On Montagu and Digby fell the brunt of the attack;[239] the former appeared rather frightened and said little, but Sir Kenelm, who was gifted with an amazing flow of speech on every occasion, answered copiously and apparently candidly. The scene, though in one respect it was tragical enough, was not without humour. The eloquent knight began by eulogizing his audience, with some irony, perhaps, as "the gravest and wisest assembly in the whole world, whose Majesty is so great that it might well disorder his thoughts and impede his expressions"; nothing of this awe appears, however, in his speech. He assured the House that the contribution had a very simple origin, namely, the wish of the Catholics to follow the example of other loyal subjects who were helping the King in his necessity, that Con was the chief agent in the matter, on account of his unrivalled acquaintance among the English Catholics, persons of whom it was a mistake to suppose that he, Sir Kenelm, had any particular knowledge, and that the chief motive appealed to was that of gratitude for the partial suspension of the penal laws. As to the amount collected, he had no precise information. Sir Basil Brook was the treasurer, and £10,000 had been paid in at one time and £2000 at another. Sir Kenelm had played his part well. He had said a very little in a great many words, and he had kept the real originator of the scheme, the King himself (who must have been a little nervous of the possible revelations of the garrulous knight), well hidden. Indeed, the principal point upon which the Commons fixed was the status of Con, as to whom they may well have been curious, since their imagination had endowed him with alarming powers, and with three wives all living at the same time. Montagu was closely cross-questioned on the matter, but all that he would say was that he believed Con to be a private envoy to the Queen, in spite of the fact that he was sometimes called a nuncio. Digby airily asserted that he had no accurate knowledge of the question under discussion, as he had taken pains to remain ignorant of these dangerous matters. He added, almost as an afterthought, that once at Whitehall he had heard Rosetti say that he renounced any jurisdiction of which he might be possessed.