Williamson prepared a detailed schedule of the whole’ (N.R.A. ‘ndorsements on the deeds suggest that there was a careful sorting of all the documents, possibly in the 17th century, but in 1917 Mrs. as they have survived relate only to properties scattered through four counties. ‘Salisbury, although he saw every witness of any importance himself, yet would not see Vavasour nor Mistress Tresham’ (G.B.M., II, P. Vavasour insisted that Anne Tresham wrote the ‘dying’ letter (G.P.B./207). That William Vavasour was made to say that he wrote Francis Tresham’s ‘dying’ note provided the organisers with a hand skilled enough in forgery or altered hands to have written the MonteagIe letter. Evidently, a determined effort was made to keep the name of Anne Tresham out of the story. This, of course, strongly suggests a quid pro quo. who with Waad privately examined William Vavasour in the Tower. But one hopes that an opposing view is based on more than skill, which could be mere forensic adroitness, and on determination which could be another word for obstinacy.ģ8 Sir William Lane was a Northamptonshire J.P. Nicholls, while attempting to refute the basic thesis, was fair enough to admit, ‘such views have found perhaps their most determined and skilful advocate in Fr. Errors occurred which will need to be corrected in any future edition or new work. Nevertheless, it must be insisted that the book was based on extensive research not only in this country but also abroad, notably in Rome, Florence, Spain, Holland and Belgium.

Evidently, such a choice, however desirable in itself, could not be regarded as the highest of recommendations by the world of Academe. Thanks no doubt in large measure to the kindly influence of Lady Antonia Fraser it was chosen as the Book of the Month by PUNCH all those years ago.

The last mentioned book was written for a wide audience. Mark Nicholls’s Investigating Gunpowder Plot published in May, 1991, is a useful reminder that Guy Fawkes: the Real Story of the Gunpowder Plot?, to name nothing else published in or near 1969, has by no means found universal acceptance as the more probable solution of the confused evidence surrounding this bizarre episode.

The Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Fraser