ls, page 67.)
Garnet, too, confessed that "Catesby showed the [Pope's] breves to my
Lord Mounteagle at the time when Mr Tresham was with him at White
Webbs." (Additional Manuscript 6178, folio 161.) These facts raise a
doubt whether the whole story of Tresham's anxiety to warn Lord
Monteagle was not false, and a mere blind to cover something else, which
perhaps is not now to be revealed. It remains to inquire, Who wrote the
letter? It has been ascribed to three persons beside Tresham: Percy,
Mrs Abington, and Anne Vaux. If it really were a part of the
Government counterplot, as is very probable, it was not likely to be any
of them. If not so, Tresham seems the most likely, though it is
customary to charge Mrs Abington with it. Lord Monteagle would at once
have recognised his sister's writing, and perhaps that of her intimate
friend, his wife's cousin, Anne Vaux. Why Percy should be supposed to
have written it is a mystery. The handwriting is undoubtedly very like
that of Anne Vaux; indeed, for this reason I suspected her as the writer
on the first investigation, and before I knew that she had ever been
charged with it. Dr Jardine votes decidedly in favour of Tresham. The
real truth respecting this matter will in all probability never be known
in this world.

Lord Monteagle was in the Essex rebellion, for which he was fined and
imprisoned until the end of 1601; but he was in high favour with King
James, probably owing to his strenuous efforts to secure his succession.
He died in 1622, leaving three sons and three daughters.

A characteristic letter from this nobleman is yet extant, which shows
his style and tone, and has not, I believe, been printed. It is that
summoning Catesby to Bath, and if it were written in 1605, rather
confirms the supposition that the writer was an accomplice. Dr Jardine
and others suppose it, I know not why, to belong rather to 1602. It
runs as follows:--

"To my loving kinsman, Rob Catesbye Esquire, give these. Lipyeat. If
all creatures born under the moons sphere cannot endure without the
elements of aier and fire In what languishment have we led our life
since we departed from the dear Robin whose conversation gave us such
warmth as we needed no other heat to maintain our healths: since
therefore it is proper to all to desire a remedy for their disease I do
by these bind the by the laws of charity to make thy present aparance
here at the bath and let no watery Nimpes divert