Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/94

76 whether the vault was visited in his absence, that nobody had approached the whereabouts of the gunpowder.

With this assurance Catesby was sufficiently satisfied as to abandon all idea of flight, little suspecting that Salisbury had completely outwitted him by postponing all action against the plotters until the eve of the very 'fifth' itself, in order to give his dupes time still further to incriminate themselves. The King, too, was out of town, and Lord Salisbury awaited his return from Royston before taking the initiative. Salisbury, who was by this time, irrespective of the mysterious letter, cognisant of the whole scheme, still wished to conceal by what means he had become aware of the plot; and determined to flatter the King's vanity by giving him some broad hints whereby he might display his sagacity to the Court, and suggest that the vaults underneath the Parliament House should be searched.

That Lord Mounteagle must have been very deeply in Lord Salisbury's confidence before the receipt of the famous letter is not to be disputed. The rewards that were heaped upon him were extraordinary, and the money grants given to him would, according to our present value, work out to reach something like six thousand pounds per annum. But, if the Government had merely