There is a curious letter extant written by Mistress Julia Peyton in her usual almost illegible scrawl and embellished by her more than quaint spelling; it was addressed to her cousin, Sir John Ayloffe, a week or so before the trial, and in it she says:
"I wod Like to know the truth about this Story wich sayth that my lord Stowmaries wil be acused of witchcraft. They do sa he praktised Black Magic, and tried to kil the talor's daughter, so to use her blood for his Arts and his Inkantations. She being a Virgin. They do sa also that her Evidens against Him wil vastly startle Every one. As for me I tak vast Interest in the reprobate and do wish him well at his Trial. The husband of the talor's wench is naut to me. I do not desire to see him become Earl of Stowmaries, but rather that Michael be suksesful."
What other schemes the fair lady now nurtured in her heart we know from the fact that she made several attempts to have access to the prisoner, all of which were unsuccessful, despite the fact that she used the influence of her other admirers to effect her ends, whilst on one occasion she wrote to Cousin John:
"An Michael doth sukseed in getting an acquittal, I pra you bring him to my house forthwith afterwards. Remember good coz that I promisd you twelve thousand pounds if I do marry the Earl of Stowmaries."
But beyond these secret wishes of the fair beauty, and mayhap a sigh of regret or so from pretty lips for the handsome adventurer, popular feeling was raging highly against the accused, and many chroniclers aver that among the many conspirators who were brought to these shameful trials during this time, against none was there so much venomous hatred as there was against Michael Kestyon.
There is this to be remembered—though truly 'tis but weak palliation for the disgraceful antagonism displayed against the accused—that this was the first instance where a man so highly placed as was the Earl of Stowmaries was directly implicated in the plot; he was a sop thrown to the rampant radicalism of the anti-Church party as well as to its intolerant fanaticism.
Public sympathy on the other hand had at once gone out to the dispossessed Earl of Stowmaries, whom the traitor had tried to rob of his wife and had effectually succeeded in robbing of his inheritance.
But retribution for the guilty and compensation for the innocent had come together hand in hand. Michael Kestyon would hang, of course, whereupon the only rightful Lord of Stowmaries would once more come back into his own. The latter with commendable delicacy had left London directly his cousin's arrest became known; he would not stay to gloat over his enemy's downfall.
In fact, for the moment everything that Rupert did was right and proper and worthy of sympathy, and everything that Michael had ever said and done and all that he had never said or done was held up against him by all those who awhile ago were ready to acclaim him as a friend.