and somewhat unlegible hand, and without either date
+or subscription, called one of his men[3] to help him to read it. But no
+sooner did he conceive the strange contents thereof, although he was
+somewhat perplexed what construction to make of it (as whether of a
+matter of consequence, as indeed it was, or whether some foolish devised
+pasquil, by some of his enemies to scare him from his attendance at the
+Parliament), yet did he, as a most dutiful and loyal subject, conclude
+not to conceal it, whatever might come of it, whereupon notwithstanding
+the lateness and darkness of the night in that season of the year, he
+presently repaired to his Majesty's palace at Whitehall, and there
+delivered the same to the Earl of Salisbury, his Majesty's principal
+Secretary."
+
+Neither the official version nor any State paper mentions the place
+where the letter was delivered, which in such a mysterious matter would
+be the first inquiry. "Own lodging" at that time signified a person's
+house. Hoxton is generally stated to have been the place of delivery,[4]
+which was then a single street in the outlying suburb on the great north
+road; at a house which Monteagle is known[5] to have occupied, belonging
+to his brother-in-law, Francis Tresham; and this ownership may have been
+Salisbury's reason for not naming it, which so curious an omission seems
+to imply. The letter is as follows:
+
+    "My Lord out of the loue i beare[6]; to some of youere frends i haue
+    a caer of youer preseruacion therfor i would aduyse yowe as yowe
+    tender youer lyf to deuyse some excuse to shift of youer attendance
+    at this parleament for god and man hathe concurred to punishe the
+    wickednes of this tyme and thinke not slightlye of this
+    aduertisement but retyre youre self into youre contri wheare yowe
+    maye expect the euent in safti for thowghe theare be no apparance of
+    anni stir yet i saye they shall receyue a terrible blowe this
+    parleament and yet they shall not sei 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[7] is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the
+    letter and i hope god will give yowe the grace to make good use of
+    it to whose holy proteccion I commend yowe."
+
+    (Addressed)   "To the ryght honorable
+    the lord Monteagle."
+
+It was the opinion of the other conspirators, as well as of the Jesuit
+priests who became involved in the plot through the confessional, that
+the warning letter originated with Francis Tresham, whose sister was
+Lady Monteagle, and another sister had married Lord Stourton; and
+Tresham had been most earnest with Catesby that those two lords,
+particularly Monteagle, should be warned. In each instance, Catesby was
+careful to impose the oath and engage the faith of the conspirator,
+before disclosing the plot; and Tresham, the thirteenth and last, sworn
+conspirator, on hearing the particulars, entirely disapproved of the
+conspiracy, from which he tried to dissuade Catesby, offering him the
+use of his own purse if he would even defer it.[8] Tresham could indeed
+have desired nothing less than to become involved in such a matter. His
+father had recently died, and he had succeeded to a considerable
+property,[9] which alone induced his first cousin Catesby to bring him
+into the plot. As Tresham wrote when in the Tower:[10] "I thank God I am
+owner of such a fortune as is able to afford me what I desire, the
+comfort whereof is so much the sweeter unto me, as I have spent most of
+my time overburthened with debts and wants, and had resolved within
+myself to spend my days quietly."[11] He acknowledged that his
+intentions with regard to the other conspirators were "to ship them away
+that they might have no means left them to contrive any more ... then to
+have taken a course to have given the State advertisement by some
+unknown means."[11] He was consequently the only conspirator who
+remained behind and at large after Fawkes was taken and the others had
+fled. There can be no reasonable doubt that Tresham, though not the
+writer, was the sender of the letter; and upon this hypothesis all
+investigators must go, as there is none other at all likely.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 2: Salisbury, in his letter to Sir Charles Cornwallis,
+Ambassador at Madrid (November 9), gives the hour as six o'clock.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This was his secretary, Thomas Ward, who was known to
+Monteagle as a friend of some of the conspirators (as Monteagle himself
+was), and one of whom, Ward, the next morning told of the receipt of the
+letter. "As a plan concocted by Monteagle and Tresham to stop the plot,
+and at the same time to secure the escape of their guilty friends, the
+little comedy at Hoxton was admirably concocted" ("What Gunpowder Plot
+was," by S.R. Gardiner, D.C.L., 1897, p. 124).]
+
+[Footnote 4: Father John Gerard (1564-1637) gives particulars of the
+delivery of the letter at Hoxton in his contemporary "Narrative of the
+Gunpowder Plot," published in 1872.]
+
+[Footnote 5: "Calendar of Tresham Papers," p. 132.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The word "yowe" (you), here cancelled in the original,
+indicates the writer's first thoughts, and, no doubt, his real meaning.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Various attempts have been made to explain the nature of
+the danger alluded to, which the King and Salisbury at the time, and
+others since, have understood as in allusion to the danger of the plot.
+Jardine describes it as "mere nonsense" ("Gunpowder Plot," 1835, p. 73).
+But the meaning clearly is the danger of the letter being discovered.
+The counsel may do him good, and can do him no harm, except through the
+danger of keeping the letter, which being burnt, the danger is past.
+There is no allusion intended to the danger of the plot, as that, unlike
+the danger of the discovery of the letter, could not be affected by
+burning the letter.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Tresham's statement made when in the Tower ("State Papers,
+Domestic," James I., xvi. 63).]
+
+[Footnote 9: The rental of the Rushton Hall estate alone, as given in
+the "Return of Owners of Lands" in 1873, is L5,044 yearly. The Tresham
+family also owned property at Hoxton and elsewhere.]
