There are fifty “articles” against them, conceived in the same spirit, of more or less importance.
[248] Sir William Parr to Henry VIII.: MS. State Paper Office, Letters to the King and Council, Vol. V. Rolls House MS. first series, 76.
[249] Sir William Parr to Cromwell: MS. State Paper Office, second series Vol. XXXI.
[250] Baga de Secretis.
[251] Lord Hussey may have the benefit of his own denial. Cromwell promised to intercede for him if he would make a true confession. He replied thus:—
“I never knew of the beginning of the commotion in neither of the places, otherwise than is contained in the bill that I did deliver to Sir Thomas Wentworth, at Windsor. Nor I was never privy to their acts, nor never aided them in will, word, nor deed. But if I might have had 500 men I would have fought with them, or else I forsake my part of heaven; for I was never traitor, nor of none counsel of treason against his Grace; and that I will take my death upon, when it shall please God and his Highness.”
In a postscript he added:
“Now at Midsummer shall be three years, my Lord Darcy, I, and Sir Robert Constable, as we sate at the board, it happened that we spake of Sir Francis Bigod, (how) his priest, in his sermons, likened Our Lady to a pudding when the meat was out, with many words more; and then my Lord Darcy said that he was a naughty priest; let him go; for in good sooth I will be none heretic; and so said I, and likewise Sir Robert Constable; for we will die Christian men.”—MS. State Paper Office, second series, Vol. XVIII.
[252] “And whereas your lordship doth write that, in case the consciences of such persons as did acquit Levening should be examined, the fear thereof might trouble others in like case, the King’s Majesty considering his treason to be most manifest, apparent, and confessed, and that all offenders in that case be principals, and none accessories, doth think it very necessary that the means used in that matter may be searched out, as a thing which may reveal many other matters worthy his Highness’s knowledge; and doth therefore desire you not only to signify their names, but also to travel all that you can to beat out the mystery.”—Privy Council to the Duke of Norfolk: Hardwicke State Papers, Vol. I. p. 46.
[253] The list is in the Rolls MS. first series, 284. Opposite the name of each juror there is a note in the margin, signifying his connexions among the prisoners.