the statement at her husband's dictation. Vavasour was then examined in the Tower by Chief Justice Popham and by Coke, when he confessed[26] that he wrote the dying statement at his master's dictation, and had denied it through fear, which could only arise from having written some other and less innocent letter for him.

Vavasour, when writing his untrue statement, would avoid using his ordinary handwriting, as already appearing in the letter in question (No. 3), which he had ascribed to Mrs. Tresham. He, therefore, disguises his writing, so far as having to write off-hand and under the observation of the Lieutenant of the Tower and an attendant Justice, with the consciousness that he is writing what is false, and while having to be careful not to reproduce his former disguised hand, as seen in the anonymous letter, permits him; and the hand thus produced betrays him as the writer of that letter, with which the writing is, in itself, identical. The long "s" is invariably used for a word commencing with that letter, even when not a capital; there are the same peculiar "t's," though in a less disguised or elaborated form than those of the anonymous letter, but there they clearly are; the "w's" have no side loops, but in Vavasour's note at foot of No. 3 a conspicuous example is seen; there are no "g's";[27] the "y's" are particularly noticeable, being in two varieties: Vavasour's ordinary "y," of which the tail is tucked back; in the other, the tail is brought forward; and no one can fail to see that the latter are by the same hand as those in the letter; the "hangers" of the "h's" invariably drag below the line; and generally, the writing may throughout be detected as by the same hand that wrote the anonymous letter.

The best specimen of Vavasour's handwriting, although not so useful as No. 4 for identification purposes, is in the MS. entitled "A Treatise against Lying," etc., identified by William Tresham as having been transcribed by Vavasour for Francis Tresham, which is now in the Bodleian Library (Facsimile No. 2). To anyone familiar with the handwriting of the period, Vavasour's writing is the usual law-writer's or copyist's hand, such as appears in conveyances and deeds of the time,[28] and is not the style of hand that an educated person would then write. Each initial "s" is of the long form; each "w" has a side loop; the "g's" are flat-topped; and the "h's" come below the line, etc. Tresham's dying statement (No. 3) appears to be in a similar but smaller[29] and less carefully written hand. Vavasour wrote a neat, small hand, which, when disguising, the probability is that he would attempt an opposite style. If it were not for the testimony of the Lieutenant of the Tower, that the untrue statement (No. 4) was actually written in his presence by Vavasour, the writing would not, from the general appearance, readily be recognized as by the same hand that wrote Tresham's dying statement (No. 3), and so acknowledged by Vavasour. This shows that he was naturally clever in disguising his hand, hence his employment by Tresham in writing the anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle.

Upon the evidence of the handwriting alone, William Vavasour was the writer of that letter.[30]