1552.]
NORTHUMBERLAND'S CONSPIRACY.
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not been heard since the Preaching Friars were suppressed. 'If,' said Bernard Gilpin before the Court, 'if such a monster as Darvel Gatheren, the idol of Wales, could have set his hand to a bill to let the patron take the greater part of the profits, he might have had a benefice.'[1] In October, 1552, there was a menace of rebellion.[2] In December, the Government was threatened with some further unknown but imminent danger, which called out from Northumberland the most seeming admirable sentiments, which he knew so well how to affect, and could, perhaps, persuade himself that he felt.[3] In March, so general was the disaffection, that
- ↑ Strype's Memorials.
- ↑ Northumberland to Cecil: MS. Domestic, vol. xiv. Edward VI. State Paper Office.
- ↑ He may have the benefit of his words so far as it will extend. He 'instantly and earnestly required the Lords of the Council to be vigilant for the preventing of these treasons so far as in them was possible to be foreseen;' 'that thereby,' he said, 'we may to our master and the world discharge ourselves like honest men, which, if we do not, having the warning that we have which cometh more of the goodness of God than of our search or care, the shame, the blame, the dishonour, the lack and reproach should, and may justly, be laid upon us to the world's end. The old saying which ever among wise men hath been holden for true, seemeth by our proceedings to be had either in derision or in small memory, being comprehended in these words—mora trahit periculum—beseeching your Lordships, for the love of God and the love which we ought to have to our master and country, let us be careful, as becometh men of honour, truth, and honesty to be. For we be called in the time of trial and trouble; and therefore let us show ourselves to be as we ought to be; that is, to be ready, not only to spend our goods, but our lands and lives, for our master and our country, and to despise the flattering of ourselves with heaping riches upon riches, house upon house, building upon building, and all through the infection of singulare commodum. And let us not only ourselves beware and fly from it as the greatest pestilence in the commonwealth, let us also be of that fortitude and courage that we be not blinded and abused by those that be infected with these infirmi-
