Now, as somewhat slightly confirming this statement of Lathbury, is the fact that in an old print published soon after the discovery of the Plot, which shows the conspirators Catesby, Thomas Winter, Percy, John Wright, Fawkes, Robert Winter, Bates, and Christopher Wright, Christopher Wright is represented as a tall man, in the high hat of the period, facing Catesby, and evidently engaged in earnest discourse with the arch-conspirator. Christopher Wright to enforce his utterance is holding up the forefinger of his right hand. Catesby’s right hand is raised in front of Christopher Wright, while Catesby’s left hand rests on the hilt of the sword girded on his side.[125]

(Of course the evidence in paragraphs (2) and (5) of the last chapter may have emanated from one and the same source; but the great point is that it has emanated from somewhere.)

In connection with Christopher Wright’s propinquity to Thomas Ward possibly, and to Thomas Winter possibly likewise, on the Sunday immediately previous to the “fatal Fifth,” the two following items of evidence are of consequence:—

(1) In Jardine’s “Narrative,” p. 98, we are told: “On Sunday, the 3rd of November, the conspirators heard from the same individual who had first informed them of the Letter to Lord Mounteagle, that the Letter had been shown to the King, who made great account of it, but enjoined the strictest secrecy.”

This individual was Thomas Ward.— (Jardine.)

Now, we have seen already that Stowe’s “Chronicle” records “the next day after the delivery of the Letter” there was a conjunction of the planets— Thomas Winter and Christopher Wright.

This conjunction at or about this period I hold to be a very significant fact, tending to show that either the one or the other must have sought his confederate out, as has been remarked already.

But from the following important Evidence of William Kyddall, servant to Robert Tyrwhitt, Esquire,[A] brother of Mrs. Ambrose Rookwood, and kinsman of Robert Keyes, it is evident that it was physically impossible for Christopher Wright to have met Thomas Winter on Sunday, the 27th of October; inasmuch as Christopher Wright was then at Lapworth, only twenty miles distant from Hindlip Hall.[B]

Yet this does not disprove the material fact of the meeting itself, the date or circumstance of time not belonging to the essence of the assertion. (See Appendix.)