This letter from Vittoria, urging her husband not to be seduced to swerve from the path of honour and duty, is recorded by most of the writers; and Visconti asserts, that it was the means of inducing Pescara to abandon the idea of betraying his sovereign. At all events, the existence of such a letter is very strong evidence that Pescara had _not_ from the first informed Charles of the plot, but _had_ at least hesitated whether he should not join in it, inasmuch as his communications to her upon the subject had given her reason to fear lest he should do so. On the other hand, it is fair to observe, that several of those concerned in the intrigue saw reason to suspect the possibility of Pescara's having from the first listened to their overtures only to betray them; as is proved by extant letters from one to another of them.[179] Perhaps this, too, was consistent with the nicest honour, as defined "by the ordinances of canon and civil law." But whether he were a traitor to his king or not, he was determined to shrink from no depth of treachery towards his dupes, that could serve to ingratiate him with his master. While still feigning to accede to their proposals, he sent to Morone to come to him at Novara, that all might be arranged between them. Morone, against the advice of many of his friends, and, as Guicciardini thought,[180] with a degree of imprudence astonishing in so practised and experienced a man, went to the meeting. He was received in the most cordial manner by Pescara, who, as soon as they were alone together, led him to speak of all the details of the proposed plan. The trap was complete; for behind the hangings of the room in which they were sitting, he had hidden Antonio da Leyva, one of the generals of the Spanish army, who arrested him as he was quitting the house, and took him to the prison of Novara, where Pescara the next day had the brazen audacity to examine as a judge the man whom a few hours previously he had talked with as an accomplice.[181]