Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/61

1551.] November was spent in a series of private examinations of the prisoners in the Tower. Crane, the witness who had supported Palmer, declared, on being cross-questioned, that Somerset's intentions, whatever they were, had been abandoned. Lord Arundel admitted reluctantly, and after many denials, a design formed by himself and the Duke to arrest Northumberland and Northampton at the council, and to compel a change in the mode of government. Hammond, one of the Duke's servants, deposed to a guard which the Duke kept in his ante-room. A collection of questions remain, which were addressed to the Duke himself, though his answers are lost; and these questions are important, as has been well observed, since they contain no allusion to the intended assassination. Other evidence was obtained also, but of an immaterial kind. On the 30th the witnesses were examined severally before the peers who were to sit upon the trial, and they swore all of them that their confessions were true, 'without compulsion, fear, envy, or displeasure.' The next morning, the first of December, at five o'clock, in the winter darkness, the Duke was brought in a barge from the Tower to Westminster Hall. In fear of a demonstration, which the popularity of Somerset made more than likely, an order of council had been sent out the day before, that every household should keep within-doors, and that in each house one