Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/85

 CHAPTER VIII THE LETTER TO LORD MOUNTEAGLE F all the mysterious incidents enveloped in the traditional story of the Gunpowder Plot, none has taken so strong a hold upon the popular imagination as has the famous warning letter, undated and unsigned, written to Lord Mounteagle. The receipt of this letter by Mounteagle is generally understood to have formed the sole means whereby the plot was discovered, and the lives of King, Lords, and Commons were saved; but, as I hope to show later, the Government evidently had some knowledge of what was going on prior to the delivery of the letter to Mounteagle at Hoxton, on Saturday, October 26, 1605. At the same time, it is perhaps rather twoto [sic] wide a definition to refer to all the members of the Government as being possessors of this information. It would be more correct to name instead only Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who seems to have known of the existence of the plot quite six weeks before the receipt of the letter. It may even be argued that he was aware of it as much as three months earlier.