[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE HOUSE OF PEERS, 1755.]
This is, however, by no means the only information of which we find traces. Amongst the Cecil papers at Hatfield is a letter dated December 20th, 1605, addressed to the Earl of Salisbury by one Thomas Coe, who claims to have previously forwarded to his Majesty "the primary intelligence of these late dangerous treasons," upon which communication the historian Lodge observes,[207] "It should seem then that the famous letter transmitted to James by Lord Monteagle, for the right construction of which that Prince's penetration hath been so highly extolled by some historians, was not the only previous intelligence communicated to him of the Gunpowder Treason."
Meanwhile the officers of the government, in all parts, appear to have been no less alert than was their wont. On the 9th of January, 1604-5, for instance, Sir Thomas Parry writes from Paris,[208] inclosing a note from an informer at Dieppe, concerning an English Catholic returning from Italy and Spain with letters for Fathers Garnet and Oldcorne, and a cipher of three lines for a lawyer at Douay, and although the messenger has contrived to give him the slip, he is able to send particulars concerning his personal appearance, and the locality in London where he is likely to be found. On the 25th of the same month, Cecil replies to Parry[209] concerning priests and their doings, and makes the valuable admission that their proceedings are always known to him by means of false brethren, though, he adds, these informers always add to their intelligence "sophistications" of their own, a fact which must not be lost sight of in studying the reports of such folk. We hear particularly of informations supplied by the priests Bagshawe and Cecil, by Captain Turner, Charles Paget, and sundry others.
At the beginning of October, 1605, we make the acquaintance of another notable informer. On the first of the month, William Willaston, then engaged on a commission in France in connection with a proposed commercial treaty, writes to Cecil from Paris[210] concerning a Catholic design attributed chiefly to priests and Jesuits, who have assurance that their friends in England, who are many and of good sort, intend "to kindle a fire in many corners of our land, and a rebellion in Ireland," and that these matters be almost grown to a head, "some of their fingers itching to be set to work." Willaston adds, "there is a particular irreconcilable desperate malice against your Honour's person, which is principally the cause I make bold to write unto your Lordship. You have yet the papists in your hands, and are masters; if you let them increase and grow so insolent, assuredly it will come to pass as to the King of Israel, who having overthrown Benhadab ..." and so on.