+
+[Footnote 10: He died in the Tower six weeks after writing that letter,
+aged thirty-seven.]
+
+[Footnote 11: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi., 63.]
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+IDENTIFICATION OF THE HANDWRITING
+
+
+The style of handwriting of the letter, as seen in the facsimile, is not
+in this writer's opinion, from a familiarity of thirty years with old
+scripts, apart from the disguise, the hand that an educated person would
+write at the time, but is essentially a commonplace and, no doubt
+intentionally, rather slovenly style of handwriting. The use of small
+"i's" for the first person seems, in view of modern usage, to suggest an
+illiterate writer; but educated writers, even the King,[12] then
+occasionally lapsed into using them. In the letter, however, they are
+consistently and may have been purposely used, to avert suspicion from
+being the work of an educated person; though an illiterate appearance
+would rather cause such a letter (if genuine) to be disregarded, than to
+deter a nobleman from attending the opening of Parliament, for which
+leave or licence was required.
+
+The handwriting has been variously ascribed, but the direction of this
+inquiry is indicated by the incautious admission made by Sir Edward
+Coke, the Attorney-General at the trial, respecting the real manner in
+which the plot was discovered. Salisbury's careful instructions to the
+Attorney-General for the trial are with the State papers, in which he
+says: "Next, you must in any case, when you speak of the letter which
+was the first ground of discovery, absolutely disclaim that any of
+these" (the conspirators) "wrote it, though you leave the further
+judgment indefinite who else it should be."[13]
+
+Salisbury thus, in effect, requires Coke by absolutely disclaiming that
+any of the conspirators wrote (he does not say "sent") the letter to
+Monteagle, and by which alone the treason was discovered, to declare in
+Court, as upon the authority of the Government, that therefore none of
+the conspirators divulged the plot; which, in any case, could be true
+only so far as the disclosure to the Government was concerned. Coke,
+however, for some reason--perhaps because he was not fully in
+Salisbury's confidence respecting the letter--describes the real manner
+of the discovery, according to his own knowledge. Towards the close of
+his speech for the prosecution, he said: "The last consideration is
+concerning the admirable discovery of this treason, which was by one of
+themselves who had taken the oath and sacrament, as hath been said
+against his own will;[14] the means by a dark and doubtful letter to my
+Lord Monteagle." This, together with Salisbury's statement that none of
+the conspirators wrote the letter, shows that the divulging of the plot
+preceded the sending of the letter,[15] which was not, therefore, as is
+popularly supposed, the means by which the plot was discovered, except
+to the general public.
+
+Hitherto those who have attempted this identification have invariably
+sought amongst such as are likely to have written the letter for a
+handwriting _resembling the disguised writing_, which seems a strange
+method of investigation, as surely the object of a disguised hand[16]
+would be to make the general appearance as unlike the writer's ordinary
+hand as possible? The writing being in a set and rather large character,
+such is the style they have sought for and found, but in a much more
+refined hand and without arriving at any satisfactory result.
+
+It seems, however, reasonable to suspect that this set and rather large
+character may be what principally constitutes the disguise, and that the
+writer's ordinary hand would be different. The manner in which the lines
+are forced upwards at the right side, shows that the writer has had
+difficulty in maintaining the large, set, regular character which would
+push an unpractised hand in that direction.
+
+Among the more prominent peculiarities, as seen in the facsimile (No.
+1), the writer invariably uses the long "s" as an initial letter in the
+ten examples that occur, even when the letter is not a capital. Such
+consistent use was usual in legal but not in private hands, though
+within a word the long "s" was very common. The "t's" are peculiar;
+being made with a twist or short line at foot, crossed midway projecting
+from each side, while a stroke is put on the top as a disguised, or
+elaborated touch. The "w's" finish with a side loop. Some of the "g's"
+show flat tops; the cypher portion being commenced from the left side
+with a stroke along the top. The tails of the "y's" are brought forward.
+The "hanger" portion of the "h's" invariably drags below the line which,
+though not unusual, again indicates in the numerous examples that occur
+the writer's habit; while an unusually broad quill has been used to
+further the disguise.[17]
+
+After the plot was discovered, Fawkes arrested, and the other
+conspirators had escaped into the country, Tresham remained in London
+and even offered his services to the Government. A week later he was
+taken to the Tower where, being ill, his wife also came, and he was
+attended by his serving-man, William Vavasour, and his maid, Joan Syer.
+He was induced "to avoid ill-usage," to say that he thought Father
+Garnet, against whom the Government desired to obtain evidence, had
+written a letter in furtherance of what was known as the Spanish
+Treason, in 1602. Six weeks later, his illness becoming dangerous, he
+dictated to his man Vavasour a letter to Lord Salisbury, retracting his
+statement respecting Garnet, as being more than he really knew;
+declaring upon his salvation that he had not seen him "in sixteen years
+before," clearly meaning before the Spanish Treason in 1602, which is
+the entire subject of his letter and the fact; and not, as the
+Government misunderstood him to mean, before the then time of writing in
+1605. This statement, written by Vavasour (Fascimile No. 3), was signed
+by Tresham, who asked his wife to deliver it personally to Lord
+Salisbury, and within three hours died:[18]
+
+    "I being sent for before yo^r Lordships in the Tow^r, you told me y^t
+    (that) it was Confessed by Mr Winter, y^t he went upon some
+    imploym^{ts} in ye Queens time into Spayne & y^t yo^r L. did nominate
+    to me out of his Confession all the partyes names y^t were acquainted
+    therew^{th} _namely 4 besides himselfe_[19] & yet sayd y^t ther were
+    some left for me to name. I desired yo^r L. y^t I might not answere
+    therunto bycause it was a matter y^t was done in the Queens time and
+    since I had my pardon.
