Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/376

 360 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 66. abroad ; and the Queen of Scots, while she was affecting to treat with Elizabeth, had agents in Paris, between whom and herself there was a constant interchange of ciphered letters. The most active of these were Charles Paget, son of Henry VIII. 's minister, and younger brother of Lord Paget, who was perhaps one of the six ; William Parry, who, pretending to be a spy of Burgh- ley's, was in fact betraying him ; Charles Aruudel, brother of Sir Matthew. Arundel of Wardour; and a person who was afterwards the unwilling cause of the Queen of Scots' execution, named Thomas Morgan. 1 1 In the natural exasperation of the Catholic conspirators, when their plots were defeated and exploded, Morgan was suspected of treachery. He was seized, carried to Brussels, and examined by Parma, to whom he related his history. As he be- can.e a person of so much conse- quence it is worth recording. He was the son of a Welsh gentleman, and was born in 1543. When he was eighteen he was put into the household of the Bishop of Exeter, and became afterwards secretary to Young, Archbishop of York, with whom he remained till the Arch- bishop's death in 1570. These two prelates, he said, were violent Cal- vinists. He was himself a Catholic, but had concealed his cieed, and had received church preferment from them, though a layman, worth four thousand crowns a year. When Young died, excited by the rising of the North, he resolved to devote himself to the service of the Queen of Scots. J/ord Northumberland and the Earl of Pembroke recom- mended him to Lord Shrewsbury, and in the loose custody in which the Queen of Scots was held, he was soon able to be useful to her. He managed her correspondence, and as Shrewsbury's secretary he was able to read and communicate to her whatever passed between his master and the Court. When her rooms and boxes were to be searched he had notice beforehand, and con- cealed her papers. After three years of this employment, he was dis- covered, and sent to the Tower un- der a charge of having been ac- quainted with the Ridolfi conspiracy. There he continued ten months, and the most suspicious circumstance about him was that at the end of that time he was dismissed un- punished. The Tower gates, he ad- mitted, were rarely opened to Ca- tholic prisoners, except on condition that they turned traitors. Many