Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Paget, at whose house the intended assassination was to have taken place, was never brought into Court; neither was Lord Grey, another accomplice, who was afterwards made captain of Guines "as amends" for the unjust charge. To the minor conspirators a very simple principle was applied quite irrespective of their guilt: if they implicated Somerset, they were released without trial; if they persisted in asserting their own and his innocence they were executed. But, in spite of all Northumberland's efforts, no confirmation was obtained of Palmer's main charge. Scores of witnesses were imprisoned in the Tower and put to torture; but the story of the intended assassination was so baseless that the charge did not appear in any one of the five indictments returned against Somerset, and was not so much as alluded to in the examinations of the Duke himself and his chief adherents.
Meanwhile, stringent measures were taken to prevent disturbance. The creation of Lords-Lieutenant put local administration and the local militia into the hands of Northumberland's friends, and provided him with an instrument akin to Cromwell's Major-generals. London was overawed by the newly-organised bands of gens d'armes; and an effort was made to appease one source of dissatisfaction by proclaiming a new and purified coinage. Parliament, which was to have met in November, was further prorogued; and Northumberland's control of the government was strengthened by a decision that the King's order (he was just fourteen) should be absolutely valid without the couflter-signature of a single member of the Council. Lord-Chancellor Rich resigned soon after in alarm at this violent measure, and he consequently took no part in Somerset's trial. The tribunal consisted of twenty-six out of forty-seven peers; among them were Northumberland, Northampton, and Pembroke, who were really parties in the case. They had already acted practically as accusers, had drawn up the charges, and examined the witnesses; they now assumed the function of judges, and after their verdict determined whether it should be executed or not.
The trial took place on December 1 at Westminster Hall; the charges were practically two, one of treason in conspiring to imprison a Privy Councillor, and one of felony in inciting to an unlawful assembly. Both these offences depended upon the atrocious statute which, passed in the panic of reaction after Somerset's fall, was to expire with the next session of Parliament-a further reason for its prorogation. In another respect the trial would not have been possible under any other Act; for that Act removed the previous limitation of thirty days within which accusations must be preferred, and five months had elapsed between Somerset's alleged offences and Palmer's accusation. Nevertheless the charge of treason broke down, and the government boasted of its magnanimity in condemning the prisoner to death only for felony. There was as little evidence for that offence as for the other, and the
