David J. Smith's response to Thompson's 2001 article clearly takes the traditional view of Tregian's role by repeatedly referring to the group of four manuscripts as "The Tregian manuscripts." He reproduces two documents with Francis Tregian's name (one of them being HC 2/27, the same one that Thompson and Cole had reproduced) from the Royal Cornwall Museum. Smith states that cultivated gentlemen developed more than one script. Recognizing the differences between signature and the body of the document as well as scribal inconsistencies within the same document, he states "...there is no reason to discard the hypothesis on ground of handwriting alone" and several lines later: "These differences, found within a document written by the same scribe at the same time, point to the pitfalls lying in the way of those who try to prove (or disprove) hypotheses by means of handwriting alone." (This is a false premise since Thompson used handwriting as only one of many elements to her analysis.) Where Thompson argued that the change in music script suggests more than one scribe, Smith uses exactly the same argument to argue in favour of a single scribe, since an individual's handwriting changes over time. He states "The Tregian manuscripts were probably compiled over many years, so inconsistencies in their notation are only to be expected", deliberately ignoring Thompson's findings concerning the paper particularly of the uniformity of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and Mus. 510-514A. Smith notes that both the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and Drexel 4302 have empty ruled staves at their ends which he sees as evidence of a "work in progress." Referring to Thompson's conclusion, Smith states "It seems hardly credible that a scriptorium of professional scribes would have presented incomplete manuscripts to whomever commissioned them", ignoring Thompson's later comment "...the chequered history of manuscripts' compilation may result from changes in the patron's requirements or even a change of patron."