Continent, amounted merely to an assurance that a treason was
hatching; but respecting the traitors and their proceedings they could
learn nothing. These intimations undoubtedly rendered Cecil and James
suspicious of the letter to Monteagle; but the letter conveyed the first
certain intelligence that the danger was so near and so imminent.

When Cecil had read the letter, he laid it before the lord chamberlain
and the earls of Worcester and Northampton. Monteagle was anxious that
it should receive every consideration. They immediately connected the
letter with the intelligence respecting the designs of the papists, of
which they had been previously warned. It was determined, therefore, to
submit the letter to the king, and not to take any steps in the business
until they had obtained his majesty's orders.

On Thursday, October 31st, the king returned from Royston; and the next
day Cecil submitted the letter to his inspection. It appears that Cecil
offered no opinion concerning the letter; he merely placed it in his
majesty's hands. After a little pause, the king expressed an opinion
that it ought not to be despised. Cecil, perceiving that the king viewed
the matter more seriously than he had anticipated, referred him to one
sentence, _"for the danger is past as soon as you have burnt the
letter,"_ which he conceived must have been written by a fool or a
madman, since if the danger was past as soon as the letter was
destroyed, as if burning the letter could ward off the danger, the
warning was of small consequence. The king connected the expression with
the former sentence, _"That they should receive a terrible blow at this
parliament, and yet should not see who hurt them."_ Taking the two
sentences together, the king immediately fancied that there was an
allusion to some attempt by gunpowder. An insurrection, or any other
attempt, during the sitting of parliament, could not be unseen; could
not be momentarily executed. The king interpreted the clause thus, that
the danger would be sudden and as quickly over as the burning of the
paper in the fire, taking the words _as soon_ in the sense of _as
quickly_. He suggested, therefore, that the letter must refer to an
explosion of gunpowder, and that the spot chosen for it must be under or
near the House of Lords.

It is remarkable that Cecil himself had intimated to some of his
colleagues, before the king's return from Royston, that the letter must
refer to an explosion of g