George Vavasour's handwriting upon the last leaf of the MS. (Facsimile No. 5) shows a much more refined and educated hand than his brother's, from which the writing is in every respect different. A small "s" is invariably used in commencing a word with that letter; the "t's " are quite different; the "w" finishes with an inner, not an outer loop; the "g's" have no flat tops; and the "hangers" of the "h's" do not descend below the line. The writing is evidently an educated hand for the time, and cannot readily be imagined as using small "i's" for the first person, such as are used in, and seem to accord so well with, the much less educated handwriting of the warning letter.
WILLIAM VAVASOUR, the Tresham family serving-man, is thus not only conclusively proved to have written the anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle, but most probably was also the "unknown man of a reasonable tall personage" who is so quaintly described in the Government story as having delivered the letter.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Calendared by the Historical MSS. Commission. "Report on MSS. in various Collections, vol. iii., 1904. The MSS. of T.B. Clarke-Thornhill, Esq., of Rushton Hall, by Mrs. R.C. Lomas." These important family papers were preserved and discovered in a curious manner. In 1828, when making alterations at Rushton Hall, on removing a partition wall, they were found with some theological books in a large bundle wrapped in a sheet, which had been built into a recess in the wall. As the papers, commencing in 1576, with a few of earlier date, end in November, 1605, they were probably thus hidden away on Tresham's arrest.
[47] "Calendar," p. 59.
[48] Ibid., p. 89.
[49] "Students admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547-1660" (1877).
[50] "Calendar of Tresham Papers," p. 90.
[51] His name does not appear in the list of Sir Thomas's ten livery servants as retained while the establishment was at Hoxton before Monteagle's tenancy, of which the accounts are with the Tresham Papers. Under the stable charges is the keep of a horse for Thomas Vavasour, the father (ibid., pp. 47, 50).