CHAPTER LXXIII.
A few final words as to Thomas Ward (or Warde), who was, I hold, no less than Edward Oldcorne and his Penitent, the joint arbiter of destinies and the controller of fates.
Indeed, as previously stated in an earlier portion of this Inquiry, my own opinion is that Christopher Wright probably unlocked his burthened heart to his connection, Thomas Ward, of whose constancy in friendship he would be, by long years of experience, well assured, at a time anterior to that at which he unbosomed himself to the holy Jesuit Priest, that skilled, wise, loving minister of a mind diseased.
While Ward, on his part, readily and willingly, though at the imminent risk of being himself charged as a knowing accomplice and accessory to the Plot, undertook the diplomatic engineering of the whole movement, whereby the Plot was so effectually and speedily spun round on its axis, even if well-nigh at the eleventh hour.
In bidding farewell, a long farewell, to Thomas Ward, the following extracts from a letter of Sir Edward Hoby[179] to Sir Thomas Edmunds, Ambassador at Brussels, are important, although some of the passages have already appeared in the earlier part of this Inquiry: —
“Such as are apt to interpret all things to the worst, will not believe other but that Lord Mounteagle might in a policy cause this letter to be sent, fearing
the discovery already of the letter; the rather that one Thomas Ward, a principal man about him, is suspected to be accessory to the treason. Others otherwise ... some say that Fawkes (alias Johnson) was servant to one Thomas Percy; others that he is a Jesuit and had a shirt of hair next his skin.
“Early on the Monday [vere Tuesday] morning, the Earl of Worcester was sent to Essex House to signify the matter to the Earl of Northumberland, whom he found asleep in his bed, and hath done since his best endeavour for his apprehension ... Some say that Northumberland received the like letter that Mounteagle did, and concealed it ...
“Tyrwhyt is come to London; Tresham sheweth himself; and Ward walketh up and down.”[180] (The italics are mine.)