the ruling principle of Henry's conduct; but it was justice without mercy. Ever ready to welcome evidence of innocence, he forgave guilt only among the poor and the uneducated; and for State offences there was but one punishment. A disposition naturally severe had been stiffened by the trials of the last years into harsher rigidity; and familiarity with executions, as with deaths in action, diminishes alike the pain of witnessing and of inflicting them. Loyalty was honoured and rewarded; the traitor, though his crime was consecrated by the most devoted sense of duty; was dismissed without a pang of compunction to carry his appeal before another tribunal.
ceiving that he did not deny his transgressions with any purpose to cloke and cover the same, but only by slipperness of memory, and taking his submission, being surely both sorrowful and repentant, his Highness having also most humble suits and intercessions made unto him, both for him and for Wyatt, by the Queen, adding hereunto respect for his old service, hath forgiven him; so as, to be plain with you, we think he is at this present in no less estimation with his Majesty than he was before.'
'Now to Wyatt,' they added: 'He confessed, upon his examination, all the things objected to him; delivering his submission in writing, but with a like protestation that the same proceeded fromhim withoutspot of malice. In contemplation of which submission, his Highness hath given him his pardon in as large and ample a sort as his Grace gave to Sir John Wallop.'—The Council to Lord William Howard: State Papers, vol. viii. p. 545. It is clear that neither Wallop nor Wyatt were tried. The 'oration' of the latter, therefore, printed by Mr Nott, and described by him as addressed to a jury after the indictment and the evidence, was composed only, but not delivered. The prudence of a later age has wisely discontinued the practice of secret examinations previous to trial, as admitting of being alarmingly abused. Cases, however, like the present sometimes occurred when it furnished the readiest method of disposing of calumny.