Part 3 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE No. 4.

William Vavasour's handwriting in his _untrue_ statement written in the presence of the Lieutenant of the Tower, that No. 3 was written by Mrs.

Tresham. Dated March 23, 1605-6. (State Papers, Domestic. James I.

ccxvi. 207.)

[***]To avoid detection of his falsehood, he writes a hand quite different from his ordinary writing in Nos. 2 and 3, thus producing a hand which is in itself identical with his former disguised writing as seen in the anonymous letter (No. 1).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FACSIMILE No. 5.

George Vavasour's handwriting on the last leaf, which he renewed for Francis Tresham, of the MS. int.i.tled ”A Treatise against Lying, &c.”

(Laud MSS. 655, folio 61.)]

George Vavasour's handwriting upon the last leaf of the MS. (Facsimile No. 5) shows a much more refined and educated hand than his brother's, from which the writing is in every respect different. A small ”s” is invariably used in commencing a word with that letter; the ”t's ” are quite different; the ”w” finishes with an inner, not an outer loop; the ”g's” have no flat tops; and the ”hangers” of the ”h's” do not descend below the line. The writing is evidently an educated hand for the time, and cannot readily be imagined as using small ”i's” for the first person, such as are used in, and seem to accord so well with, the much less educated handwriting of the warning letter.

WILLIAM VAVASOUR, the Tresham family serving-man, is thus not only conclusively proved to have written the anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle, but most probably was also the ”unknown man of a reasonable tall personage” who is so quaintly described in the Government story as having delivered the letter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 46: Calendared by the Historical MSS. Commission. ”Report on MSS. in various Collections, vol. iii., 1904. The MSS. of T.B.

Clarke-Thornhill, Esq., of Rushton Hall, by Mrs. R.C. Lomas.” These important family papers were preserved and discovered in a curious manner. In 1828, when making alterations at Rushton Hall, on removing a part.i.tion wall, they were found with some theological books in a large bundle wrapped in a sheet, which had been built into a recess in the wall. As the papers, commencing in 1576, with a few of earlier date, end in November, 1605, they were probably thus hidden away on Tresham's arrest.]

[Footnote 47: ”Calendar,” p. 59.]

[Footnote 48: _Ibid._, p. 89.]

[Footnote 49: ”Students admitted to the Inner Temple, 1547-1660”