In the King’s Book, after describing Salisbury’s first visit to James in
“the privie gallerie” of Whitehall Palace, it is stated that it was
arranged that there should be another meeting on the following day,
Saturday, the 2nd of November.
The precise words of the Royal Work are these: “It was agreed that he
[_i.e._, Salisbury] should the next day repair to his Highness; which he
did in the same privie gallerie, and renewed the memory thereof, the Lord
Chamberlaine [_i.e._, Suffolk] being then present with the King. At what
time it was determined that the said Lord Chamberlaine should, according
to his custom and office, view all the Parliament Houses.”
This pre-arranged meeting with the King on the Saturday was duly held just
one week after the delivery of the Letter, Salisbury and Suffolk the Lord
Chamberlaine being present thereat; and I suggest that, most probably,
Mounteagle himself was, if not then actually within ear-shot, yet not afar
off.
Now it is evident from Lingard’s “_History_” that Tresham had told Winter
that the Government had already intelligence of the existence of “the
mine.”[92]
Tresham also told Winter that he (Tresham) knew not how the Government had
obtained this knowledge (vol. ix., p. 72).
The inevitable inference, therefore, that reason demands should be drawn
from these statements of Tresham is that Mounteagle must have _either_
sent for his brother-in-law, _or_ gone himself to see him, and that
Mounteagle then must have told the terrified Tresham that he (Mounteagle)
knew for a fact that a mine had been digged,[A] and that the same
information probably that very day (Saturday) would be imparted to the
King’s Government likewise.[93]
[Footnote A: I hold that the probabilities are that Christopher Wright
told Thomas Ward of the existence of the mine: that Thomas Ward told
Mounteagle: that Mounteagle told Tresham: and that Tresham told Winter.
Thus would be the concatenation complete, naturally and easily, with no
link missing.]
This explanation, moreover, stands unspeakably more to reason than the one
which woodenly says that Tresham himself revealed the dread secret
respecting the mine to Mounteagle, and that then, out of his own mouth,
the unhappy man hazarded self-condemnation in the presence of the astute
Winter only one day after his (Tresham’s) life had been in the gravest
possible jeopardy at Barnet, near White Webbs, from the poniards of the
infuriated Catesby _and_ Winter.[94]