"Sir Henry Wotton says 'twas usual with Cecil to create plots, that he might have the honour of the discovery, or to such effect.
"The Lord Mounteagle knew there was a letter to be sent to him before it came. (Known by Edmund Church, Esq., his confidant.)
"Sir Everard Digby's sons were both knighted soon after, and Sir Kenelm would often say it was a State design, to disengage the king of his promise to the Pope and the King of Spain, to indulge the Catholics if ever he came to be king here; and somewhat to his purpose was found in the Lord Wimbledon's papers after his death.[327]
"Mr. Vowell, who was executed in the Rump time, did also affirm it so.[328]
"Catesby's man (George Bartlet),[329] on his death-bed, confessed his master went to Salisbury House several nights before the discovery, and was always brought privately in at a back door."
Then, in answer to an objection of Fulman's, is added: "Catesby, 'tis like, did not mean to betray his friends or his own life—he was drawn in and made believe strange things. All good men condemn him and the rest as most desperate wretches; yet most believed the original contrivance of the Plot was not theirs."
Whatever else may be thought of the above statements, they at least serve to contradict Mr. Jardine's assertion,[330] that the notion of Cecil's complicity,—which he terms a strange suggestion, scarce worthy of notice,—was first heard of long after the transaction, and was adopted exclusively by Catholics. Clearly it was not unknown to Protestants who were contemporaries, or personally acquainted with contemporaries, of the event. Yet the document here cited was known to Mr. Jardine, who mentions one of its statements, that relating to Lord Monteagle, but says nothing of its more serious allegations.
It must also be remarked that we find some traces in the evidence which remains of certain mysterious conspirators of great importance, concerning whom no investigation whatever appears to have been made, they being at once permitted to drop into the profoundest obscurity, in a manner quite contrary to the habitual practice of the authorities.
One such instance is afforded by the testimony of a mariner, Henry Paris, of Barking,[331] that Guy Faukes, alias Johnson, hired a boat of him, "wherein was carried over to Gravelines a man supposed of great import: he went disguised, and would not suffer any one man to go with him but this Vaux, nor to return with him. This Paris did attend for him back at Gravelines six weeks. If cause require there are several proofs of this matter." None of these, however, seem to have been sought.