Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/234

 CHAPTER XIX MORE LIGHT ON THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER HE vexed question of the authorship of the famous anonymous letter deserves, without doubt, the closest attention from all students examining into the history of the Gunpowder Treason, for several important reasons, one of which is (even if we cannot ascertain the name of the letter's writer) that it sheds some light upon the part played in both the preparation and the discovery of the plot by Lord Mounteagle. But, before concerning ourselves again with the doubtful position of Mounteagle, it will be as well to deal first with those persons who have been named by various historians as having been concerned in the compilation of this letter. The list of those accused of the authorship may, I think, be said to comprise the following persons:—Thomas Percy, Christopher Wright, Father Oldcorne, Mrs. Abington, Thomas Tresham, Anne Vaux, and Lord Mounteagle himself.

Why the flimsy claims of Thomas Percy to be the author should ever have been seriously advanced it is difficult to imagine, for his conduct