+
+    "Yo^r Lordships wold not accept of y^t answere, _but sayd y^t I should
+    be made to speake therunto. And I might thanke my self If I had beene
+    worse used than I had beene since my Coming to the howse_[19] I told
+    yo^r Lords^p (_to avoyde ill usage_)[19] y^t I thought Mr. Walley[20]
+    was p'cured to write his letter for the furthering of this Jeorney. Now
+    my LL. having bethoughte myselfe of this businesse (being to weake to
+    use my owne hand in writing this) w^{ch} I do deliver here upon my
+    salvacon to be trew as near as I can call to mynde, desiring y^t my
+    form'r Confession may be called in & y^t this may stand for truthe. It
+    was more than I knew y^t Mr. Walley[20] was used herein, & to give your
+    Lords'p p'ofe besids my oathe, I had not seene him in sixteene yere
+    before, nor never had messuadge[21] nor letter from him & to this
+    purpose I desired Mr. Leiftenant to lett me see my Confession who told
+    me I should not unlesse I wold inlarge it w^{ch} he did p'ceive I had
+    no meaning to doe.
+
+    (Signed) Francis Tresame.
+
+    "24 m'ch 1605 [-6].
+    This noate was of my owne
+    hand writing
+    By me Willia' Vavasore."
+
+Tresham's statement being misunderstood to mean that he had not seen
+Garnet for sixteen years,[22] while the Government knew from Tresham
+himself[23] that he had recently been in Garnet's company, was
+considered such awful perjury to commit when dying as to be incredible.
+Coke wrote to Salisbury: "It is true that no man may judge in this case,
+for _inter pontem et fontem_ he might find grace; but it is the most
+fearful example that I ever knew of to be made so evident as now this
+is." Salisbury at the trial said: "Mr. Tresham in his lifetime accused
+you, Garnet, before the lords, yet now upon his salvation, he under his
+hand did excuse you, being at the very point of death, saying he had not
+seen you _in sixteen years_, which matter, I assure you, before you were
+taken shook me very much. But, thanks be to God, since the coming of the
+King, I have known so much of your doctrine and practices, that
+hereafter they shall not much trouble me." The writing of Tresham's
+dying statement was, therefore, particularly, inquired into, and
+Vavasour had to make a written statement respecting his knowledge of it;
+evidently for comparison of the handwriting. This appears to have so
+alarmed him that in his statement (Fascimile No. 4), written in the
+presence of Sir William Waad, Lieutenant of the Tower, he asserted that
+the dying statement was written by Mrs. Tresham, at her husband's
+dictation:
+
+    "I do rememb' y^t my m^r did cause my m^{res} to write a note wherto he
+    did did (_sic_) bid the mayd and me beare witnes y^t he did set his
+    hand unto it, but it was not reade at y^t time but since m^{res}
+    Tressa' did reede it to me and sayd it was y^t noate y^t my m^r did
+    bid us beare witnesse and she comaunded me to carye a letter to S^r
+    Waulter Cope and to desire him to deliver the noate inclosed to my
+    Lorde of Salsburye and further my m^r did say y^t he cold not write
+    him selfe bycause he was not able but he did sett his hande unto it
+    as before I have sayd and this was done some day before his death.
+
+    "(Signed) By me William Vavasor.
+
+    "23. March 1605 [-6].
+    Taken before us:
+    (Signed) W. Waad.
+    Willus Lane."
+
+If for any reason Vavasour did not desire his writing to be brought into
+question, there could be no harm, beyond his falsehood, in naming Mrs.
+Tresham as the writer of that letter, as neither could possibly be
+blamed for writing such a statement for his master. The question arises,
+whether Vavasour would have ventured upon an untrue statement, except
+through panic, unless feeling sure of Mrs. Tresham's support? As Mrs.
+Tresham throughout made no attempt to conceal the truth for Vavasour,
+she may have been unaware of any reason for diverting inquiry from
+himself respecting letters written for his master. Even if Mrs. Tresham
+had been willing to connive at his falsehood, she could not have done
+so; as Salisbury, being convinced that she not only wrote but composed
+her husband's dying statement and induced him to sign to shield Father
+Garnet, was so incensed against her that he declined to see her,[24] or
+even to receive her husband's statement, when she tried to deliver it.
+She was therefore obliged, in view of possible consequences to herself,
+to own[25] that Vavasour wrote the statement at her husband's dictation.
+Vavasour was then examined in the Tower by Chief Justice Popham and by
+Coke, when he confessed[26] that he wrote the dying statement at his
+master's dictation, and had denied it through fear, which could only
+arise from having written some other and less innocent letter for him.
