Having then thus established the point that if Christopher Wright and his
conjectured Penman of the Letter wished to put themselves into
communication with the King’s Government, Christopher Wright himself had
family connections in Mounteagle and Ward, who were pre-eminently well
qualified——from their Janus-like respective aspects——for the performance
of such a task, let us proceed with our Inquiry.
For there is Evidence to lead to the following conclusions:——
(1) That the revealing conspirator (whoever he was) had arranged
beforehand that Mounteagle should be at Hoxton on the memorable Saturday
evening, the 26th day of October, 1605, at about the hour of seven of the
clock.
Moreover, my strong opinion is that this arrangement was made through the
suggestion of Thomas Ward, the diplomatic intermediary, with the express
consent of Mounteagle himself.
The suggestion, I think, may have been made by Thomas Ward at Bath,[A] a
town which Ward possibly took on his leaving Lapworth, in Warwickshire,
whither, I surmise, he repaired some time between the 11th of October and
the 26th of that month.
[Footnote A: It is possible that Mounteagle and Catesby may have been
together at Bath between the 12th of October, 1695, and the 26th October.
See a curious letter dated 12th October, but without date of the year,
from Mounteagle to Catesby (“_Archæologia_,” vol. xxviii., p. 420),
discovered by the late Mr. Bruce.
There is a copy of this “_Archæologia_” in the British Museum, which I saw
in October, 1900.]
(2) That Thomas Ward’s was the guiding mind, the dominant force, or, to
vary the metaphor, the central pivot upon which the successful
accomplishment of the entire revelation turned, inasmuch as, I submit,
that Ward must have received from the conscience-stricken conspirator a
complete disclosure of the whole guilty secret, with full power, moreover,
to make known to Mounteagle so much of the particulars concerning the
enterprise as in the exercise of his (Ward’s) uncontrolled diplomatic
discretion it might be _profitable_ to be made known to Mounteagle, in
order that the supreme end in view might be attained, namely, the entire
spinning round on its axis of the prodigious, diabolical Plot.
(3) That Thomas Ward (or Warde) was the diplomatic go-between, the trusty
mentor, and the zealous prompter of his master throughout the whole of the
very difficult, delicate, and momentous part that Destiny, at this awful
crisis in England’s history, called upon this young nobleman to play.
If Ward (or Warde) were born about the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, in
the year 1605 he would be well-nigh in the prime of life, namely,
forty-six years of age; whereas Mounteagle, we know, was just about
thirty. Hence was Warde, by his superior age and experience of men and
things, well fitted to play “the guide, philosopher, and friend” to
Mounteagle in the matter.[A]
[Footnote A: If Thomas Warde were sent to the Low Countries, as I think it
almost certain he was sent, although I cannot prove it, belike he may have
been one of those Elizabethan gentlemen Shakespeare had in mind when he
wrote in the “Two Gentlemen of Verona”:
“Yet hath Sir Proteus ...
Made use and fair advantage of his days:
His years but young, but his experience old:
His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;
And, in a word (for far behind his worth
Come all the praises that I now bestow)
He is complete in feature and in mind,
With all good grace, to grace a gentleman.”
It sheds some very faint corroborative light on the supposal that Thomas
Ward was the “Mr. Warde” mentioned by Sir Francis Walsingham in the “_Earl
of Leicester’s Correspondence_” (Cam. Soc), that Sir Thomas Heneage, a
trusted diplomatist of Queen Elizabeth in the Low Countries, married Anne
Poyntz, the daughter of Sir Nicholas Poyntz and Margaret Stanley, a
daughter of Edward Stanley Earl of Derby, especially when it is
recollected that the Poyntz and the Wards, of Mulwith, were related.——See
“_Life of Mary Ward_” (Burns & Oates, 2 vols.)
Also a “Mr. Wade” mentioned, by Walsingham to Leicester in a letter dated
3rd April, 1587, may have been really “Warde.”——See Wright’s “_Elizabethan
Letters_,” vol. ii., p. 335.
Again, “_The Calendar of State Papers_,” Domestic Series, 1581-90, gives,
page 93, a Thomas Warde, as an examiner for the Privy Council, taking down
evidence in the cause of Robert Hungate and wife _v._ John Hoare and John
Shawe, in the year 1583.]