402 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 65. and sobbed in misery, ' Now I have disclosed the secrets of her who was the dearest Queen to me in the world, whom I thought no torment could have drawn me so much to have prejudiced. I have broken faith to her, and I care not if I were hanged.' x Hanged the poor wretch naturally was : a free con- fession would have secured him a life of shame. A con- fession on the rack did but sentence him to the death which he desired, and left him so much of the honour which he thought that he had lost, as was equivalent to the torture which he had borne. He was detained a few months till his evidence could be of no more service. He was then tried, and executed, as usual, at Tyburn. Meanwhile he was known to have sunk under the test, and as an instant effect, there was a flight of Ca- tholics over the Channel, thick as autumn swallows. It was a race between the fugitives and the officers of justice. Suspected persons everywhere were either sent to prison or ordered to keep their houses under surveil- lance. Mendoza calculated that by the middle of the winter eleven thousand were under arrest in one form or other. Lord Paget escaped to France, writing, on his way to Burghley, that he found life unendurable without free enjoyment of the sacraments. The Earls of Arundel and Northumberland, who had arranged the landing-place for Guise with Lord Paget's brother, were Throgmorton's treason, June, 1584 : MSS. Domestic.
