treachery. If it be true that Somerset confessed, either in the court or the Tower, that he had really meditated murder, he was no better than Northumberland; interest or sympathy is alike wasted upon either, and Palmer's evidence may, in that case, have been exaggerated only because the intended crime was certain, though the proof was insufficient. Yet, if Northumberland had but anticipated a blow which had been aimed against himself, his conduct would scarcely have sat so heavily on his conscience. Scarcely, too, would Cranmer or Ridley, unlike the pious flatterers of the now all-powerful statesman, have risked his anger with 'shewing their consciences' in such a cause.[1]
But if to the historical inquirer it seems doubtful whether the guilt was on both sides or but on one, the world at the time entertained no such uncertainty. So deep was the excitement, so general the suspicion of the verdict, that it was found necessary to overawe London two days after with a parade of the gendarmerie. Arundel and Paget were examined in the Star Chamber with closed doors, but a second trial was a risk too great to be ventured.
When Parliament was prorogued in October, there
- ↑ 'I have heard that Cranmer, and another, whom I will not name, were both in high displeasure; the one for shewing his conscience secretly, hut plainly and fully, in the Duke of Somerset's cause; and both of late, but especially Cranmer, for repugning against the spoil of the Church goods taken away without law or order of justice, by commandment of the higher powers.'—Ridley's Lamentation on the State of England: Foxe, vol. vii. p. 573. Ridley must be supposed to mean himself by the ' other ' whom he will not name.
