tempted, and for
which the conspirators had already been executed: so "heinous, horrible
and damnable"[32] was it considered, that the authorities had even
proposed to devise some specially severe form of torture for the
perpetrators to undergo, in addition to the usual terrible penalty for
high treason.[33]

Coke, who it will be remembered was the most eminent counsel and the
greatest jurist of the time, however desirous he would be of bringing to
light everything connected with such a treason upon the occasion, would
scarcely, as legally representing the Crown in his capacity of the
King's Attorney-General, express so extremely damaging an opinion
without sufficient reason. There is something in his mind concerning
Vavasour,[34] respecting whom he is not satisfied; and it can only be
Vavasour's having written, not the letter to Salisbury--as that could
not possibly implicate him, nor render him "deeply guilty" in a treason
_which had been discovered and ended six weeks before the letter to
Salisbury was written_--but that other and most treasonable letter to
Monteagle, for there was nothing else against him in the matter.[35]
Coke evidently knows, or suspects, that Vavasour wrote the warning
letter; and he cannot understand why he is not brought to trial.[36] He
therefore expresses his opinion of Vavasour's guilt as strongly as
possible, and even describes him with what for an Attorney-General in
ordinary circumstances would be a singular redundancy of legal
expression, as being "deeply guilty" in the treason.[37] No one would
know better than the Attorney-General that in high treason itself the
law makes no distinction whatever of degrees of guilt, nor can there
even be an accessory: once participant, whatever the part played may be,
all alike are principals.

Coke's statement in Court has been officially in print for over three
hundred years, yet no investigator seems to have noticed it and so have
been led to inquire what was done to Vavasour?--by which alone a clue
might have been obtained to the writer of the letter.[38] Although
Vavasour was publicly stated by the Attorney-General to be "deeply
guilty" in a treason of which Salisbury wrote: "I shall esteem my life
unworthily given me when I shall be found slack in searching to the
bottom of the dregs of this foul poison, or lack resolution to further
to my small power the prosecution and execution of ALL those whose
hearts and hands can appear foul in this sav