It is unnecessary to go deeply into the question of the discrepancy between the different accounts given by the Government of the manner in which the Monteagle letter was expounded. The probable truth is that Salisbury himself interpreted it correctly, and that his fellow-councillors came to the same conclusion as himself. It was, however, a matter of etiquette to hold that the King was as sharp-witted as Elizabeth had been beautiful till the day of her death, and as the solution of the riddle was not difficult, some councillor--perhaps Salisbury himself--may very well have suggested that the paper should be submitted to his Majesty. When he had guessed it, it would be also a matter of etiquette to believe that by the direct inspiration of God his Majesty had solved a problem which no other mortal could penetrate. We are an incredulous race nowadays, and we no more believe in the Divine inspiration of James I. than in the loveliness of Elizabeth at the age of seventy; and we even find it difficult to understand Father Gerard's seriousness over the strain which the poor councillors had to put upon themselves in fitting the facts to the courtly theory. Nor is there any reason to be surprised at the postponement by the Government of all action to the night of November 4. It gave them a better chance of coming upon the conspirators preparing for the action, and if their knowledge was, as I hold it was, confined to the Monteagle letter, they may well have thought it better not to frighten them into flight by making premature inquiries. No doubt there was a danger of gunpowder exploding and blowing up not only the empty House of Lords, but a good many innocent people as well; but there had been no explosion yet, and the powder was in the custody of men whose interest it was that there should be no explosion before the 5th. After all, neither the King nor Salisbury, nor indeed any of the other councillors, lived near enough to be hurt by any accident that might occur. Smith's wildly improbable view that the shock might have 'levelled and destroyed all London and Westminster like an earthquake,'[202] can hardly be taken seriously. We now come to the alleged discrepancies between various accounts of Fawkes's seizure. Father Gerard compares three documents--(_a_) what he terms 'the account furnished by Salisbury for the information of the King of France, November 6, 1605,' (_b_) the letter sent on November 9 to Edmondes and other ambassadors,[203] and (_c_) the King's Book. On the first, I would remark that there is no evidence, I may add, no probability, that, as it stands, it was ever despatched to France at all. It is a draft written on the 6th, which was gradually moulded into the form in which it was, as we happen to know, despatched on the 9th to Edmondes and Cornwallis. If the despatches received by Parry had been preserved, I do not doubt but that we should find that he also received it in the same shape as the other ambassadors.