Note 435 — Chapter IX

When we remember the terms in which the secretary had previously described him, as well as the result about to ensue, it is not a little startling to remark with what emphasis it was protested, in season and out, that a ruling principle of the government's action was to do nothing which might even seem to cast a slur upon the earl's character, while at the same time the very point is artfully insinuated which was to be turned against him.[435] Thus in the "King's Book," in explanation of the curious roundabout courses adopted in connection with the "discovery," we are told that a far-fetched excuse was devised for the search determined upon, lest it might "lay an ill-favoured imputation upon the Earl of Northumberland, one of his Majesty's greatest subjects and counsellors; this Thomas Percy being his kinsman and most confident familiar." So again Cecil wrote to the ambassadors: "It hath been thought meet in policy of State (all circumstances considered) to commit the Earl of Northumberland to the Archbishop of Canterbury, there to be honourably used, until things be more quiet. Whereof if you shall hear any judgment made, as if his Majesty or his council could harbour a thought of such a savage practice to be lodged in such a nobleman's breast, you shall do well to suppress it as a malicious discourse and invention, this being only done to satisfy the world that nothing be undone which belongs to policy of State, when the whole monarchy was proscribed to dissolution; and being no more than himself discreetly approved when he received the sentence of the council for his restraint."