10 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 57. secretly to baffle the inquiry, gave him notice of the questions which would be asked him, and advised him as to what he should answer. 1 But no clue which they could give him sufficed in the labyrinth in which he was involved. He staggered from falsehood to falsehood as thread by thread his con- nection with Ridolfi was ravelled out. First he swore that he had never spoken with or seen Ridolfi, then he said he had spoken with him once but only on personal business. Afterwards he allowed that Ridolfi had suggested treason to him, but he vowed that he had refused to listen, and he insisted positively that he had never heard from Ridolfi since the latter left England. Here too he was unable to escape fro the merciless 1 On the 23rd of September Sir Owen Hopton, the Lieutenant of the Tower, enclosed the following note to Burghley, which one of the servants had been detected in attempting to deliver into the Duke's hands ; ' "We received yours though not at that length that was desired. Your friends at Court dare not deal. There are two ways to receive intel- ligence, both I hope trusty. You shall hear this day of something that stands you upon to be very circum- spect how you do confess, for in con- fessing there may be much peril. Your case, for anything we can yet learn, groweth very hard. There- fore it standeth you in hand to com- fort yourself as ye may ; and God comfort you. We hear not whether you have well looked at the covering of your book [23].' Sir Owen Hop- ton to Burghley : MSS. Hatjield. The last sentence with the number refers probably to a cipher which was found on the back of a Bible in the Duke's room. The complaints of the treachery in the Royal household are constant. Three-quarters of the courtiers, men and women, were in Mary Stuart's interests, and supplied her friends with information. One of Cecil's agents wrote three or four weeks later to him : ' The Papists in the realm find too much favour in the Court. As long as that continueth, practising will never have end. The double-faced gentlemen, who will be Protestants at Court, and in the coun- try secret Papists, frigidam suffun- dunt.' Thomas Ashton to Burghley, October 23 : MSS. Domestic.
