[440] On this subject Cornwallis wrote to Salisbury (Winwood, ii. 193): "Many reports are here spread of the Combination against your Lordship, and that five English Romanists would resolve your death. It seems that since they cannot be allowed _Sacrificium incruentum_, they will now altogether put in use their sacrifices of blood. But I hope and suppose that their hearts and their hands want much of the vigour that rests in their wills and their pens. Your Lordship doth take especial courage in this, that they single you out as the chief and principal watch Tower of your Country and Commonwealth, and turn the strength of their malice to you whom they hold the discoverer of all their unnatural and destructive inventions against their prince and country," etc. [441] P.R.O. _Dom. James I._ xviii. 97, February 27th, N.S., 1606. The original, which is in Latin, has been utterly misunderstood by the Calendarer of State Papers. [442] Stonyhurst MSS., _Anglia_, iii. 72. [443] Thomas Howard, cr. 1603. [444] To the ambassadors. [445] Father Blount's account is undoubtedly in keeping with what we know of the Earl, and especially of his Countess, who was a sister of Sir Thomas Knyvet, the captor of Guy Faukes. Suffolk, in 1614, became Lord High Treasurer, but four years afterwards grave irregularities were discovered in his office; he was accused of embezzlement and extortion, in which work his wife was proved to have been even more active than himself. They were sentenced to restore all money wrongfully extorted, to a fine of £30,000, and to imprisonment during pleasure. [446] In this letter all proper names are in cipher, as well as various other words. [447] _Church History_, x. 40. [448] We have four Latin epigrams of Milton's, _In proditionem Bombardicam_, which, though pointless, are bitterly anti-Catholic. A longer poem, of 226 lines, _In quintum Novembris_, is still more virulent. It is somewhat remarkable that the universal Shakespeare should make no allusion to the Plot, beyond the doubtful reference to equivocation in _Macbeth_ (ii. 3). He was at the time of its occurrence in the full flow of his dramatic activity. [449] See Appendix L, _Myths and Legends of the Powder Plot_. [450] Brit. Mus. Print Room, Crace Collection, portf. xv. 28. This is reproduced, as our frontispiece. [451] There was a new moon at 11.30 p.m. on October 31st. [452] The reasons assigned in the proclamation for this prorogation are plainly insufficient: viz., "That the holding of it [the Parliament] so soone is not convenient, as well for that the ordinary course of our subjects resorting to the citie for their usuall affaires at the Terme is not for the most part till Allhallowtide or thereabouts." Why, then, had the meeting been fixed for so unsuitable a date? [453] November 7th, 1605. (_Dom. James I._) [454] Tanner MSS. lxxv. 44. [455] _Ibid._