with recusants is from a report of one of Walsingham's men, who signs himself PHS.: "He hath been in divers places where I have passed; whose dealing hath been very rigorous, and yet done very small good, but rather much hurt; for in one place, under pretence to seek for Agnus Deis and hallowed grains, he carried from a widow 40/., the which he took out of a chest. A few of these matches will either raise a rebellion, or cause your officers to be murdered.”879

Of George Eliot and the charge of murder against him I have already spoken. That charge had, however, now been entirely wiped out by his good service. He had captured Campion, and had been the means of taking nine other priests; he had been made a yeoman of her Majesty's guard, and had come flaunting into court with his red coat. He had shown too well how intimate he was with the secrets of priests, and his testimony, though evidently forged, was too valuable to lose. Campion took nothing by his impeaching this man's witness.

Sledd, according to Allen, was the man who published the news at Rome about a Spanish fleet being prepared to invade England; and he told one Jerome Vane in Paris that he had published it on the persuasion of some men of great name in England. At Rome and Rheims he was a daily communicant, while he was making his observations with the intention of betraying his companions. Even when he started for England to put his designs into execution, he duly made his confession first. He communicated his observations in France to the English ambassador at Paris, who sent over his informations to the Council. It is possible, but hardly probable, that he was Walsingham's anonymous plot-finder, since his treachery had already been discovered nearly a year before, when he informed against Orton.

It would be rash to admit as true all that Campion in his pleadings forbore to deny. It is plain, by the line of defence he adopted for Cottam and Bosgrave, that his cue was not to deny allegations, but to show their irrelevancy. Thus he did not deny that trumped-up story about the manuscript oaths found in the houses where he had been; he only showed there was no proof that he had left them there, or had administered them.380 So in his explanation of his letter to Pound. If he had explained it then, according to his declaration in the Tower chapel on the 31st of August,—that he had not betrayed any Catholic, that he had discovered no secret, that is, had told of no one who was not already found out,-he would only have given cause for a stricter search; he therefore allowed it to be understood that he had confessed all their names, that nothing remained untold except the confessions which they had made, and those, come rack come rope, he would never reveal. It clearly would have been a gratuitous cruelty on his part to say, "You pretend that you have got out of me the names of all who gave me hospitality. You are mistaken; I only told what I saw you knew; the names that were still secret I would not tell, nor will I." Such a declaration would have opened a vista for informers and pursuivants, and would have subjected the whole Catholic society to endless annoyance.

CHAPTER XVI.

WHEN Campion was carried back to the Tower after his condemnation, he was put into irons, and otherwise hardly used. But he showed such patience, and spoke so gently to those who had to deal with him, that his keeper Delahays, having afterwards Mr. Norton, the rackmaster, in his custody, and comparing the two prisoners' behaviour, declared that, where he had a saint in his keeping before, now he had a devil.

It was not even yet too late for the Protestants to tempt their victim with proffers of life and liberty if he would go over to them, or at least take some steps towards them; and Hopton, the lieutenant, sent Campion's sister to her brother, three days before his death, with a message, that if he would but yield to change his religion he should have a benefice of an hundred pounds a year. He received also a visitor of another kind. "Judas Eliot, when he saw that he was condemned, came to him and said, “If I had thought that you would have had to suffer aught but imprisonment through my accusing of you, I would never have done it, however I might have lost by it." "If that is the case," replied Campion, "I beseech you, in God's name, to do penance, and confess your crime, to God's glory and your own salvation." Then Eliot said he was in great danger, and feared much lest the Catholics should slay him for his treason. "You

are much deceived," said Campion, "if you think that the Catholics push their detestation and wrath so far as revenge; yet to make you quite safe, I will, if you please, recommend you to a Catholic duke in Germany, where you may live in perfect security." This interview had such an effect on Delahays, Campion's keeper, who was present, that he afterwards became a Catholic.

Outside the prison walls there were various conjectures how the affair would end. Most men thought that the Duke of Anjou would intercede, and that the prisoners' lives would be spared; others, with more knowledge of the man, said that the Duke was occupied in quite other affairs, and had not a thought to bestow on Campion. Others, again, spread the report that Campion had killed himself in despair.

In the council-chamber itself there was still indecision. Some of the councillors considered that a man of Campion's genius, knowledge, scholarship, European reputation, gentleness of manner, and integrity of life could not be executed without rousing the indignation of Europe, without wantonly sacrificing one of the ornaments of the English name, or without disgracing the fair fame of English justice, since the trial had been public, and had convinced everybody except the jury that he was innocent of treason. As for the pretence of the Queen wishing him to be put to death, it was notoriously untrue; she wished to save him, especially for the sake of the Duke of Anjou, her accepted suitor, who was then in court, and whom she did not wish to disgust by this exhibition of fury against the teachers of his own religion. Instead, then, it was said, of Campion's death being satisfactory to her Majesty, it would probably bring down her anger on those who had contrived it. On the other hand, the advocates of the execution urged the ridicule of first spending

Hesitation about carrying out the Sentence.

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so much care on securing a sentence, and then being afraid to carry it out; it would be a tacit confession of his innocence and their own guilt; they would have to meet the disgrace of having kept an innocent man so long in prison, and of having subjected him to illegal tortures. As for the indignation of Europe, that had been already incurred by his condemnation; they were now only to look at home, and consider how they could expect to find the judges again so pliable, if they failed to support them in this instance. As for the Queen and Anjou, they were too much occupied in their amusements to make great case who was hanged. In fine, firmness even in a questionable course was better than hesitation and instability. Lord Burghley took this side, and clenched the matter by saying that Campion and Sanders were in the same boat; and as they could not catch Sanders, they must hang Campion instead. The Attorney-General had said nearly the same thing at the trial.

When the Council had settled that he should be executed, there still remained the question of the time. Some were for putting it off till Anjou had gone away, for fear of the offence the French king might take at the manifest insult to his brother; others thought that Anjou's presence was exactly the reason for carrying out the sentence, as a public profession that the marriage would bring in no change of the religious policy of the government. Besides, they said, any delay in the execution will give time for the most influential of the English nobles and gentry and for the foreign courts to intercede for the prisoners' lives, and the Queen would never resist their united prayers. Moreover it was an excellent occasion for striking terror into the seditious Catholics, who fancied themselves secure under the protection either of Spain or of France. Such were the reasons alleged: the