Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/176

King's condition.^[1] The guard at the Tower was doubled, and a rumour spread in London that Elizabeth had been sent for to be married to Lord Warwick, whose wife was to be divorced to make room for her. A few days later Scheyfne reported that something (he knew not what) was going forward. Five hundred men had been quietly introduced into Windsor Castle by Northampton. He had been privately informed that the same nobleman, with Suffolk and two or three others, was going down into Hertfordshire, to form a cordon silently round Hunsdon, to take possession of Mary's person, when the signal should be given them from London. With evident alarm, he added that Pembroke was one of the conspirators,^[2] which, May 25.on the 25th of May, received a further and a strange confirmation. On that day London was startled with three extraordinary marriages extraordinary, and, considering the King's illness, and the rank of the ladies concerned, in the highest degree indecent. Lady Catherine Dudley was married to Lord Hastings. The two elder daughters of the Duke of Suffolk, princesses of the blood, and possible heirs of the crown, were disposed of together; Lady Jane Grey to Lord Guilford Dudley; and Lady Catherine to Pembroke's son, Lord Herbert. There had been an alarm lest Mary or Elizabeth might make some objectionable alliance with a foreigner. Care was taken that there should be

1. Scheyfne.
2. Northumberland said afterwards that Pembroke was the first originator of the plot. This is not likely; but the evidence does not warrant a certain conclusion.