Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/244

 CHAPTER XX THOMAS WINTER'S CONFESSION HE formal confession of Thomas Winter is a most important document. Some controversy has arisen about it owing to the fact that, although the handwriting of the original text is undoubtedly Winter's, his surname is not written in the usual manner, the signature affixed to the confession being spelled 'Winter,' instead of 'Wintour.' This circumstance, however, is of no great moment when we consider how various were the forms of spelling used by Winter's contemporaries. People of far greater genius than this conspirator, living under Elizabeth and James I., did not—if we may jocularly express it thus—know how to spell their own names. Ralegh, Shakspeare, and Sidney, have left behind them their signatures spelled in various forms, so that the fact of Winter signing himself as his name is now known to us is of no consequence to those acquainted with the social history of his age.

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