+
+Vavasour, when writing his untrue statement, would avoid using his
+ordinary handwriting, as already appearing in the letter in question
+(No. 3), which he had ascribed to Mrs. Tresham. He, therefore, disguises
+his writing, so far as having to write off-hand and under the
+observation of the Lieutenant of the Tower and an attendant Justice,
+with the consciousness that he is writing what is false, and while
+having to be careful not to reproduce his former disguised hand, as seen
+in the anonymous letter, permits him; and the hand thus produced betrays
+him as the writer of that letter, with which the writing is, in itself,
+identical. The long "s" is invariably used for a word commencing with
+that letter, even when not a capital; there are the same peculiar "t's,"
+though in a less disguised or elaborated form than those of the
+anonymous letter, but there they clearly are; the "w's" have no side
+loops, but in Vavasour's note at foot of No. 3 a conspicuous example is
+seen; there are no "g's";[27] the "y's" are particularly noticeable,
+being in two varieties: Vavasour's ordinary "y," of which the tail is
+tucked back; in the other, the tail is brought forward; and no one can
+fail to see that the latter are by the same hand as those in the letter;
+the "hangers" of the "h's" invariably drag below the line; and
+generally, the writing may throughout be detected as by the same hand
+that wrote the anonymous letter.
+
+The best specimen of Vavasour's handwriting, although not so useful as
+No. 4 for identification purposes, is in the MS. entitled "A Treatise
+against Lying," etc., identified by William Tresham as having been
+transcribed by Vavasour for Francis Tresham, which is now in the
+Bodleian Library (Facsimile No. 2). To anyone familiar with the
+handwriting of the period, Vavasour's writing is the usual law-writer's
+or copyist's hand, such as appears in conveyances and deeds of the
+time,[28] and is not the style of hand that an educated person would
+then write. Each initial "s" is of the long form; each "w" has a side
+loop; the "g's" are flat-topped; and the "h's" come below the line, etc.
+Tresham's dying statement (No. 3) appears to be in a similar but
+smaller[29] and less carefully written hand. Vavasour wrote a neat,
+small hand, which, when disguising, the probability is that he would
+attempt an opposite style. If it were not for the testimony of the
+Lieutenant of the Tower, that the untrue statement (No. 4) was actually
+written in his presence by Vavasour, the writing would not, from the
+general appearance, readily be recognized as by the same hand that wrote
+Tresham's dying statement (No. 3), and so acknowledged by Vavasour. This
+shows that he was naturally clever in disguising his hand, hence his
+employment by Tresham in writing the anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the evidence of the handwriting alone, William Vavasour was the
+writer of that letter.[30]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 12: In the "Correspondence of James I. with Sir Robert Cecil"
+(published by the Camden Society in 1861), both the King and the Earl of
+Northumberland occasionally use them (pp. 64, 70, etc.). The latter also
+uses them in his general correspondence.]
+
+[Footnote 13: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xix. 94.]
+
+[Footnote 14: Tresham was throughout the only unwilling conspirator, but
+he did not take the oath sacramentally, only seven or eight of the
+thirteen conspirators did so.]
+
+[Footnote 15: "No wise man could think my lord (Monteagle) to be so weak
+as to take any alarm to absent himself from Parliament upon such a loose
+advertisement" (Letter from Salisbury to Cornwallis, November 9).]
+
+[Footnote 16: Salisbury, in his letter to Cornwallis, particularly
+describes the writing as being "in a hand disguised," and he, like
+Monteagle, would know not only the writer, but how the letter came to be
+written.]
+
+[Footnote 17: In an expert examination of handwriting, the angle at
+which the pen is held, as indicated by the long strokes, and the spacing
+between the lines which a writer naturally uses, have also to be
+considered--being the basis of handwriting, the first movements that are
+made in learning to write, and become each writer's characteristics in
+those respects. In each specimen of William Vavasour's handwriting,
+including the anonymous letter, the long strokes are generally at the
+same angle, and the spacing between the lines (except in No. 3) is
+throughout generally similar, while his brother George's hand is in each
+respect quite different.]
+
+[Footnote 18: "He died this night, about two of the clock after
+midnight, with very great pain; for though his spirits were much spent
+and his body dead, a-lay above two hours in departing" (Lieutenant of
+the Tower to Salisbury, December 23, 1605, "State Papers, Domestic,"
+James I., xvii. 56). Tresham's death, being so opportune for Monteagle,
+if not for Salisbury, has been attributed to poisoning; but Stowe's
+"Annals" (1615, p. 880) states it to have been occasioned by strangury,
+though giving the date of his death incorrectly as November 22. Ten
+years later a subsequent Lieutenant of the Tower was executed for
+poisoning a State prisoner.]
+
+[Footnote 19: The portion printed in italics was underlined by Coke for
+_omission_ when the statement was read at the trial. The "4 besides
+himself," having reference to Monteagle, was therefore suppressed; the
+other suppressions in the statement were made for obvious and unfair
+reasons.]
+
+[Footnote 20: "Walley" was one of Father Garnet's aliases.]
+
+[Footnote 21: This is very suggestive of a law-writer's spelling of
+"message" (messuage and tenement).]
+
+[Footnote 22: When Garnet returned from Rome in 1585, as Superior of the
+Jesuits in England, he made the Treshams' acquaintance, being a
+prominent Roman Catholic family, when Francis was eighteen. Garnet was
+not their confessor, and the acquaintance had dropped for at least
+sixteen years before the Spanish Treason in 1602. Garnet's statement,
+made (March 23, 1605-6) after Tresham's death, is: "I knew him about 18
+years ago, but since discontinued my acquaintance until the time between
+his trouble in my lord of Essex's tumult and the Queen's death"
+(1602-3). Garnet would have neither motive nor inclination to shield
+Tresham, whose betrayal of the plot had brought Garnet to the Tower. He
+might otherwise have discerned Tresham's real meaning in his statement
+of "sixteen years before," which the contemporary Jesuit Father Gerard
+correctly interprets as before 1602 in his narrative of the plot. It was
+not Garnet's complicity in the Spanish Treason in the previous reign
+(for which he had his pardon) that the Government cared about, and that
+so shook Salisbury, but simply Tresham's dying statement being
+misunderstood to mean that he had not seen Garnet for the past sixteen
+years, which is all that the present writer is concerned with.]
