Oates and Tonge now planned a bolder stroke. On August 30 Danby received news from Tonge, for Oates was at this time still unknown to him, that letters telling of treasonable designs had been sent to Father Bedingfield, the Duke of York’s Jesuit confessor, and might be intercepted at the Windsor post-office. Danby instantly returned to Windsor and showed Tonge’s letter to the king. He was met by the announcement that Bedingfield had already been at the post-office. The confessor had found a packet awaiting him. It contained four letters, ostensibly from priests of his order known to him but not in their hands, and a fifth in the same style. All were apparently of dangerous concern, full of mysterious phrases which seemed of no good meaning. Bedingfield took the letters to the duke, who showed them to the king. Thus when Danby arrived at Windsor his news was stale. Charles believed still less in the existence of a real plot. The letters were transparent forgeries. Purporting to be written by different persons, from different places, at different dates, they bore a curious likeness one to another. The paper on which they were written bore the same watermark and appeared to have been cut from one sheet. In every case the name signed was misspelt. Throughout, the writing was disfigured by the same blemishes of style and spelling. Only one of the letters contained a single stop, and that seemed to have been made accidentally. Oates professed afterwards that the handwriting was disguised and that the writers made mistakes on purpose, should the letters be intercepted, to lull the reader to false security. A Jesuit in London, who scented the discovery of the plot, had sent warning to Bedingfield, and the confessor had handed his letters to the duke with the express intention of showing them to be counterfeit and himself to be innocent. Thus, declared the informer with indignation, they had been made to appear the work of forgery. So far as the last goes, Oates spoke the truth. They were patently the composition of himself and his confederate. A tribute to the unscrupulous energy of those who adopted the plot for political purposes is paid by the fact that these letters were suppressed and never brought forward as evidence, although three of the men who were supposed to have written them were afterwards tried for treasons of which, had they been genuine, the letters would have afforded strong proof. Oates met the rebuff by going at Kirkby’s instigation to swear to the truth of his story before a London magistrate. But at court the intriguers were badly received. Kirkby and Tonge called several times on the Treasurer, only to be refused admittance, and when Charles met his old acquaintance he passed by him without word or look.[129]