Holograph in Domestic State Papers, James I, 16.30, November 1605. On 26 October 1605 William Monteagle brought to Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury – James’s closest adviser (see Letter 3, headnote) – a letter he had received advising him to stay away from the coming parliament, and warning of ‘a terrible blow’ shortly to be inflicted on it. A search conducted on 4 November revealed twenty barrels of gunpowder stacked in the basement of Westminster Hall, awaiting detonation. Guy Fawkes and several of his colleagues were immediately arrested, and tried early in 1606. Jonson, a fellow Catholic, is known to have been at supper with a number of the conspirators at William Patrick’s lodgings in the Strand on or about 9 October 1605 (Electronic Edition, Life Records, 29). The precise nature of Jonson’s connection with the Gunpowder Plot is unclear, though it is hard to believe he had no suspicion that something sinister was afoot. De Luna (1967) speculates freely on the possibilities. Durst, 1970, 85, and others have assumed with little evidence that he was acting as a government spy. After the discovery of the Plot Jonson prudently directed a poem of congratulation to Monteagle (Epigr. 60), and agreed to help Robert Cecil, who was leading the commission investigating the conspiracy. On 7 November Jonson received a warrant from the Privy Council (Life Records, 30) allowing him to escort an unnamed priest to visit the lords and give testimony about the plot. In the present letter, dated 8 November 1605, Jonson reports to Cecil his lack of success in securing the priest, but assures Cecil that he is working zealously on his behalf. Teague (1998) suggests that the priest in question was Father Thomas Wright, the Jesuit thought to have converted Jonson to Catholicism in 1598 (Life, 1.xciv); arguing that Cecil intended to employ Wright in the questioning of Guy Fawkes, who had been captured on 5 November and was now undergoing torture. Fawkes made a number of confessions on 7, 8, and 9 November As Teague shows, Wright later appeared before the Privy Council, perhaps as a result of Jonson’s persistent searches, with a warrant ‘sub-signed with 12 Privy Counsellors’ hands’. Wright’s role was ‘to persuade and assure Fawkes . . . that he was bound in conscience to utter what he could of that conspiracy’ (Broughton, 1621/1974, cit. Teague, 250). Martin and Finnis (2005), on the other hand, argue that Wright – who had not been closely associated with the English Jesuits or the ringleaders in the plot – was not the principal object of the Council’s search, but ‘a second-best, found by the Council after Jonson’s mandate proved fruitless’. They plausibly suggest that the primary suspect was Father Thomas Strange, a Jesuit who had been closely involved with the plotters, and named as a person of interest in a report to Cecil on 5 November by Chief Justice Popham. Strange had in fact been arrested north of Warwick on 7 November, but reports of his detention were slow to reach Cecil. Though kept for years in solitary confinement in the Tower, where he was repeatedly tortured and interrogated, Strange was never convicted, but was eventually ransomed and exiled in 1610.

Ian Donaldson