+
+[Footnote 23: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi. 62.]
+
+[Footnote 24: So he said at the trial: "She came to see me, but I spared
+either to speak with her or hear her." But Mrs. Tresham in her
+examination said that, "in respect of her sorrow and heaviness," she
+"was enforced to send it"; and in her note enclosing the dying statement
+to Sir Walter Cope for delivery, she wrote: "My sorrows are such that I
+am altogether unfit to come abroad; wherefore I would entreat you to
+deliver it yourself unto my lord, that I may have my husband's desire
+fulfilled therein" ("State Papers, Domestic," James I., ccxvi. 211).]
+
+[Footnote 25: Examination of Mrs. Tresham (_ibid._, ccxvi. 209).]
+
+[Footnote 26: Examination of William Vavasour (_ibid._, ccxvi. 207).]
+
+[Footnote 27: Vavasour, in his authentic and ordinary writing, used
+flat-topped "g's," as seen in the anonymous letter, as well as in No. 2,
+ascribed to him.]
+
+[Footnote 28: The deed of Robert Catesby's marriage settlement with
+Katherine, eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, of Stoneleigh (1592), in
+the possession of T.W. Whitmore-Jones; Esq., of Chastleton House, Oxon,
+is in a similar legal hand, with precisely the same peculiarities of
+"s," "g," "w," "h," etc. A law-writer's hand to-day is in a
+"copper-plate" style, which, although most suitable for the purpose, is
+not the kind of hand that an educated person would write whose business
+was not copying, and there was then a similar distinction between them.]
+
+[Footnote 29: Apparently owing to restrictions of space and paper.]
+
+[Footnote 30: The original letter is framed and exhibited upon a
+pedestal in the Museum of the Public Record Office. The facsimile has,
+therefore, had to be made from a negative taken of the letter as seen
+through glass, while the other facsimiles have the advantage of being
+made from negatives taken of documents unglazed.]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S OPINION OF VAVASOUR'S GUILT
+
+
+The Attorney-General in his speech for the prosecution at Father
+Garnet's trial (March 28, 1606), as given in the official report,
+alluding to Tresham's dying statement, said: "Upon his death-bed he
+commanded Vavasour his man, _whom I think deeply guilty in this
+treason_, to write a letter to the Earl of Salisbury."
+
+Henry Garnet's trial was purposely held at the City Guildhall, instead
+of Westminster Hall, the usual trial place where the conspirators had
+been tried, in order to make the occasion as imposing, and his case as
+exemplary, as possible, on account of his position as Superior of the
+Jesuits in England.[31] The King was privately present, and there was a
+most distinguished assembly of ambassadors, nobility, and others.
+
+Before this audience, the Attorney-General, whose opinion determines or
+considerably influences a prosecution for high treason, states in Court
+that a person who is not even present nor arraigned is in his opinion
+"deeply guilty" in the most infamous treason ever attempted, and for
+which the conspirators had already been executed: so "heinous, horrible
+and damnable"[32] was it considered, that the authorities had even
+proposed to devise some specially severe form of torture for the
+perpetrators to undergo, in addition to the usual terrible penalty for
+high treason.[33]
+
+Coke, who it will be remembered was the most eminent counsel and the
+greatest jurist of the time, however desirous he would be of bringing to
+light everything connected with such a treason upon the occasion, would
+scarcely, as legally representing the Crown in his capacity of the
+King's Attorney-General, express so extremely damaging an opinion
+without sufficient reason. There is something in his mind concerning
+Vavasour,[34] respecting whom he is not satisfied; and it can only be
+Vavasour's having written, not the letter to Salisbury--as that could
+not possibly implicate him, nor render him "deeply guilty" in a treason
+_which had been discovered and ended six weeks before the letter to
+Salisbury was written_--but that other and most treasonable letter to
+Monteagle, for there was nothing else against him in the matter.[35]
+Coke evidently knows, or suspects, that Vavasour wrote the warning
+letter; and he cannot understand why he is not brought to trial.[36] He
+therefore expresses his opinion of Vavasour's guilt as strongly as
+possible, and even describes him with what for an Attorney-General in
+ordinary circumstances would be a singular redundancy of legal
+expression, as being "deeply guilty" in the treason.[37] No one would
+know better than the Attorney-General that in high treason itself the
+law makes no distinction whatever of degrees of guilt, nor can there
+even be an accessory: once participant, whatever the part played may be,
+all alike are principals.
+
+Coke's statement in Court has been officially in print for over three
+hundred years, yet no investigator seems to have noticed it and so have
+been led to inquire what was done to Vavasour?--by which alone a clue
+might have been obtained to the writer of the letter.[38] Although
+Vavasour was publicly stated by the Attorney-General to be "deeply
+guilty" in a treason of which Salisbury wrote: "I shall esteem my life
+unworthily given me when I shall be found slack in searching to the
+bottom of the dregs of this foul poison, or lack resolution to further
+to my small power the prosecution and execution of ALL those whose
+hearts and hands can appear foul in this savage practise"[39]--yet he
+was not even brought to trial, while other serving-men were tried and
+executed.[40]
+
+It is questionable whether Salisbury, unless agreeing with Coke's
+opinion of Vavasour's guilt, would have allowed the allusion to appear
+in the official report of the trial, prepared by himself and sanctioned
+by the King;[41] as, if innocent of the treason, an intolerable
+injustice would have been done to Vavasour by the publication, which
+probably neither the King nor Salisbury would have permitted, in making
+a senseless attack upon the reputation of an innocent man, who would
+certainly have protested.
