Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/66

46 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 57. seen what that commission contained, and the exquisite baseness which it revealed in Norfolk's character, the evidence with which the portions of it known to the Government were brought home to him can have but little interest. Either treason is an imaginary crime, or few political offenders have deserved the scaffold more emphatically than the Duke of Norfolk. The commis- sion itself however never reached the hands of the council. They knew no more than its general purport, the sketch of it contained in the letters of the Queen of Scots which had been found under the mat, and as much as could be learned from the confessions of the secre- taries and the Bishop of Ross. The Duke denied every- thing, and swore that both the Bishop and his secre- taries were lying. He was asked to explain, if he was innocent, the letters which he had written to them from the Tower entreating them not to confess. He was of course silent. The confessions all agreed, and not a doubt remained that the troops of Alva had been invited with the Duke's consent to land at Harwich. Wilbraham, the Attorney of the Wards, who was conducting this part of the case, used the opportunity to touch the eternal chord of English national pride. ' If the Duke of Norfolk had been a true man/ he said, ' and angry at the matter as he now pretendeth, and had done his duty, though they had come, these Walloons, they might have been so beaten of the old English fashion as they were never so swinged in their lives.' ' This point,' says an eyewitness, ' Mr Attorney