ess of
her own court and of her own actions; and confidential agents, both from
Rome, Brussels, and Spain, had undoubtedly passed and repassed with
reciprocal instructions and directions.

[Sidenote: Two suspicious friars at Bugden,]

[Sidenote: "Followed" to London; arrested, and probably tortured.]

The crisis which was clearly approaching had obliged Henry, in the
course of this autumn, to be more watchful; and about the end of
October, or the beginning of November,[192] two friars were reported as
having been at Bugden, whose movements attracted suspicion from their
anxiety to escape observation. Secret agents of the government, who had
been "set" for the purpose, followed the friars to London, and
notwithstanding "many wiles and cautells by them invented to escape,"
the suspected persons were arrested and brought before Cromwell.
Cromwell "upon examination, could gather nothing from them of any moment
or great importance;" but, "entering on further communication," he said
"he found one of them a very seditious person, and so committed them to
ward." The king was absent from London, but had left directions that, in
the event of any important occurrence of the kind, Archbishop Cranmer
should be sent for; but Cranmer not being immediately at hand, Cromwell
wrote to Henry for instructions; inasmuch as, he said, "it is undoubted
that they (the monks) have intended, and would confess, some great
matter, if they might be examined as they ought to be--that is to say,
by pains."

[Sidenote: Conspiracy, in which the Princess Mary was implicated, to
dethrone the King.]

The curtain here falls over the two prisoners; we do not know whether
they were tortured, whether they confessed, or what they confessed; but
we may naturally connect this letter, directly or indirectly, with the
events which immediately followed. In the middle of November we find a
commission sitting at Lambeth, composed of Cromwell, Cranmer, and
Latimer, ravelling out the threads of a story, from which, when the
whole was disentangled, it appeared that by Queen Catherine, the
Princess Mary, and a large and formidable party in the country, the
king, on the faith of a pretended revelation, was supposed to have
forfeited the crown; that his death, either by visitation of God or by
visitation of man, was daily expected; and that whether his death took
place or not, a revolution was immediately looked for, which would place
the princess on the throne.

[S