Robert and Thomas Wintour - Thomas's Confession

Thomas's Confession

Historically, much of what is written about the Gunpowder Plot is derived from Thomas's confession, signed on 23 November 1605; details of the so-called Spanish Treason were added three days later. One of only two confessions printed in the King's Book (a highly partial contemporary account of the affair), Thomas Wintour's was the only account the government had of a plotter who had been involved from the beginning; Guy Fawkes, weakened by days of torture, may have been at the heart of the group, but he was not at its first meetings. However, Antonia Fraser views the document with suspicion, not least because Thomas's signature, 'Thomas Winter', differs from his normal signature, 'Thomas Wintour' (it was the former that was invariably used by the government). The signature, possibly forged by lieutenant of the Tower of London William Waad, was made only weeks after Thomas had been shot in the shoulder during the siege at Holbeche House. Biographer Mark Nicholls views the difference in signatures as a significant and puzzling lapse, if a "master forger" is presumed to be responsible for the document. He views the handwriting on the confession as "convincingly that of Winter ", pointing out that it appears to be the work of an author, not an editor, and written as a draft for the King's Book. This is a view that generally, Alan Haynes agrees with: "no one has ever made a solid and sensible suggestion about why a government-employed forger (say Thomas Phelippes) would deliberately make such an error in a crucial state document".

Another of Fraser's concerns is Waad's report to Salisbury on 21 November: "Thomas Winter doth find his hand so strong as after dinner he will settle himself to write that he hath verbally declared to your Lordship adding what he shall remember"—or rather, what he was told to remember. A draft of Thomas's confession, in Coke's handwriting, places extra weight on the involvement of the Jesuits. Thomas's confession also details his account of the mine supposedly dug toward Parliament, not mentioned in Fawkes's first confession.