Note 277 — Chapter XVIII · THE LAST DAYS OF NORTHUMBERLAND

Machyn’s Diary, p. 42. The paragraph ends with a reference to their attendance at Mass: “And at the same tym after was send for my lord mer and the aldermen and the cheyffest of the craftes in London, and dyvers of the counsell, and ther was sed mas [Mass] a-for [before] the Duke and the rest of the prisoners.” Was it the sudden arrival of the news that Northumberland was about to return to Catholicism that occasioned the postponement of the execution, in the hope that the Queen, touched by his conversion, might spare him? Most historians, however, assign the 20th as the date of the recantation, which would mean of course that it took place before the postponement of the execution, described by Machyn as having occurred on the 21st.