One of the unsolved problems of English History is the question: “Who wrote the Letter to the Lord Mounteagle?” surely, one of the most momentous documents ever penned by the hand of man, which discovered the Gunpowder Treason, and so saved a King of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland— to say nothing of France— his Royal Consort, his Counsellors, and Senators, from a bloody, cruel, and untimely death.

In every conspiracy there is a knave or a fool, and sometimes, happily, “a repentant sinner.”

Now it is well known that the contrivers of the Gunpowder Treason themselves suspected Francis Tresham— a subordinate conspirator and brother-in-law to Lord Mounteagle— and many historians have rashly jumped to the conclusion that, therefore, Tresham must have been the author.

But, when charged at Barnet by Catesby and Thomas Winter, two of his infuriated fellow-plotters, with having sent the Letter, Tresham so stoutly and energetically denied the charge that his denial saved him from the point of their poniards.

Moreover, the suspected man when a prisoner in the Tower of London, and even when in the act of throwing himself on the King’s mercy, never gave the faintest hint that the Letter was attributable to him. But, on the contrary, actually stated first that he had intended to reveal the treason, and secondly that he had been guilty of concealment.

Now, as a rule, “all that a man hath will he give for his life.” Therefore it is impossible, in the face of this direct testimony of Tresham, to maintain that to him the discovery of the Plot is due: and the force of the argument grounded on Tresham’s being the brother-in-law to Mounteagle, and that the accused man showed an evident desire that the Plot should be postponed, if not altogether abandoned, melts away like snow before the sun.[1][2][A]

To whatever decision the Historical Inquirer into this hitherto inscrutable mystery is destined to come after reviewing and weighing the Evidence now available— which to-day is more abundant from a variety of accidental circumstances, than when Lingard and Mackintosh, and even Gardiner and Green, wrote their histories— it is manifest that the Inquirer’s decision in the matter cannot be as certain as a mathematical conclusion. But, it may be morally certain, because of the many degrees of probability that the information now ready to our hand will inevitably give that are favourable to the conclusion which the following pages will seek, by the evidence of facts, to sustain. And, as the ancient historian tersely says: “Ubi res adsunt, quid opus est verbis?”— “Where facts are at hand, what need is there for words?”

The Evidence to be relied on is mainly the evidence known as Circumstantial,[B] and consists of two classes of acts. One of these classes leads up to the performance of the transaction— namely, in the one case, the dictating of the Letter by the primary Author; in the other case, the penning of the Document by the secondary Scribe. Whilst the other class of acts tends to demonstrate that the Author of the Letter and the Penman respectively were conscious, subsequent to the commission of the transaction— in the former case, of having incurred the responsibility of being the originating Cause of the Document; in the latter case, of being the Agent for its physical production.

Before we begin to collect our Evidence, and, À fortiori, before we begin to consider the inferences from the same, we ought to bear in mind certain fixities of thought, or, in other words, certain self-evident fundamentals which are grounded in logic and daily experience. These fixities of thought or self-evident fundamentals will be points from which the reason of the Historical Inquirer can take swing. And not only so; but— like the cords of the rocket life-saving apparatus of the eager mariner— they will be lines of attachment and rules of thought, whereby first to secure to ourselves the available Evidence; and secondly, to prove to the intellect the truth of a theory which, if allowed, shall redound, in respect of courage and integrity, to the praise and honour of Man.