Copy of letter from Francis Tresham[?] to William Parker, Lord Monteagle, October 26, 1605 [manuscript], ca. 1615.

RESTRICTED: Use reproduction first. Digital reproduction, microfilm, and Braunmuller facsimile edition (call number PR1344 .F6 1983) available. Original available by special permission only.

Copy of letter from Francis Tresham[?] to William Parker, Lord Monteagle, October 26, 1605 [manuscript], ca. 1615.

Leaf 45v.

Letter from unnamed correspondent (probably Francis Tresham) warning his brother-in-law not to attend the new Parliament.

Monteagle's showing of this letter to Lord Salisbury led to the discovery of the Gunpowder plot to blow up parliament. The original is in the National Archives, Kew (see the Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1603-1610, p. 237). The writer of this letter has been attributed to Francis Tresham (see article in Oxford DNB) or Christopher Wright (see H.H. Spink's The Gunpowder plot ... 1902). The facsimile edition of V.a.321 identifies the letter's author as Thomas Percy.

A seventeenth-century letter-book : a facsimile edition of Folger MS. V.a. 321 / with transcript, annotation, and commentary by A.R. Braunmuller. Newark : University of Delaware Press, c1983, no. 69.

V.a.321, fol. 45v