Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/55

1551.] Palmer, on the 7th of October, came to Lord Warwick's house, and 'in my Lord's garden,' writes Edward, 'he declared how St George's day last past, my Lord of Somerset, who was then going to the north, if the Master of the Horse, Sir Win. Herbert, had not assured him of his honour he should have no hurt, went to raise the people, and the Lord Grey went before to know who were his friends. Afterwards a device was made to call the Earl of Warwick to a banquet with the Marquis of Northampton and divers others, and to cut off their heads. Also, he formed a base company about them by the way to set upon them. He declared also, that Sir Ralph Vane had two thousand men in readiness; Sir Thomas Arundel had assured my Lord that the Tower was safe; Mr Partridge should raise London, and take the Great Seal with the apprentices; Seymour and Hammond should wait upon himself, and all the horses of the gensdarmes should be slain.'

Such was Palmer's story—truth and falsehood being mingled together; truth, because part of it was confirmed by other witnesses, and confessed by the Duke himself; falsehood, because Warwick (or Northumberland, as he was immediately to be) confessed before his own death that the Duke of Somerset had through his means been falsely accused; and Palmer, also, before his death, declared that the evidence to which he had sworn had been invented by Warwick, and had been