Note 116 — Chapter III

It may be added that amongst modern historians who have given special attention to this period, several, though repudiating the notion that Cecil originated the Plot, are strongly of opinion that as to the important episode of the "discovery," the traditional story is a fabrication. Thus, Mr. Brewer[116] declares it to be quite certain that Cecil had previous knowledge of the design, and that the "discovery" was a fraud. Lodge[117] is of the same opinion, and so is the author of the Annals of England.[118] Jardine[119] inclines to the belief that the government contrived the letter to Monteagle in order to conceal the means by which their information had in reality been obtained. Mr. Gardiner, though dismissing the idea as "absurd," acknowledges that his contemporaries accused Cecil of inventing the whole Plot.[120]