Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/153

1539.] was cast by the peers on the privy seal. Once it was even reported that Exeter drew his dagger on the plebeian adventurer, who owed his life to a steel corslet beneath his dress; and that Cromwell on that occasion ordered the marquis to the Tower. If the story was true, more prudent counsels prevailed, or possibly there would have been an attempt at rescue in the streets. The relations between them were evidently approaching a point when one or the other would be crushed. Exeter was boldly confident. When Lord Montague's name was first mentioned with suspicion at the council-board (although, as was discovered afterwards, the marquis knew better than any other person the nature of schemes in which he was himself implicated so deeply), he stood forward in his friend's defence, and offered to be bound for him, body for body. This was a fresh symptom of his disposition. His conduct, if watched closely, might betray some deeper secrets. About the same time a story reached the Government from Cornwall, to which their recent experience in Lincolnshire and the north justified them in attaching the gravest importance.