Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/34

&EIGN OP ELIZABETH. JCH. 57. be proceeded against as a private person. 1 Thus forti- fied, the council ordered that the Bishop should be brought back to London. They told him briefly that his practices had been fully discovered, and that unless he answered truly to the questions which would be put to him, 'he should be made to suffer to the example and terror of all others.' The Bishop was a brave man : on his way up out of Cambridgeshire he had received a message from La Mothe that the Duke had confessed to no particulars, and that he might stand out in a general denial. He assumed u high tone. He declared that he had done nothing of which they had a right to complain. He was privi- leged, and if he had exceeded his commission he was only answerable to his mistress. Cecil replied sternly that his answer had been anticipated and provided for, and that his privileges were not to be respected. He was allowed two days to consider what he would do, and he was supplied with proofs that La Mothe had been mistaken, and that much, if not all, of the transactions with Ridolfi was really known. Had he been aware that Elizabeth had refused to allow him to be tortured, he might have remained obstinate ; 2 but he saw before 1 Opinions on the privileges of Ambassadors, October 17 : MUKDIN. 2 The Spanish story says that the Bishop was tortured. ' Al Obispo de Eoss,' says a correspondent of the Spanish Court, ' han dado tormento y forc,adole a declarar todo lo que le preguntaron tocante al Duque de Norfolk.' But to the regret of Doc- tor Wilson, one of the examiners who believed that the rack might have been applied to good purpose, it never came to this extremity. ' The Bishop of Ross,' says Wil- son ' when he found it useless to con- ceal the truth, confessed much, and would have confessed more, both he and others, if they had been more