pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[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 savage practise"[39]—yet he was not even brought to trial, while other serving-men were tried and executed.[40]

It is questionable whether Salisbury, unless agreeing with Coke's opinion of Vavasour's guilt, would have allowed the allusion to appear in the official report of the trial, prepared by himself and sanctioned by the King;[41] as, if innocent of the treason, an intolerable injustice would have been done to Vavasour by the publication, which probably neither the King nor Salisbury would have permitted, in making a senseless attack upon the reputation of an innocent man, who would certainly have protested.

Without, however, assuming too advanced ideas of justice for the time, it is unlikely that so capable a person as Salisbury appears to have been,[42] could fail to perceive that the publication of the Attorney-General's opinion of Vavasour's guilt must, in the absence of any prosecution, call attention to Vavasour, and thus furnish a clue to the writer of the letter. Salisbury, though generally fair-minded, might not trouble himself about Vavasour's reputation, but he would about his own, which would be affected by his failure, after his strongly expressed determination, in bringing to justice ALL who were concerned in such a treason; and this would still apply, even if Coke's published allusion to Vavasour's guilt was merely counsel's rhetoric. Coke, however, at the moment when making that allusion, was not declaiming upon the treason, but simply stating a fact about Tresham, with the King listening; and in alluding to Vavasour, he expresses what is in his mind—"whom I think deeply guilty in this treason": evidently his deliberate opinion, which he would have every opportunity of forming, as, with the exception of Salisbury and the conspirators, he would know more of the workings of the plot than anyone. Salisbury's chief concern, apparently, was at all costs to keep Vavasour silent, which he did; while his anxiety "to leave the further judgment indefinite" respecting the writer of the letter, plainly shows that the matter would not bear inquiry.

The only possible conclusion, therefore, is that Vavasour wrote the anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle, which the identity of the handwriting absolutely confirms.