Now there is a sentence in the Letter whose wording is peculiar, but which, I submit, is pre-eminently a wording likely to be used by two natives of Yorkshire.

I mean the sentence, “I would aduyse yowe as yowe tender your lyf to deuys some excuse to shift off youer attendance at this parleament,” meaning thereby, “I would advise you as you have a care for your life to devise some excuse to put off[60] your attendance at this parliament.”

Once more, a comparison of the Letter sent to Lord Mounteagle with a Declaration not only signed by Father Oldcorne but entirely in his handwriting, dated the 12th of March, 1605-6,[61] reveals this remarkable fact that there is, first, a general similarity between the penmanship of both documents; and, secondly, there is a particular similarity in the case of the following letters:— the small c/s, l/s, i/s, b/s, w/s, r/s, long s/s (as initials), and short s/s (as terminals); also the m/s and n/s are not inconsistent with being written by one and the same hand. The handwriting in the Letter is, for the most part, not in round hand, but in roman character. The letters do not all lean at the same angle to the horizontal. Evidently the writer had endeavoured “painfully” to disguise his handwriting, but conscientious carefulness and a disciplined will emphatically characterise both documents.[62] See Appendix.

Now Thomas Ward, the gentleman-servant of Lord Mounteagle, was, I maintain, the intermediary— the diplomatic intermediary— through whom Christopher Wright (ex hypothesi) acted in communication with Mounteagle. And this, with the express knowledge and consent of Father Edward Oldcorne, who was, almost certainly, well acquainted with Thomas Ward.[63]

In short, the revelation was a curvilinear triangular movement.