Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/537

] join in the persecution and malignment of Mary. He refused, even at Elizabeth's request, to join the "association" for the assassination of Mary on any pretence of Elizabeth being in danger. He had taken no part in the examination of Babington and his accomplices. Though named in the commission for Mary's trial, he did not attend, or sign the sentence, as others who absented themselves did; and, still worse, instead of imitating the pliant conduct of the ministers, he maintained the correctness of his proceeding, and even imprudently alluded on his trial to the murder-suggesting message of the queen to Paulet. The following account of him before his examiners, as given by Strype, is sufficiently convincing that he would never escape the vengeance of Elizabeth:—"Did not her majesty give it in commandment to you to keep the warrant secret, and not utter it to any one?



He answers that she gave it to him without any such commandment, which he affirmeth as in the presence of God. Did she command you to pass it to the great seal? He answers affirmatively, and mentions such circumstances as, he trusts, will bring that commandment to her recollection. Did she not, after it had passed the great seal, command you, on your life, not to let it go out of your hand? In answer he protesteth before God that he neither remembereth nor received any such command. Did she ever command you to deliver it to anybody? As she did not expressly command him to deliver it, so did he never understand her meaning to be other than to have it proceeded in. Did she not, six or seven days afterwards, tell you she had a better way to proceed therein? He