Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/126

104 theory of his being poisoned must, however, be stated the fact that his wife and servant were allowed free access to him, and used to nurse him. It is, at the same time, remarkable that, if Tresham was so ill before he entered the Tower, we should have heard nothing of this illness beforehand. Up to November 12, he led a most healthy life, without being in any way prevented from taking active exercise; and yet, not six weeks later, we read of his being dead of a slow and wasting disease.

Francis Tresham was taken to the Tower on November 12, 1605, and on the same day, without being put to the torture, confessed that he had had many interviews of late with Robert Catesby, and with Fathers Gerard, Greenway, and Garnet, but declined to say what had occurred on these occasions. On the following day he was more communicative, and stated that Catesby revealed the plot to him, four weeks back; but that he had done everything in his power to induce Catesby and his confederates to desist from their purpose. On November 29, he was again examined, but on this occasion chiefly with reference to the Jesuits' missions to Spain; and stated that, in Elizabeth's reign, Thomas Winter had gone to Spain, to obtain military aid from the Spaniards, under the direct approval and advice of Catesby, Garnet, and Mounteagle—but the latter's name was obliterated from the paper on which the prisoner's deposition was reported. Soon after