ote 7: Various attempts have been made to explain the nature of
the danger alluded to, which the King and Salisbury at the time, and
others since, have understood as in allusion to the danger of the plot.
Jardine describes it as "mere nonsense" ("Gunpowder Plot," 1835, p. 73).
But the meaning clearly is the danger of the letter being discovered.
The counsel may do him good, and can do him no harm, except through the
danger of keeping the letter, which being burnt, the danger is past.
There is no allusion intended to the danger of the plot, as that, unlike
the danger of the discovery of the letter, could not be affected by
burning the letter.]

[Footnote 8: Tresham's statement made when in the Tower ("State Papers,
Domestic," James I., xvi. 63).]

[Footnote 9: The rental of the Rushton Hall estate alone, as given in
the "Return of Owners of Lands" in 1873, is L5,044 yearly. The Tresham
family also owned property at Hoxton and elsewhere.]

[Footnote 10: He died in the Tower six weeks after writing that letter,
aged thirty-seven.]

[Footnote 11: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi., 63.]

III

IDENTIFICATION OF THE HANDWRITING

The style of handwriting of the letter, as seen in the facsimile, is not
in this writer's opinion, from a familiarity of thirty years with old
scripts, apart from the disguise, the hand that an educated person would
write at the time, but is essentially a commonplace and, no doubt
intentionally, rather slovenly style of handwriting. The use of small
"i's" for the first person seems, in view of modern usage, to suggest an
illiterate writer; but educated writers, even the King,[12] then
occasionally lapsed into using them. In the letter, however, they are
consistently and may have been purposely used, to avert suspicion from
being the work of an educated person; though an illiterate appearance
would rather cause such a letter (if genuine) to be disregarded, than to
deter a nobleman from attending the opening of Parliament, for which
leave or licence was required.

The handwriting has been variously ascribed, but the direction of this
inquiry is indicated by the incautious admission made by Sir Edward
Coke, the Attorney-General at the trial, respecting the real manner in
which the plot was discovered. Salisbury's careful instructions to the
Attorney-General for the trial are with the State papers, in which he
says: "Next, you must in any case, when you speak of the letter which
wa