Note (Back to Main Text) — Chapter V · CALAIS.

The characters of the persons who were concerned in this new plot against Mary's throne will not require much further elucidation. Sir Henry Dudley was Northumberland's cousin—the same who had been employed by the duke as an agent with the French court; the rest were eager, headstrong, not very wise young men, who, in the general indignation of the country at the barbarity of the government, saw an opportunity of pushing themselves into distinction. Lord Willoughby, Lord Westmoreland, and Lord Oxford were suspected by the queen of being unsound in religion; they had been reprimanded, and Oxford was thought likely to lose his lands.[557] If the first move could be made successfully, the conspirators counted on general support from these noblemen, and indeed from the whole body of the lay peers.