+
+Without, however, assuming too advanced ideas of justice for the time,
+it is unlikely that so capable a person as Salisbury appears to have
+been,[42] could fail to perceive that the publication of the
+Attorney-General's opinion of Vavasour's guilt must, in the absence of
+any prosecution, call attention to Vavasour, and thus furnish a clue to
+the writer of the letter. Salisbury, though generally fair-minded, might
+not trouble himself about Vavasour's reputation, but he would about his
+own, which would be affected by his failure, after his strongly
+expressed determination, in bringing to justice ALL who were concerned
+in such a treason; and this would still apply, even if Coke's published
+allusion to Vavasour's guilt was merely counsel's rhetoric. Coke,
+however, at the moment when making that allusion, was not declaiming
+upon the treason, but simply stating a fact about Tresham, with the King
+listening; and in alluding to Vavasour, he expresses what is in his
+mind--"_whom I think deeply guilty in this treason_": evidently his
+deliberate opinion, which he would have every opportunity of forming,
+as, with the exception of Salisbury and the conspirators, he would know
+more of the workings of the plot than anyone. Salisbury's chief concern,
+apparently, was at all costs to keep Vavasour silent, which he did;
+while his anxiety "to leave the further judgment indefinite" respecting
+the writer of the letter, plainly shows that the matter would not bear
+inquiry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The only possible conclusion, therefore, is that Vavasour wrote the
+anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle, which the identity of the
+handwriting absolutely confirms.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 31: "My Sovereign determined that your trial should be in this
+honourable assembly. For who is Garnet that he should be called hither,
+or we should trouble ourselves in this Court with him? which I protest
+were sufficient for the greatest Cardinal in Rome, if in this case he
+should be tried. No, Mr. Garnet, it is not for your cause that you are
+called hither, but to testify to the world the foulness of your fact,
+the errors of your religion," etc. Lord Salisbury's Speech at the Trial.
+(Gerard). When at the trial, rebuking Garnet for untruthfulness in his
+previous examination before the Council, Salisbury said: "You stiffly
+denied it upon your soul, reiterating it with so many detestable
+execrations, _as our hair stood upright_" (Jardine).]
+
+[Footnote 32: The Act for the Attainder of the Conspirators ("Statutes
+of the Realm," 3 James I., c. 2). Coke himself characterized the treason
+at the trial as "beyond all examples, whether in fact or fiction, even
+of the tragic poets who did beat their wits to represent the most
+fearful and horrible murders." And in the prayer to be used in the
+Anniversary Service for the Fifth of November it is described as having
+been attempted "in a most barbarous and savage manner, beyond the
+examples of former ages. From this unnatural conspiracy, not our merit,
+but Thy mercy; not our foresight, but Thy providence, delivered us,"
+etc.]
+
+[Footnote 33: In the previous century, in a case where a more severe
+penalty was desired to be inflicted, the offender was, by Act of
+Parliament, publicly _boiled alive_ ("Statutes of the Realm," 22 Henry
+VIII., c. 9).]
+
+[Footnote 34: Coke worked hard for some months in thoroughly preparing
+the evidence for the trial, so that little would escape him. As he wrote
+to Salisbury: "If your lordship knew what pains have been taken herein,
+your lordship would pity the old attorney" (Hatfield MSS.).]
+
+[Footnote 35: Vavasour's falsehood respecting Mrs. Tresham had nothing
+to do with the treason. Coke seems to mention Vavasour's guilt as if
+antecedent to the writing of the letter to Salisbury.]
+
+[Footnote 36: This work is merely the identification of the writer of
+the anonymous letter only, and makes no attempt to answer the much more
+difficult question of what the arrangement was between Salisbury and
+Monteagle, or between Monteagle and Tresham, respecting the sending of
+the letter; but with regard to Coke, it is unlikely, from what is known
+of their intercourse and their frequent differences in court, that he
+would be admitted to any particular confidence with Salisbury in the
+matter.]
+
+[Footnote 37: Vavasour's concealment of guilty knowledge as the writer
+of the warning letter would probably be only misprision of treason,
+unless Coke knew or suspected that he was directly concerned in the
+treason.]
+
+[Footnote 38: The present writer does not owe the identification to that
+clue, which was not met with until after Vavasour had been identified as
+the writer of the letter.]
+
+[Footnote 39: Letter to the Earl of Dunfermline, Lord Chancellor of
+Scotland. December 1, 1605 ("State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvii.
+2). Salisbury was created K.G. with almost regal pomp for his services
+in the matter. "Tuesday the 20th of May (1606), at Windsor, were
+installed Knights of the Garter, Robert, Earl of Salisbury, who set
+forward from his house in the Strand, being almost as honourably
+accompanied and with as great train of lords, knights, gentlemen, and
+officers of the Court, with others besides his peculiar servants very
+richly attired, and bravely mounted, as was the King when he rid in
+state through London" (Stowe's "Annals," 1615, p. 883).]
+
+[Footnote 40: Bates, Catesby's serving-man, at London; others in the
+country.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Although known as the "King's book," the report of the
+trial was evidently compiled by Salisbury and corrected by the King.]
