Blackwell revealed something of the plot to the government through an intermediary, the recusant John Gage, who had married Margaret, the daughter of Sir Thomas Copley. When Gage wrote to Sir Robert Cecil, on 28 June, Cecil was already aware of plotting. The Catholic returned exile and conspirator Anthony Copley had also written to Blackwell about the Bye Plot; he was Sir Thomas Copley's son and therefore Gage's brother-in-law. Blackwell had written to Gage; Cecil assumed there was something more behind these exchanges, so that he asked Gage to produce Blackwell before the Council. It has been suggested that Copley consciously played the double agent.