Note 197 — Chapter IV

It is not easy to understand what became of the cellar during this long interval, and apparently it was left in great measure, with its compromising contents, to take care of itself, for Percy, amongst other places, went with Catesby to Bath to take the waters.[197] If the premises were of so public a nature as the testimony of Winter and others would imply, it appears impossible that they should have remained all this time sealed up, or that these astute and crafty plotters should with a light heart have ignored the probability that they would be visited and inspected. As Father Greenway observes,[198] it can hardly be supposed that the landlord[199] had not a duplicate key, while Cecil himself, in his letter to Sir Thomas Parry, plainly indicates that access to the cellar could freely be procured independently of the conspirators. We can only say that the conduct of the confederates in this particular appears to have been quite in keeping with their method of conspiring secretly as we have already seen it, and undoubtedly one more difficulty is thus opposed to the supposition that their enterprise was chiefly dangerous on account of the clandestine and dexterous manner in which it was conducted.