+
+[Footnote 42: Salisbury's statesmanship is evinced by the advice he
+wrote to James (I.) when King of Scotland, and impatiently awaiting
+Queen Elizabeth's demise: "Your best approach towards your greatest end,
+is by your Majesty's clear and temperate courses, to secure the heart of
+the highest, to whose sex and quality nothing is so improper as either
+needless expostulations, or over much curiosity in her own actions. The
+first showing unquietness in yourself; the second challenging some
+untimely interest in hers; both which, as they are best forborne when
+there is no cause, so be it far from me (if there shall be cause), to
+persuade you to receive wrongs and be silent" ("Secret Correspondence,"
+Camden Society, 1860, p. 7).]
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+FRANCIS TRESHAM'S CONFIDENCE WHEN IN THE TOWER
+
+
+Upon Tresham's death in the Tower (December 23, 1605), the Lieutenant
+wrote to Salisbury: "I find his friends were marvellous confident if he
+had escaped this sickness, and have given out in this place that they
+feared not the course of justice."[43] As the late Dr. Gardiner
+observed: "This confidence they could only have derived from himself,
+and it could only have been founded on one ground."
+
+Had Tresham's committal to the Tower been otherwise than a mere
+formality, or "a farce," neither his wife nor his servants would under
+any circumstances have been permitted to attend or even see him whatever
+the state of his health might have been; and had he survived, nothing
+serious would have been done to him,[44] any more than was done to his
+"deeply guilty" servant Vavasour.
+
+Tresham, though dreading, as he said, "the infamous brand of an
+accuser,"[45] was as evidently the Informer to the Government, either
+directly or indirectly through Monteagle, as his servant Vavasour was
+the writer of the letter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 43: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvii. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 44: He left no male issue, and was succeeded in the family
+property by his next brother Lewis, who was created a baronet June 29,
+1611, one of the second batch of baronets made on the institution of
+that Order the previous May 22 by James I.]
+
+[Footnote 45: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi. 63.]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE VAVASOURS AS DEPENDANTS OF THE TRESHAM FAMILY
+
+
+The Tresham Papers[46] contain much information respecting the Vavasours
+as dependants of that family. Sir Thomas Tresham had a bailiff or
+collector, named Thomas Vavasour, an old and much valued Catholic
+servant,[47] who had, with perhaps other children, two sons, George and
+William, and a daughter, Muriel. George, who had been educated, was in
+June, 1596, sent up by his father with a letter to Sir Thomas, then in
+town, in order that he might be entered at one of the Inns of Court, as
+Sir Thomas might advise: "Mr. Francis Tresham has encouraged him in this
+kind of study and the cost already bestowed must not be lost. He knows
+he has nothing else to trust to but his learning, nor does he seem so
+fit for anything else."[48] He was accordingly admitted to the Inner
+Temple in November of that year,[49] where Lewis Tresham (Sir Thomas's
+second son) had been admitted the previous November, and to whom there
+is an allusion of George Vavasour acting as tutor.[50] William Vavasour,
+the other son, was servant to Sir Thomas, and though not so educated as
+his brother George, was not a livery-servant or footman,[51] but appears
+to have held a similar or superior position with Sir Thomas, to that
+which Bates, who kept his own man,[52] held with Catesby, a kind of
+secretary-valet of the time.[53] After Sir Thomas's death he served his
+eldest son Francis Tresham in the same capacity; while the sister Muriel
+Vavasour, who bore the same (then uncommon) Christian name as Lady
+Tresham, and may have been her god-daughter, became "gentlewoman without
+livery" at L5 yearly[54] to Lady Monteagle, who was Lady Tresham's
+daughter. Both George Vavasour and his brother William were
+confidentially employed by Francis Tresham as amanuenses, where secrecy
+was necessary in transcribing religious or political treatises, such as
+were then circulated amongst Roman Catholics, and, being treasonable,
+dared not be printed.
+
+On December 1, 1605, the Attorney-General, while investigating the
+conspiracy, obtained two MS. volumes which had been found in George
+Vavasour's chambers in the Inner Temple. One, officially described as a
+"quarto" volume, though an octavo (8-1/4 x 5-3/4), entitled
+"A Treatise against Lying,"[55] was stated by George Vavasour, on
+examination[56] to have been lent him by Francis Tresham to copy,[57]
+and the copy he had made was contained in the folio, the other MS.
+found. He denied any knowledge of the handwriting in the "quarto"
+volume, except that he had recopied the last page (61), in order to
+replace a torn leaf, bearing in Latin the Imprimatur of George
+Blackwell, Archpriest of the English Jesuits. William Tresham (Francis
+Tresham's youngest brother), on being examined by Coke, said that he
+thought the "quarto" MS. was in William Vavasour's handwriting, who was
+formerly his father's servant, and since serving his eldest brother in
+the Tower.[58] William Tresham may have seen Vavasour so employed at
+home and would know his writing; while George Vavasour might not wish to
+bring his brother into question. The folio MS. has disappeared, but the
+"quarto" copy, as ascribed to William Vavasour, is now with Archbishop
+Laud's MSS. (No. 655) in the Bodleian Library, and was published in
+1851.
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE No. 1.
+
+The anonymous letter as delivered to Lord Monteagle, October 26, 1605,
+warning him not to attend the opening of Parliament appointed for the
+Fifth of November. (From the original letter in the Museum of the Public
+Record Office.)]
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE No. 2.
+
+A page of the MS. intitled "A Treatise against Lying, &c.", formerly
+belonging to Francis Tresham, of which the handwriting was attributed by
+his brother, William Tresham, to William Vavasour. Now in the Bodleian
+Library. (Laud MSS. 655, folio 44.)]
