Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/88

70 friendship with the chief conspirators, a friend of the Jesuits, and a participator with the chief of these conspirators in not one, but two or three former plots, should have been utterly unaware of this new design, invented and directed by a man to whom he was in the habit of writing in terms of the warmest admiration.

Late on Friday, October 25, Mounteagle gave orders that he would sup the following day at his house at Hoxton. This sudden notice seems to have surprised his servants. To Hoxton he and his household repaired, and when 'ready to go to supper at seven of the clock at night, one of his footmen, whom he had sent of an errand over the street, was met by an unknown man, of a reasonable tall personage, who delivered him a letter,' which letter was immediately brought to Mounteagle, who handed it to a gentleman in his household, named Warde, and told him to read it aloud. Its contents ran as follows : 'my lord out of the love i beare to some of youer frends i have a caer of youer preservacion therfor i would advyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to devyse some excuse to shift of youer attendance at this parleament for god and man hathe concurred to punishe the wickedness of this tyme and thinke not slightlye of this advertisment but retyere youre self into youre