Part 3

FRANCIS TRESHAM'S CONFIDENCE WHEN IN THE TOWER

Upon Tresham's death in the Tower (December 23, 1605), the Lieutenant wrote to Salisbury: "I find his friends were marvellous confident if he had escaped this sickness, and have given out in this place that they feared not the course of justice."[43] As the late Dr. Gardiner observed: "This confidence they could only have derived from himself, and it could only have been founded on one ground."

Had Tresham's committal to the Tower been otherwise than a mere formality, or "a farce," neither his wife nor his servants would under any circumstances have been permitted to attend or even see him whatever the state of his health might have been; and had he survived, nothing serious would have been done to him,[44] any more than was done to his "deeply guilty" servant Vavasour.

Tresham, though dreading, as he said, "the infamous brand of an accuser,"[45] was as evidently the Informer to the Government, either directly or indirectly through Monteagle, as his servant Vavasour was the writer of the letter.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 43: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvii. 58.]

[Footnote 44: He left no male issue, and was succeeded in the family property by his next brother Lewis, who was created a baronet June 29, 1611, one of the second batch of baronets made on the institution of that Order the previous May 22 by James I.]

[Footnote 45: "State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi. 63.]

VI

THE VAVASOURS AS DEPENDANTS OF THE TRESHAM FAMILY

The Tresham Papers[46] contain much information respecting the Vavasours as dependants of that family. Sir Thomas Tresham had a bailiff or collector, named Thomas Vavasour, an old and much valued Catholic servant,[47] who had, with perhaps other children, two sons, George and William, and a daughter, Muriel. George, who had been educated, was in June, 1596, sent up by his father with a letter to Sir Thomas, then in town, in order that he might be entered at one of the Inns of Court, as Sir Thomas might advise: "Mr. Francis Tresham has encouraged him in this kind of study and the cost already bestowed must not be lost. He knows he has nothing else to trust to but his learning, nor does he seem so fit for anything else."[48] He was accordingly admitted to the Inner Temple in November of that year,[49] where Lewis Tresham (Sir Thomas's second son) had been admitted the previous November, and to whom there is an allusion of George Vavasour acting as tutor.[50] William Vavasour, the other son, was servant to Sir Thomas, and though not so educated as his brother George, was not a livery-servant or footman,[51] but appears to have held a similar or superior position with Sir Thomas, to that which Bates, who kept his own man,[52] held with Catesby, a kind of secretary-valet of the time.[53] After Sir Thomas's death he served his eldest son Francis Tresham in the same capacity; while the sister Muriel Vavasour, who bore the same (then uncommon) Christian name as Lady Tresham, and may have been her god-daughter, became "gentlewoman without livery" at £5 yearly[54] to Lady Monteagle, who was Lady Tresham's daughter. Both George Vavasour and his brother William were confidentially employed by Francis Tresham as amanuenses, where secrecy was necessary in transcribing religious or political treatises, such as were then circulated amongst Roman Catholics, and, being treasonable, dared not be printed.

On December 1, 1605, the Attorney-General, while investigating the conspiracy, obtained two MS. volumes which had been found in George Vavasour's chambers in the Inner Temple. One, officially described as a "quarto" volume, though an octavo (8-1/4 x 5-3/4), entitled "A Treatise against Lying,"[55] was stated by George Vavasour, on examination[56] to have been lent him by Francis Tresham to copy,[57] and the copy he had made was contained in the folio, the other MS. found. He denied any knowledge of the handwriting in the "quarto" volume, except that he had recopied the last page (61), in order to replace a torn leaf, bearing in Latin the Imprimatur of George Blackwell, Archpriest of the English Jesuits. William Tresham (Francis Tresham's youngest brother), on being examined by Coke, said that he thought the "quarto" MS. was in William Vavasour's handwriting, who was formerly his father's servant, and since serving his eldest brother in the Tower.[58] William Tresham may have seen Vavasour so employed at home and would know his writing; while George Vavasour might not wish to bring his brother into question. The folio MS. has disappeared, but the "quarto" copy, as ascribed to William Vavasour, is now with Archbishop Laud's MSS. (No. 655) in the Bodleian Library, and was published in 1851.

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 partition 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" (1877).]

[Footnote 50: "Calendar of Tresham Papers," p. 90.]

[Footnote 51: His name does not appear in the list of Sir Thomas's ten livery servants as retained while the establishment was at Hoxton before Monteagle's tenancy, of which the accounts are with the Tresham Papers. Under the stable charges is the keep of a horse for Thomas Vavasour, the father (_ibid._, pp. 47, 50).]

[Footnote 52: "Examination of Christopher Story, Thomas Bates's man" ("State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvi. 28, 1).]

[Footnote 53: It will be remembered that Salisbury in the official story describes Ward, who was Monteagle's secretary, as "one of his men."]

[Footnote 54: Each of the other female attendants and servants, even "Mawdlyn the Frenchwoman" at £10 yearly, have a livery ("Calendar of Tresham Papers," p. 50).]

[Footnote 55: The manuscript was originally entitled "A Treatise upon Equivocation," which was altered by Father Garnet into "A treatise against Lying & fraudule't dissimulatio'. Newly overseen by ye Authour & published for the defence of Innocency, & for the Instructio' of Ignora'ts." It purports to show when equivocation may "lawfully" be used, and may have been compiled by Garnet, as the title-page and the annotations throughout are in his handwriting. The folio manuscript by George Vavasour was evidently a fair copy of the revised "quarto," and Tresham's reason for having it made.]

[Footnote 56: "Examination of George Vavasour, of the Inner Temple, Gent., December 9, 1605" ("State Papers, Domestic," James I., ccxvi. 151).]

[Footnote 57: He also confessed having transcribed the treatise "De Officio Principis Christiani" (Further examination, December 13, 1605, _ibid._, ccxvi. 155). Coke alluded to these manuscripts at the trial as "certain heretical, damnable and treasonable books discovered." He said: "There is in Tresham's book, 'De Officio Principis,' an easier and more expedite way than all these to fetch the crown off the head of any king christened whatsoever, which is this that: '_Princeps indulgendo hæreticis, amittit regnum._'--If any prince shall but tolerate or favour heretics, he loseth his kingdom." This shows the confidential nature of the Vavasours' employment as amanuenses by Tresham in such matters.]

[Footnote 58: Examination of William Tresham, December 9, 1605 ("State Papers, Domestic," James I., xvii. 23).]

THE END

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