The gallant _Eagle_, soaring vp on high: Beares in his beake, _Treasons_ discouery. MOVNT, noble EAGLE, with thy happy prey, And thy rich _Prize_ to th' _King_ with speed conuay.]
Moreover, Monteagle's services received most substantial acknowledgment in the form of a grant of £700 a year,[243] equivalent, at least, to ten times that amount in money of the present day.[244] There still exists[245] the draft preamble of the grant making this award, which has been altered and emended with an amount of care which sufficiently testifies to the importance of the matter. In this it is said of the letter that by the knowledge thereof "we had the first _and only_ means to discover that most wicked and barbarous plot"--the words italicised being added as an interlineation by Cecil himself. Nevertheless, it appears certain that this is not, and cannot be, the truth; indeed, historians of all shades equally discountenance the idea. Mr. Jardine[246] considers it "hardly credible that the letter was really the means by which the plot was discovered," and inclines to the belief[247] that the whole story concerning it "was merely a device of the government ... to conceal the means by which their information had been derived." Similarly Mr. J.S. Brewer[248] holds it as certain that this part, at least, of the story is a fiction designed to conceal the truth. Mr. Gardiner, who is less inclined than others to give up the received story, thinks that, to say the least of it, it is highly probable that Monteagle expected the letter before it came.[249]
For a right understanding of the point it is necessary to consider the character of the man who plays so important a part in this episode. Lord Monteagle, the eldest son of Lord Morley, ennobled under a title derived through his mother, was, in Mr. Jardine's opinion,[250] "a person precisely adapted for an instrument on such an occasion;" and the description appears even more applicable than was intended. He had been implicated in all the doings of the turbulent section of the English Catholics[251] for several years, having taken part in the rising of Essex, and in the Spanish negotiations, whatever they were, conducted through the instrumentality of Thomas Winter. With Catesby, and others of the conspirators, he was on terms of the closest and most intimate friendship, and Tresham was his brother-in-law. A letter of his to Catesby is still preserved, which, in the opinion of some, affords evidence of his having been actually engaged in the Powder Plot itself;[252] and Mr. Jardine, though dissenting from the view that the letter proves so much, judges it not at all impossible or improbable that he was in fact privy to the conspiracy. It is likewise certain that up to the last moment Monteagle was on familiar terms with the plotters, to whom, a few days before the final catastrophe, he imparted an important piece of information.[253]