On the Friday, Catesby, Thomas Winter, and Tresham met at Barnet, when Catesby angrily accused Tresham of having sent the warning to Lord Monteagle, and Tresham vehemently denied it.
“Marry, it must be you!” said Catesby. “The only ones that harried us touching the saving of persons were you and Mr Keyes, who would fain have saved his master, my Lord Mordaunt; all other were consenting to the general issue that the Catholic Lords should be counselled to tarry away on account of the new statutes.”
“I never writ nor sent that letter, on my honour!” cried Tresham.
Did he speak the truth? No man knows to this day.
On the Saturday, the conspirators had another scare. In Lincoln’s Inn Walks, Thomas Winter met Tresham, who told him in a terrified whisper that Lord Salisbury had been to the King, and, there was grave reason to fear, had shown him the fatal letter. Winter hastened away to Catesby, to whom he communicated the news. For the first time Gatesby’s heart failed him.
“I will be gone!” said he. “Yet—nay, I will stay till Mr Percy come, without whose consent will I do nothing.”
But money was wanted; and one of the moneyed men, who had been drawn into the conspiracy for that purpose, could alone supply it. Tresham, that one who was at hand, took Winter to his apartments in Clerkenwell (Note 2), where he counted out a hundred pounds.
The same night a letter was brought to Salisbury which had been found dropped in the street. A few words of it were in cipher. It purported to be written by E.F. Mak to Richard Bankes: and in it these words occurred:—“The gallery with the passage thereto yieldeth the best of assurance, and a safety of the actors themselves.”
“I hope to behold the tyrannous heretic defeated in his cruel pleasures.” These mysterious hints, coming so quickly after the Monteagle letter, still further alarmed and excited the Council.
The conspirators gathered on Sunday night in the house behind Saint Clement’s—Fawkes, Catesby, Thomas Winter, and the two Wrights. They were shortly joined by Percy. It was late when they parted—parted, to meet all together in this world never any more. Catesby had made up his mind to go down into the country the next day; Percy and the Wrights were preparing to follow; all were ready to escape the moment the necessity should arise, except Fawkes, who was to fire the powder, and Thomas Winter, who said he would tarry and see the end. Some had already departed—Sir Everard Digby to Coughton, the house of Mr Throckmorton, which he had borrowed—where Garnet already was.