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VIII. Observations on the historical evidence respecting the Implication of Lord Mounteagle as a Conspirator in the Gunpowder Treason. Communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by David Jardine, Esq., in a Letter to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., Secretary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

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Extract

The perusal of the curious letters of Thomas Winter and Lord Mounteagle, lately discovered by Mr. Bruce, suggested to my mind some remarks upon the historical effect of those letters which I have already submitted through you to the Society of Antiquaries. In my former communication I fully explained my reasons for thinking that the letter of Lord Mounteagle published by Mr. Bruce does not afford a solution of the problem respecting that nobleman's implication in the Gunpowder Plot; and I further expressed an opinion that the tendency of the evidence we now possess is to exonerate his character from the suspicion of having been in the first instance a party to the plot, and having afterwards betrayed his companions.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1841

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References

page 97 note a Original Draft in State Paper Office. The whole note is printed in Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 120, note.

page 97 note b State Paper Office. Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 218.

page 98 note c Oldcorne's examination, 6 March 1605–6. State Paper Office.

page 98 note d From the original in the State Paper Office.

page 98 note e This was one of the names of Greenway.

page 98 note f Tresham is the third person here alluded to.

page 98 note g Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library, vol. lxxv. p. 292. Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 219.

page 100 note g Examination of Thomas Bates 13th January 1605–6. State Paper Office. Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 282.

page 101 note h Memorials of the Reign of King James, p. 13.

page 103 note i See Criminal Trials, vol. ii. p. 6, and p. 147.

page 103 note k Additional MSS. No. 6178, p. 581. That the copy of this document in the State Paper Office was that from which the confession of Winter in the “King's Book “was printed, is demonstrated by the fact that several remarkable clerical errors in the copy, not to be found in the original, are faithfully adopted by the printer. For instance, in the original confession Winter says, “we feared of all the world that France, with the shipping of Holland, might most annoy us.” These last words in the copy at the State Paper Office, and in both, editions of the printed book, are “might make away with us.”

page 106 note l Greenway's MS. p. 67.

page 106 note m I have compared Greenway's information in this respect with the genealogical and domestic history of the families of the conspirators as contained in the Visitation Books, County Histories, and published and unpublished correspondence of the time; and I have not detected him in a single inaccuracy.

page 107 note n Tanner MSS. in Bibl. Bodl. vol. lxxv. p. 319.

page 107 note o State Paper Office.

page 108 note P Many instances of his employment on occasions of these several kinds will be found in Nichols's Progresses, &c, of James I. Vol. ii.

page 108 note q It appears from the Council Books, that Lord Mounteagle was discharged from the Tower on the 5th of August, 1601, when he was delivered into the private custody of his relation, Mr. John Leventhorpe, at his house called Shingley Hall, near Bishop's Stortford, in Hertfordshire (Chauncy's Hertfordshire, p. 181 b, and Mounteagle's Letter to Cecil, from Shingley, dated 27th Sept. 1601, in the Additional MSS. in the British Museum, No. 6177). On the 29th of November in the same year, the Council Books show that he was transferred to the custody of Mr. Newport, at his house at Bethnal Green, with liberty to walk within two or three miles of the house; “but so as in no wyse to repaire unto London.” The exact date of his discharge does not appear; but it must have been soon after this last change of custody, as Garnet speaks of his seeing the Breves at White Webbs, about Candlemas, 1602.

page 109 note r Petition Apologetical of the Lay Catholics of England (supposed to have been written by Sir Thomas Tresham.)

page 109 note s Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 209. I should state, however, that neither in the paper published by Lodge, nor in a list of the Queen's Household Officers of a later date (August 16, 1604) in the State Paper Office, does Mounteagle's name appear.

page 109 note t Dépêches de Monsr. De Beaumont.

page 110 note u De Beaumont relates, that some of the more strenuous of the Protestants having remonstrated with James upon his retaining several Catholics in his Council and about the Court at the beginning of his reign, “il leur a respondu qu'avec un canard privé, il esperoit d'en prendre beaucoup de sauvages.”—Dépêches de Monsieur de Beaumont.