The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document: Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy FawkesSpink, Henry
History
The Gunpowder Plot and Lord Mounteagle's Letter, Being a Proof, with Moral Certitude, of the Authorship of the Document: Together with Some Account of the Whole Thirteen Gunpowder Conspirators, Including Guy Fawkes
Spink, Henry
Gunpowder Plot, 1605; Monteagle, William Parker, Baron, 1574 or 1575-1622
[Footnote 93:——The exact words of Lingard are these:——“Winter sought a
second interview with Tresham at his house in Lincoln’s Inn Walks, and
returned to Catesby with the following answer: That the existence of the
mine had been communicated to the Ministers. This Tresham said he knew:
but by whom the discovery had been made he knew not.”
Lingard does not give his authority, but probably he got the material for
this important passage from “_Greenway’s_ (_vere_ Tesimond’s) _MS._” It is
an historical desideratum that this MS. should be published. Mounteagle,
conceivably, may have falsely told Tresham that the Government already
knew of the mine, in order to alarm him the more effectually; but, most
probably, it was an inference that Tresham himself erroneously drew from
Mounteagle’s words, whatever may have been their precise nature.
Mounteagle possibly said something about “the mine,” and that the
Parliament Houses would be with minuteness searched far and near. This
would be quite sufficient to inflame the already heated imagination of
Tresham, and he would readily enough leap forth to the conclusion that the
“mine” must be for certain known to the Government.
One can almost feel the heart-beats of the distraught Tresham as one reads
the relation of his second interview with Winter. Then from the pulsations
of _one_ human heart, O, Earth’s governors and ye governed, learn _all_.
For the study of true History is big with mighty lessons and “he that hath
ears let him hear.” Let him hear that Truth and Right, although each is,
in its essential nature, a simple unity, and _therefore_ imperially
exclusive in its claims, and _therefore_ intolerant of plurality, of
multiplicity, of diversity, yet that each of these high attributes of the
eternal and the ideal is the mistress not only of man’s god-like
intellect, but also of his heart and will. And _these_ two faculties are
likewise of divine original and have severally a voice which perpetually
bids man, poor wounded man, “be pitiful, be courteous” to his fellows. For
human life at best is “hard,” is “brief,” and “piercing are its sorrows.”]
[Footnote 94:——The meeting between Catesby, Winter, and Tresham, at
Barnet, on the road to White Webbs, was on Friday, the 1st of November,
the day the Letter was shown to the King.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account