The king, not having leisure to peruse them, sent them to the treasurer, Danby, and ordered the two informers to lay the business before that minister.

Tongue confessed to Danby, that he himself had not drawn the papers; that they had been secretly thrust under his door; and that, though he suspected, he did not certainly know who was the author.

After a few days, he returned, and told the treasurer, that his suspicions, he found, were just; and that the author of the intelligence, whom he had met twice or thrice in the street, had acknowledged the whole matter, and had given him a more particular account of the conspiracy, but desired that his name might be concealed, being apprehensive lest the Papists should murder him.
The information was renewed with regard to Grove's and Pickering's intentions of shooting the king; and Tongue even pretended, that, at a particular time, they were to set out for Windsor with that intention.
Orders were given for arresting them, as soon as they should appear in that place: but though this alarm was more than once renewed, some frivolous reasons were still found by Tongue for their having delayed the journey.

And the king concluded, both from these evasions, and from the mysterious, artificial manner of communicating the intelligence, that the whole was an imposture.
Tongue came next to the treasurer, and told him, that a packet of letters, written by Jesuits concerned in the plot, was that night to be put into the post-house for Windsor, directed to Bennifield, a Jesuit, confessor to the duke.

When this intelligence was conveyed to the king, he replied, that the packet mentioned had a few hours before been brought to the duke by Bennifield, who said, that he suspected some bad design upon him; that the letters seemed to contain matters of a dangerous import, and that he knew them not to be the handwriting of the persons whose names were subscribed to them.