Let me now make two quotations.

One is from the King’s Book, giving an account of the procedure followed by the Earl of Suffolk the Lord Chamberlain, and the Lord Mounteagle, the champion, protector, and hero of the England of his day, in whose honour the “rare” Ben Jonson[96] himself composed the epigram transcribed at the end of this Inquiry.

The other quotation, collected from the relation of a certain interview between Catesby, Tresham, Mounteagle, and Father Garnet, is one which plainly shows that Mounteagle was closely associated with Catesby, not merely as a passive listener but as an active sympathiser, as late as the month of July, 1605, in general treasonable internal projects, which indeed only just fell short of particular treasonable external acts.

But this, of course, does not prove any complicity of Mounteagle in the particular designment known as the Gunpowder Treason Plot, of which diabolical scheme, I have no reasonable doubt, the happy, debonair, pleasure-loving, but withal shrewd and generous, young nobleman was perfectly innocent.

These two quotations show, first, how zealously and faithfully Mounteagle of the Janus-face, looking both before and after— as henceforward we must regard him— kept his hand on the pulse of the Government at the most critical hour of his country’s annals, with a view to doing what both he and his mentor deemed to be justice in the rightful claims and demands, though diverse and conflicting, of each group of “clients.”

And, secondly, how wisely and prudently Christopher Wright and his counsellor or counsellors had acted in determining upon this favoured child of Fortune as their “vessel of election” for conveying that precious Instrument, which for all time is destined to be known as Lord Mounteagle’s Letter, to the Earl of Salisbury and, through him, to King James, his Privy Council and Government, on that Saturday night, the 26th day of October, 1605.

The King’s Book says: “At what time hee [i.e., the Earl of Suffolk,[97] the Lord Chamberlain] went to the Parliament House accompanied with my Lord Mounteagle, being in zeale to the King’s service, earnest and curious to see the event of that accident whereof he had the fortune to be the first discoverer: where having viewed all the lower roumes he found in the vault under the upper House great store and provision of Billets, Faggots, and Coales; and enquiring of Whyneard, keeper of the Wardrobe, to what use hee had put those lower roumes and cellars; he told them that Thomas Percy had hired both the house and part of the cellar or vault under the same, and that the wood and coale therein was the sayde gentleman’s owne provision. Whereupon the Lord Chamberlaine casting his eye aside perceived a fellow standing in a corner there, calling himself the said Percyes man and keeper of that house for him, but indeed was Guido Fawkes the owner of that hand which should have acted that monstrous tragedie.”[98]

The Discourse then goes on to say that the Lord Chamberlain reported to the King in the “privie gallerie,” in the presence of the Lord Treasurer, “the Lord Admirall,” “the Earles of Worcester, Northampton, and Salisbury,” what he had seen and observed, “noting Mounteagle had told him, that he no sooner heard Thomas Percy[A] named to be possessour of that house, but considering both his backwardnes in Religion and the old dearenesse in friendship between himself and the say’d Percy, hee did greatly suspect the matter, and that the Letter should come from him. The sayde Lord Chamberlaine also tolde, that he did not wonder a little at the extraordinarie great provision of wood and coale in that house, where Thomas Percy had so seldome occasion to remaine; as likewise it gaue him in his minde that his man looked like a very tall and desperate fellow.”[99]