The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Identification of the Writer of the
Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605, by William Parker and Francis Tresham and William Vavasour

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Title: The Identification of the Writer of the Anonymous Letter to Lord Monteagle in 1605

Author: William Parker
Francis Tresham
William Vavasour

Release Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #29777]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANONYMOUS LETTER ***

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THE IDENTIFICATION OF
THE WRITER OF THE
ANONYMOUS LETTER TO
LORD MONTEAGLE IN 1605

"A strange letter, from a strange hand,
by a strange messenger; without date to
it, name at it, and (I had almost said)
sense in it. A letter which, even when it
was opened, was still sealed, such the
affected obscurity therein."

FULLER'S _Church History_, x. 32.

LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL,
HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LTD.
1916

[Transcriber's note:
[***] denotes an asterism, that is, a triangle comprising three asterices.
A carat symbol ^ indicates that the ensuing letters of the word are
superscript letters.]

PREFACE

One of the great mysteries of English history is the anonymous letter to
Lord Monteagle, warning him not to attend the opening of Parliament,
appointed for the Fifth of November, 1605, which is popularly supposed
to have led to the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. The writer's
identity was carefully concealed by the Government at the time; the
intention being, as explained by Lord Salisbury, "to leave the further
judgment indefinite" regarding it. The official statements are,
therefore, as unsatisfactory as might be expected in a matter that, for
State reasons, has not been straightforwardly related. The letter,
however, remaining and in fair preservation, there was always the
possibility of the handwriting being identified; and this, after the
lapse of over three hundred years, is no