Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/616

 600 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 67. Iii the Tower therefore Arundel remained, useless thenceforward for the purposes of the Catholics. Lord Northumberland, who was to have risen with him and was to have shared the honour of the revolution, had deserved and would probably have found less gentle treatment. Compromised in the rebellion of 1569, though avoiding treason in the first degree, Sir Henry Percy had escaped with a fine of 5ooo/. The Queen had not only excused him payment, but being unwilling that an old peerage should become extinct, she had revived the earldom in his favour, and with the title he had adopted his brother's politics and had become the chief of a new conspiracy. About his guilt there was no doubt whatever. Charles Paget had come to Eng- land to consult him about the spot where Guise was to land. He deserved no mercy, and lenient as Eliza- beth always was to offenders of high blood, he would probably have found none. Had he been tried he must have been found guilty, and could not reasonably hope to escape execution. To save his property therefore for his children, he anticipated forfeiture, and shot him- self in his room in the Tower. 1 1 It was immediately said that he bolts on the inside. The Catholics had been murdered. He was found dead in his bed, shot with three balls in the breast, with the pistol on the floor, and the doors bolted so it was officially stated on the inside. It was argued that in a place like the Tower a prisoner could not be in possession of a loaded pis- spoke confidently of foul play. They eveu named the person, a servant of Sir Christopher Hatton, by whom the deed was committed. The Go- vernment was confessedly afraid of the report, and anxious to clear it- self, and Catholic historians have found further ground for assuming tol, nor would a prisoner's door have ! t,he murder proved, from a passage