Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/245

Rh undoubtedly be pronounced genuine, although here and there the wretched man may have been forced either to insert or to omit a sentence which he would have much liked not to do, but the confession may, nevertheless, be pronounced a frank and veracious story of the plot. The insinuation that Winter could not have penned this confession because his arm had not recovered from the wound received at Holbeach is absurd; since we have still with us to-day the original manuscript accounts bearing witness that he was then not only quite well enough to write, but that he had even written at some length two or three days before he began compiling this formal confession.

Sir Edward Waad, Lieutenant of the Tower, writing to Cecil on November 21, 1605, mentions that 'Thomas Winter doth find his hand so strong, as after dinner he will settle himself to write that he hath verbally declared to your Lordship, adding what he shall remember.' Winter, therefore, was well enough to write by November 21, that is to say, four days before the date attached to his longest confession, which runs as follows:—

The Voluntary Declaration of Thomas Winter, of Hoodington, in the County of Worcester, gent, the 25th of Nov., 1605, at