Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/478

458 bad been proclaimed by Act of Parliament, but the motber of Reginald Pole bad been exempted by name from the benefit of it. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that, after so long a delay, her punishment should have been suddenly resolved upon without provocation either from the Countess or from her friends. It may have been that Sir John Neville was acting under instructions from her. It may have been that he had unwisely desired, of his own accord, to strike a blow for the Church and for the head of his family. The impulses, the desires, the secret communications which were circulating below the surface of society have left few traces by which to follow them. At any rate, as the 'manlike' Margaret Plantagenet would have disclaimed and disdained indulgence on the plea of her sex, so the treason of women in the sixteenth century was no more considered to be entitled to immunity than their participation in grosser crimes is held so entitled in the nineteenth. The Countess had written a letter to her son of professed disapproval of his conduct, under the direction of the Government. She had corresponded with him secretly in a far different tone; and she had darkened the suspicions against her by a denial of all knowledge of the conspiracies of Lord Montague and Sir Geoffrey Pole, where her complicity had been proved. The last provocation which sealed her fate was perhaps an act of her own—perhaps it was the precipitate zeal of her friends—perhaps, like her brother the Earl of Warwick, she had committed only the fresh crime of continuing to be dangerous. Be it as