 Although at first he was uncooperative, on 13 November Tresham confessed to being involved in the plot, outlining his version of events to his interrogators. Moving his family from the safety of Rushton was, he pointed out, not the action of a man who believed he was taking them into "the very mouth and fury" of the plot. He admitted to the government that he was guilty only of the plot's concealment, denying that he had ever been an active member of the conspiracy, although by the end of the month he had also admitted his involvement in the Spanish Treason of 1602 – 1603. He claimed to have persuaded Thomas Wintour and Thomas Percy to postpone the explosion, and that he had planned to inform the king's secretary Thomas Lake of a "Puritan conspiracy". Fraser views much of his confession as "highly partial ... not only for his own sake but for that of his wife and children", and important in serving to highlight his unreliability.