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE No. 3.
+
+William Vavasour's handwriting in the letter to the Earl of Salisbury,
+dictated and signed by Francis Tresham, when dying in the Tower.
+December 22, 1605. (State Papers, Domestic. James I. ccxvi. 211.)
+
+Stated by Vavasour to have been written by Mrs. Tresham. On March 24,
+1605-6, he confessed that he wrote it, and signed a note to it to that
+effect.]
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE No. 4.
+
+William Vavasour's handwriting in his _untrue_ statement written in the
+presence of the Lieutenant of the Tower, that No. 3 was written by Mrs.
+Tresham. Dated March 23, 1605-6. (State Papers, Domestic. James I.
+ccxvi. 207.)
+
+[***]To avoid detection of his falsehood, he writes a hand quite
+different from his ordinary writing in Nos. 2 and 3, thus producing a
+hand which is in itself identical with his former disguised writing as
+seen in the anonymous letter (No. 1).]
+
+[Illustration: FACSIMILE No. 5.
+
+George Vavasour's handwriting on the last leaf, which he renewed for
+Francis Tresham, of the MS. intitled "A Treatise against Lying, &c."
+(Laud MSS. 655, folio 61.)]
+
+George Vavasour's handwriting upon the last leaf of the MS. (Facsimile
+No. 5) shows a much more refined and educated hand than his brother's,
+from which the writing is in every respect different. A small "s" is
+invariably used in commencing a word with that letter; the "t's " are
+quite different; the "w" finishes with an inner, not an outer loop; the
+"g's" have no flat tops; and the "hangers" of the "h's" do not descend
+below the line. The writing is evidently an educated hand for the time,
+and cannot readily be imagined as using small "i's" for the first
+person, such as are used in, and seem to accord so well with, the much
+less educated handwriting of the warning letter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WILLIAM VAVASOUR, the Tresham family serving-man, is thus not only
+conclusively proved to have written the anonymous letter to Lord
+Monteagle, but most probably was also the "unknown man of a reasonable
+tall personage" who is so quaintly described in the Government story as
+having delivered the letter.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 46: Calendared by the Historical MSS. Commission. "Report on
+MSS. in various Collections, vol. iii., 1904. The MSS. of T.B.
+Clarke-Thornhill, Esq., of Rushton Hall, by Mrs. R.C. Lomas." These
+important family papers were preserved and discovered in a curious
+manner. In 1828, when making alterations at Rushton Hall, on removing a
+partition wall, they were found with some theological books in a large
+bundle wrapped in a sheet, which had been built into a recess in the
+wall. As the papers, commencing in 1576, with a few of earlier date, end
+in November, 1605, they were probably thus hidden away on Tresham's
+arrest.]
+
+[Footnote 47: "Calendar," p. 59.]
+
+[Footnote 48: _Ibid._, p. 89.]
+
+[Footnote 49: "Students admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547-1660"
+(1877).]
+
+[Footnote 50: "Calendar of Tresham Papers," p. 90.]
+
+[Footnote 51: His name does not appear in the list of Sir Thomas's ten
+livery servants as retained while the establishment was at Hoxton before
+Monteagle's tenancy, of which the accounts are with the Tresham Papers.
+Under the stable charges is the keep of a horse for Thomas Vavasour, the
+father (_ibid._, pp. 47, 50).]
+
+[Footnote 52: "Examination of Christopher Story, Thomas Bates's man"
+("State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi. 28, 1).]
+
+[Footnote 53: It will be remembered that Salisbury in the official story
+describes Ward, who was Monteagle's secretary, as "one of his men."]
+
+[Footnote 54: Each of the other female attendants and servants, even
+"Mawdlyn the Frenchwoman" at L10 yearly, have a livery ("Calendar of
+Tresham Papers," p. 50).]
+
+[Footnote 55: The manuscript was originally entitled "A Treatise upon
+Equivocation," which was altered by Father Garnet into "A treatise
+against Lying & fraudule't dissimulatio'. Newly overseen by ye Authour &
+published for the defence of Innocency, & for the Instructio' of
+Ignora'ts." It purports to show when equivocation may "lawfully" be
+used, and may have been compiled by Garnet, as the title-page and the
+annotations throughout are in his handwriting. The folio manuscript by
+George Vavasour was evidently a fair copy of the revised "quarto," and
+Tresham's reason for having it made.]
+
+[Footnote 56: "Examination of George Vavasour, of the Inner Temple,
+Gent., December 9, 1605" ("State Papers, Domestic," James I., ccxvi.
+151).]
+
+[Footnote 57: He also confessed having transcribed the treatise "De
+Officio Principis Christiani" (Further examination, December 13, 1605,
+_ibid._, ccxvi. 155). Coke alluded to these manuscripts at the trial as
+"certain heretical, damnable and treasonable books discovered." He said:
+"There is in Tresham's book, 'De Officio Principis,' an easier and more
+expedite way than all these to fetch the crown off the head of any king
+christened whatsoever, which is this that: '_Princeps indulgendo
+haereticis, amittit regnum._'--If any prince shall but tolerate or favour
+heretics, he loseth his kingdom." This shows the confidential nature of
+the Vavasours' employment as amanuenses by Tresham in such matters.]
+
+[Footnote 58: Examination of William Tresham, December 9, 1605 ("State
+Papers, Domestic," James I., xvii. 23).]
+
+
+
+THE END
+
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