of Benedictine monks who took the places of the expelled canons. Parliament had ceased from troubling; and, with the false teachers silenced, the heretical books suppressed, the authority of the ecclesiastical courts re-established, the new Primate might almost flatter himself that the ideal conditions contemplated in his Reformatio Angllae had become an accomplished reality. The denunciation of the Dudley conspiracy rudely dispelled this pleasing vision. On Easter Eve, April 4, 1556, official intelligence was received of a new plot, having for its aim the seizing of Mary's person and her deposition, in order to make way for Elizabeth, who was to marry, not Ferdinand, but Courtenay;-a name still potent to conjure with, although the unfortunate nobleman was himself unambitious of the honour and then nearing his end, which came to him in the following September near Padua.
The plot itself, in its origin, was not suggestive of any very deep or widespread agencies, being the outcome of a series of meetings among some country gentlemen in Oxfordshire and Berkshire,—Sir Anthony Kingston, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton (a friend of Courtenay's, who had already been pardoned for complicity in Wyatt's rebellion), Sir Henry Peckham, and Sir Henry Dudley, a relative of the late Duke of Northumberland. Further evidence, however, obtained at a considerable interval, implicated not only Noailles, the ambassador, with whom Dudley was in correspondence, but also Henry, at whose Court Dudley had been received and his proposals favourably considered, and finally Elizabeth herself. The fact that, in the preceding February, Charles and Philip had concluded at Vaucelles a truce with Henry, which was to last for five years and included important concessions to France, showed the faithlessness of the French monarch. Henry, however, advised the conspirators to defer the execution of their plans, and to their disregard of this advice the collapse of the whole scheme appears to have been mainly attributable.
Among the arrests made in England were those of two members of Elizabeth's own household; of these a son of Sir Edmund Peckham (one of Mary's staunchest supporters) turned King's evidence and his testimony chiefly implicated Elizabeth. Again, however, Philip exerted his influence for her protection, while the Princess asseverated her innocence. It was at this juncture, May 25, that Noailles himself requested to be recalled; he had indeed some fear of being arrested by order of the Privy Council. His place at the English Court was temporarily taken by a brother, a councillor of the Parlement of Bordeaux; and it was not until November 2 that Soranzo was able to report the arrival of the more distinguished brother, François, the protonotary, and Bishop of Acqs or Dax, in the same capacity. To François de Noailles Elizabeth confided her design of seeking an asylum in France; he however strongly dissuaded her from such a step, suggesting that her best policy would be to remain in England. In after years the
