On Saturday, the 26th of October, ten days before the intended meeting of Parliament,[A] Lord Mounteagle, we are told, unexpectedly and without any apparent reason or previous notice, directed a supper to be prepared at his mansion at Hoxton, where he had not been for more than a twelve-month before that date.

It will be well, however, to relate the history of what occurred in the exact words provided for us in a work published by King James’s printer, and put forth as “the authorised version” of the facts that it recorded. The work bears the title— “A Discourse of the late intended Treason,” anno 1605. “The Discourse” says:— “The Lord Mounteagle, sonne and heire to the Lord Morley, being in his own lodging 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 streete was met by an unknown man of a reasonable tall personage[6] who delivered him a Letter charging him to put it in my Lord his Master’s hands, which my Lord no sooner received but that having broken it up and perceiving the same to be of an unknown and somewhat unlegible hand, and without either date or subscription, did call one of his men unto him for helping him to read it. But no sooner did he conceive the strange contents thereof, although he was somewhat perplexed what construction to make of it ... yet did he as a most dutifull and loyall subject conclude not to conceal it, whatever might come of it. Whereupon notwithstanding the latenesse and darknesse of the night in that season of the year, he presently repaired to his Majesties palace at Whitehall and there delivered the same to the Earle of Salisbury his majesties principall secretarie.”

The Letter was as follows:—

“My lord out of the loue i beare yowe to some of youere frends i haue a caer of youer preseruacion therfor i would aduyse yowe as yowe tender youer lyf to deuys some exscuse to shift of youer attendance at this parleament for god and man hath concurred to punishe the wickednes of this tyme and thinke not slightlye of this aduertisment but retyere youre self into youre contri wheare yowe maye expect the euent in safti for thowghe[7] theare be no apparance of anni stir yet i saye they shall receyue a terrible blowe this parleament and yet they shall not sei who hurts them this councel is not to be contemned because it maye do yowe good and can do yowe no harme for the dangere is passed as soon as yowe have burnt the letter and i hope god will give yowe the grace to mak good use of it to whose holy proteccion i comend yowe.”

(Addressed on the back) to “the ryght honorable the lord mouteagle.”

The full name of the member of Lord Mounteagle’s household who read the Letter to Lord Mounteagle, we learn, was Thomas Ward.[8]

Ward was acquainted with Thomas Winter, one of the principal Gunpowder plotters; for Winter himself had formerly been in Mounteagle’s service, and at the time of the Plot was almost certainly on amicable terms with the young nobleman.

On the 27th of October, the day following the delivery of the Letter, Thomas Ward came to Thomas Winter (being Sunday at night) and told him that a Letter had been given to Lord Mounteagle, which the latter presently had carried to Robert Cecil Earl of Salisbury.— “Winter’s Confession.”

Winter, thereupon, the next day, Monday, the 28th October, went to a house called White Webbs, not far from Lord Salisbury’s mansion Theobalds.

White Webbs was a lone and (then) half-timbered dwelling, “with many trap doors and passages,” surrounded by woods, near Enfield Chase, ten miles north of Westminster.

At this secluded spot Thomas Winter had speech with Catesby, the arch-conspirator, “assuring him withal that the matter was disclosed and wishing him in anywise to forsake his country.”— “Winter’s Confession.”

Catesby told Winter, “he would see further as yet and resolved to send Mr. Fawkes to try the uttermost protesting if the part belonged to himself he would try the same adventure.”— “Winter’s Confession.”

On Wednesday, the 30th October, from White Webbs, “Mr. Fawkes,” as Thomas Winter styles him, went to the cellar under the House of Lords, where thirty-six barrels of powder, wood, and coal were stored in readiness for the bloody slaughter purposed for November the Fifth.

Fawkes returned to White Webbs at night, at which the conspirators “were very glad.” Fawkes had found in the cellar his “private marks” all undisturbed.

“The next day after the delivery of the Letter,” says Stowe (though as a fact it was probably five days after the delivery of the momentous document, namely, on the following Thursday), this self-same “Thomas Winter told Christopher Wright”— a subordinate conspirator,— “that he (Winter) understood an obscure letter had been delivered to Lord Mounteagle, who had conveyed it to Salisbury.”[9]

Hence, most probably, either Thomas Winter went in search of Christopher Wright to afford him this piece of information; or Wright went in search of Winter to obtain it.

At about five o’clock in the morning of Tuesday, November, the Fifth, about five hours after Fawkes’ apprehension by Sir Thomas Knevet and his men,[10] the said Christopher Wright went to the chamber of the said Thomas Winter and told him that a nobleman (i.e., the Earl of Worcester, Master of the Horse) “had called (i.e., summoned) the Lord Mounteagle, saying, ‘Rise and come along to Essex House,[11] for I am going to call up my Lord of Northumberland,’ saying withal, ‘the matter is discovered.’”— “Winter’s Confession.”

Of this conspirator, Christopher Wright, it is said,[12] that “he was the first to ascertain that the Plot was discovered.” Probably this refers to the information he (Christopher Wright) obtained as the upshot of his interview with Winter on (probably) Thursday, the 31st October.

Christopher Wright was, likewise, the first to announce the apprehension of Fawkes on the morning of the 5th of November.

It is also further said of Christopher Wright by one[13] who wrote during the last century, that “He advised that each of the conspirators should betake himself to flight in a different direction from his companions. Had this been followed several of them would have probably succeeded in making their escape to the continent. The conspirators, however, adopted another course, which issued in their discomfiture in Staffordshire, where Christopher Wright was also killed.”