Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/144

 CHAPTER XIII SIR EVERARD DIGBY'S LETTERS FROM THE TOWER F intense interest and importance is the correspondence, that has been preserved to us, of Sir Everard Digby when a prisoner in the Tower of London. He found means, probably by bribing his gaolers, to smuggle letters out of the Tower of London without detection. These letters were scribbled on scraps of paper, and were generally left unaddressed and unsigned, whilst they were often written with lemon juice in lieu of ordinary ink. They were not discovered until seventy years after his death, when they were found amongst the papers of his famous son, Sir Kenelm, and were published by a contemporary writer, from whose original edition I reprint them below.

These letters have been ignored, as much as possible, by Jesuit writers, for the good reason that they reveal, on the whole, their favourite, Digby, in a not very pleasant light.