It is unnecessary to add any word to this, so far as it affects the complicity of Tresham with Monteagle. I submit, however, that the stronger is the evidence that the letter was prearranged with Monteagle the more hopeless is the reasoning of those who, like Father Gerard, hold that it was prearranged with Salisbury. Salisbury's object, according to Father Gerard's hypothesis, was to gain credit by springing upon the King and the world a partly or totally imaginary plot. If he was to do this, he must have some evidence to bring which would convince the world that the affair was not a mere imposture; and yet it is to be imagined that he contrives a scheme which threatens to leave him in possession of an obscure letter, and the knowledge that every one of the plotters was safely beyond the sea. As a plan concocted by Monteagle and Tresham to stop the plot, and at the same time secure the escape of their guilty friends, the little comedy at Hoxton was admirably concocted. From the point of view of the Government its advantages are not obvious. Add to this that all Salisbury's alleged previous knowledge did not enable him to discover that a mine had been dug till Fawkes told him as late as November 8, and that the Government for two or three days after Fawkes was taken were in the dark as to the whereabouts of the conspirators, and we find every reason to believe that the statement of the Government, that they only learnt the plot through the Monteagle letter, was absolutely true. That the Government dealt tenderly with Tresham in not sending him to the Tower till the 12th, and allowing him the consolation of his wife's nursing when he fell ill, is only what was to have been expected if they had learnt from Monteagle the source of his information, whilst they surely would have kept his wife from all access to him if he had had reason to complain to her that he had been arrested in spite of his services to the Government. After his death, which took place in the Tower, there was no further consideration of him, and, on December 23, the Council ordered that his head should be cut off and preserved till further directions, but his body buried in the Tower.[201]