end. Lord Thomas Gray lost his life for the
same crime. Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was tried in Guildhall; but there
appearing no satisfactory evidence against him, he was able, by making
an admirable defence, to obtain a verdict of the jury in his favor. The
queen was so enraged at this disappointment, that, instead of releasing
him as the law required, she recommitted him to the Tower, and kept him
in close confinement during some time. But her resentment stopped not
here: the jury, being summoned before the council, were all sent to
prison, and afterwards fined, some of them a thousand pounds, others two
thousand apiece.[**] This violence proved fatal to several; among others
to Sir John Throgmorton, brother to Sir Nicholas, who was condemned on
no better evidence, than had formerly been rejected. The queen filled
the Tower and all the prisons with nobility and gentry, whom their
interest with the nation, rather than any appearance of guilt, had
made the objects of her suspicion; and finding that she was universally
hated, she determined to disable the people from resistance, by ordering
general musters, and directing the commissioners to seize their arms,
and lay them up in forts and castles.[***]

* Heylin, p. 167. Fox, vol iii. p. 36, 37. Holingshed, p.
1099.

** Fox, vol. iii. p. 99. Stowe, p. 624. Baker, p. 320.
Holingshed, p. 1104, 1121. Strype, vol. iii. p. 120. Dep. de
Noailles, vol. iii. p. 173.

*** Dep. de Noailles, vol. iii p. 98.

Though the government labored under so general an odium, the queen's
authority had received such an increase from the suppression of Wiat's
rebellion, that the ministry hoped to find a compliant disposition in
the new parliament which was summoned to assemble. The emperor also, in
order to facilitate the same end, had borrowed no less a sum than
four hundred thousand crowns, which he had sent over to England to
be distributed in bribes and pensions among the members: a pernicious
practice, of which there had not hitherto been any instance in England.
And not to give the public any alarm with regard to the church lands,
the queen, notwithstanding her bigotry, resumed her title of supreme
head of the church, which she had dropped three months before. Gardiner,
the chancellor, opened the session by a speech; in which he asserted the
queen's hereditary title to the crown; maintained her right of choosing
a husband for herself; observed how proper a