Importance of the letter received by Lord Monteagle--Extraordinary prominence given to it--Monteagle's character--He receives the letter--Suspicious circumstances connected with its arrival--It is shown to Cecil--Hopeless contradictions of the official narrative as to what followed--Impossibility of ascertaining what actually occurred--The French version of the story--The conduct of the government at variance with their own professions--Their inexplicable delay in making the discovery--They take no precautions against the recurrence of danger--The mystery of the gunpowder--Incredibility of the official narration.
Probability that the government had an agent among the conspirators--Suspicious circumstances regarding Percy--His private life--His alleged intercourse with Cecil--His death.
Catesby and Tresham likewise accused of secret dealings with Cecil--Catesby's falsehood towards his associates and Father Garnet--Tresham's strange conduct after the discovery--His mysterious death.
Alleged positive evidence against the government.
A monopoly secured for the official narrative, which is admittedly untruthful--Suspicions suggested by such a course, especially in such a case--The confessions of Faukes and Winter, on which this narrative is based, deserve no credit--Nor does the evidence of Bates against Greenway--Indications of foul play in regard of Robert Winter--The case of Owen, Baldwin and Cresswell; assertions made respecting them of which no proof can be produced--Efforts to implicate Sir Walter Raleigh and others--Falsification of evidence--The service of forgers employed.
Catholic writers have drawn their accounts from the sources provided by the government.
Cecil well informed as to the real nature of the conspiracy, and apprehends no danger from it--At once turns it to account by promoting anti-Catholic legislation--Honour and popularity resulting to him--Ruin of the Earl of Northumberland--Cecil's manifesto--His alleged attempt to start a second plot.
The popular history of the Plot, and how it was circulated--Singular suitability of the Fifth of November for the "Discovery."
APPENDIX A. NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS 235
APPENDIX B. SIR EVERARD DIGBY'S LETTER TO SALISBURY 245