“I doe acknowledge that uppon thursday morninge beeing the 7th of November 1605 my selfe and all the other gentlemen (as I doe remember) did confesse o^{r} sinnes to one Mr. Hamonde Preeste, at Mr. Robert Wintour his house, and amonges other my sinnes I did acknowledge my error in concealing theire intended enterprise of pouder agaynste his Ma^{tie} and the State, having a scruple in conscience, the facte seeminge to mee to bee too bluddye, hee for all in generall gave me absolution without any other circumstances beeing hastned by the multitude that were to come to him. “Ambrose Rookewoode. “Ex^{r} p. Edw. Coke W. Ward.” (Endorsed) “... pouder xx^{th} of January 1605. hamond Declaration of Ambrose Rookewoode of his own hand.” CHAPTER XLI. Now, regard being had to the fact that this kneeling young Penitent was, with his own lips, avowing the commission in _desire and thought_ of “murder most foul as at the best it is”[A] (and “we know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him”[B]), by confessing to a fellow-creature a wilful and deliberate transgression against that “steadfast Moral Law which is not of to-day nor yesterday, but which lives for ever”[C] (to say nothing of his avowal of the commission _in act and deed_ of the crime of sacrilege,[D] in taking a secret, unlawful oath contrary to the express prohibitions of a visible and audible Institution which that Priest and that Penitent alike believed was of divine origin), I firmly, though with great and all-becoming deference, draw _these_ conclusions, namely, that _one of the plotters_ had _already_ poured into the bending ear of his breathless priestly hearer _glad tidings_ to the effect that he (the revealing plotter, whoever he was) had given that one supreme external proof which heaven and earth had then left to him for showing the genuineness of his repentance in regard to his crimes, and the perfectness of his contrition on account of his transgressions, by taking premeditated, active, practical, vigorous steps for the utter frustrating and the complete overthrowing of the prodigious, diabolical Plot. [Footnote A: Shakespeare.] [Footnote B: St. John the Divine.] [Footnote C: Sophocles.]