Page:Archaeologia Volume 13.djvu/110

78 Northumberland, who, as appeared by the coroner's inquest, shot himself in the Tower, June 21, 1585. "This earl, as Collins informs us, was suspected to have plotted secretly with Francis Throckmorton, Thomas lord Paget, and the Guises, for invading England, and setting the queen of Scots at liberty, whom he always highly favoured. Whereupon, being soon committed to the Tower, and there kept prisoner, he, on Monday, June 21, 1585, was found dead in his bed, shot with three bullets near his left pap, from a dagge or pistol, his chamber door being barred on the inside. The coroner's inquest having viewed the body, considered the place, found the pistol, with gunpowder in the chamber, and examined his man, who bought the pistol and him that sold it, gave their verdict that he had killed himself. The third day after there was a full meeting of the peers of the realm in the star chamber, where sir Thomas Bromley, lord chancellor, briefly declared, that the earl had been engaged in traiterous designs, and had laid violent hands upon himself, being terrified with the guilty conscience of his offence; and the attorney and solicitor general shewed the reasons why the earl had been kept in prison."

Notwithstanding this weight of evidence Camden has hinted, and that pretty broadly, at some suspicions of foul play on this occasion, in the fallowing words: "Certe boni quam plurimi tum quod natura nobilitati faveant, tum quod præclaram fortitudinis laudem re tulisset, tantum virum tam mifera et miferanda morte periisse indoluerunt. Quæ suspicaces profugi de ballivo quodam ex hattoni famulis, qui paullo ante comiti custos adhibitus, muffitârunt, ut parum compertum omitto, nec ex vanis auditionibus aliquid in- texere visum est."

So that, though we cannot apply the well known lines of Gray, Rh