[26] State Papers.
[27] See chap. iv.
[28] This abjuring the king’s land was an act of self-banishment, akin in its effects to the old Roman penalty of aquæ et ignis interdictio. Any criminal who took sanctuary might escape the law, provided that within forty days he clothed himself in sackcloth, confessed his crime before the coroner, and after solemnly abjuring the land, proceeded, cross in hand, to some appointed port, where he embarked and left the country. If apprehended within forty days he was again suffered to depart.—Note in Thom’s ‘Stow,’ p. 157.
[29] It was based on a passage in the commentaries of Jerome Cardan. Cardan, in a calculation of the horoscope of Edward VI., amidst much astrological rubbish relates, on hearsay, his authority being the Bishop of Lisieux, that seventy-two thousand criminals had perished by the executioner in the reign of Henry VIII.—Froude, iii. 227.
[30] Froude.
[31] Stowe’s ‘Survey,’ p. 72.
[32] Fabian’s ‘Chronicle.’
[33] ‘Maitland,’ i. 226.
[34] Cromwell’s house was in the city in Throgmorton Street, close to the site of the monastic house of the Austin Friars.
[35] This Benedict Spinola must have been an Italian with some influence. His personal relations with Burghley are manifest from a letter of congratulation sent by him to Burghley on the safe arrival of the Earl of Oxford at Milan. Other more or less confidential matters are mentioned in connection with Pasqual and Jacob Spinola, Benedict’s brothers.