Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/39

1605.] and his associates protested against it, he advanced reasons for delay, declaring that he should not be prepared with the promised advance of money till he had sold some property. He pleaded that the explosion would be as effectual at the end of the session as at the beginning: that in the meantime the conspirators might live in Flanders, whither his ship should convey them, and where he would supply them with the necessary funds for maintenance. Catesby was confirmed in his fears of Tresham by these proposals, but thought it best to dissemble and appear to acquiesce. Tresham returned to town, and would seem to have warned not only Mounteagle but others, most likely including lord Mordaunt, who had married his other sister. Digby and others of the conspirators are supposed to have warned their own friends, so that the danger of discovery was hourly increasing. Tresham, in his examination, alleged that his real object at this moment was not to delay, but to put an end to the plot, as the only means he could devise to save the lives of all concerned, and to preserve his own life, fortune, and reputation.



The movements of lord Mounteagle warranted the belief that he had received a warning of some kind that there was danger in town, for he removed from his house in London to one which he had at Hoxton, and on the 26th of October, six days before the proposed opening of parliament, he, much to the surprise of his own family, ordered a good supper to be prepared there. Mounteagle had formerly been engaged in the Spanish treason, and had written to Baynham, who was the emissary at Rome, and therefore was probably aware of some plot in agitation, but he had latterly obtained the confidence of the king, and was one of the commissioners for the late prorogation.

As he sate at table about seven o'clock in the evening, a page handed to him a letter, which he said he had received from a tall man whose features he could not recognise in the dark. Mounteagle opened the letter, and seeing that it had neither date nor signature, he handed it to Thomas Ward, a gentleman of his establishment, to read aloud. It was as follows:—"My lord out of the love i beare to some of youer frends i have a caer of your preservacion therefor i would advyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyfe to devyse some exscuse to shift of youer attendance at this parleament for god and man hath concurred to punishe the wickednes of this tyme and think not slightlye of this advertisment but retyere to youre self into youre contri wheare you may expect the event in safeti for thowghe theare be no apparance of