"This advertisement being made known to his Majesty and the Lords, their Lordships found not good, coming as it did in that fashion, to give much credit to it, or to make any apprehension of it by public show, nor yet so to contemn it as to do nothing at all in it, but found convenient the night before under a pretext that some of his Majesty's wardrobe stuff was stolen and embezzled to make search about that place, and to appoint a watch in the old palace to observe what persons might resort thereabouts, and appointed the charge thereof to Sir Thomas Knyvet, who about midnight going by change into the vault by another door, found the fellow, as is said before,[206] whereupon suspicion being increased, he caused some few faggots to be removed, and so discovered some of the barrels of powder, merely, as it were, by God's direction, having no other cause but a general jealousy."[207] If the word 'chance' had been found in the real letter, it could hardly be interpreted otherwise than to imply a negative of the earlier visit said to have been followed by a resolve on the King's part to search farther. As the word stands, it may be accepted as evidence that an earlier visit had taken place. How could Knyvet go 'by change' into the vault by another door, unless he or someone else had gone in earlier by some other approach? It is, however, the positive evidence which may be adduced from this letter, which is most valuable. The letter is, as I said, a mere hurried draft, in all probability never sent to anyone. It is moreover quite inartistic in its harking back to the story of the arrest after giving fuller details. Surely such a letter is better calculated to reveal the truth than one subsequently drawn up upon fuller consideration. What is it then, that stares us in the face, if we accept this as a genuine result of the first impression made upon the writer--whether he were Munck or Salisbury himself? What else than that the Government had no other knowledge of the plot than that derived from the Monteagle letter, and that not only because the writer says that the discovery of the powder was 'merely as it were, by God's direction, having no other cause but a general jealousy,' but because the whole letter, and still more the amplified version which quickly followed, is redolent with uncertainty. Given that Suffolk's mission in the afternoon was what it was represented to be, it becomes quite intelligible why the writer of the draft should be inclined to leave it unnoticed. It was an investigation made by men who were afraid of being blown up, but almost as much afraid of being made fools of by searching for gunpowder which had no existence, upon the authority of a letter notoriously ambiguous.