On the 9th of October, Sir Thomas Edmondes wrote to Cecil from Brussels[216] to warn him of suspicious symptoms in the Low Countries; and on the following day Cecil wrote to Edmondes[217] expressing apprehensions of trouble from the Jesuits abroad. On the same day, October 10th, Sir Thomas Parry wrote from Paris to the secretary,[218] of a petition which the Catholics were preparing against the meeting of Parliament, "and some further designs upon refusal;" and in another letter informed Edmondes:[219] "somewhat is at present in hand amongst these desperate hypocrites, which I trust God shall divert, by the vigilant care of his Majesty's faithful servants and friends abroad, and prudence of his council at home." That such confidence was not misplaced is shown by Cecil's assurance to Sir Thomas Parry,[220] mentioned above, that the proceedings of the priests were never unknown to Government. Amongst the papers at Hatfield is a curious note, anonymous and undated, giving information of a plot involving murder and treason, which, like the letter to Monteagle, simulates rather too obviously the workmanship of an illiterate person, and artfully insinuates that the design in question is undertaken in the name of religion, and chiefly favoured by the priests.[221] Another remarkable document is preserved in the same collection. This is a letter written to Sir Everard Digby, June 11th, 1605, and treating of an otter hunt to be undertaken when the hay shall be cut. It has, however, been endorsed by Salisbury, "Letter written to Sir Everard Digby--Powder Treason."[222] Not only is it hard to see how the terms of the document lend themselves to such an interpretation, but the date at which it was written was fully three months prior to Digby's initiation in the conspiracy. The idea is certainly suggested that, far from being passive and indolent, the authorities were sedulously seeking pretexts to entangle as many as possible of those "great of name," concerning whom we have already heard from one of their informers. This much, at any rate, seems clear. Those at the centre of this complex web of espionage, to whom were addressed all these informations and admonitions, cannot have been, as they protested somewhat overmuch, in a state of careless inactivity, depending for security only upon the protection of the Almighty, "who," as the secretary afterwards piously declared, "blessed us in our slumber [and] will not forsake us now that we are awake."[223]