but no treason.
The messengers pried into every flowerpot that they could find, but to
no purpose. It never occurred to them to look into the room in which
Blackhead had hidden the Association: for that room was near the offices
occupied by the servants, and was little used by the Bishop and his
family. The officers returned to London with their prisoner, but without
the document which, if it had been found, might have been fatal to him.

Late at night he was brought to Westminster, and was suffered to
sleep at his deanery. All his bookcases and drawers were examined; and
sentinels were posted at the door of his bedchamber, but with strict
orders to behave civilly and not to disturb the family.

On the following day he was brought before the Council. The examination
was conducted by Nottingham with great humanity and courtesy. The
Bishop, conscious of entire innocence, behaved with temper and firmness.
He made no complaints. "I submit," he said, "to the necessities of State
in such a time of jealousy and danger as this." He was asked whether
he had drawn up a Declaration for King James, whether he had held
any correspondence with France, whether he had signed any treasonable
association, and whether he knew of any such association. To all these
questions he, with perfect truth, answered in the negative, on the
word of a Christian and a Bishop. He was taken back to his deanery. He
remained there in easy confinement during ten days, and then, as nothing
tending to criminate him had been discovered, was suffered to return to
Bromley.

Meanwhile the false accusers had been devising a new scheme. Blackhead
paid another visit to Bromley, and contrived to take the forged
Association out of the place in which he had hid it, and to bring
it back to Young. One of Young's two wives then carried it to the
Secretary's Office, and told a lie, invented by her husband, to explain
how a paper of such importance had come into her hands. But it was not
now so easy to frighten the ministers as it had been a few days before.
The battle of La Hogue had put an end to all apprehensions of invasion.
Nottingham, therefore, instead of sending down a warrant to Bromley,
merely wrote to beg that Sprat would call on him at Whitehall. The
summons was promptly obeyed, and the accused prelate was brought face
to face with Blackhead before the Council. Then the truth came out fast.
The Bishop remembered the villanous look and voice of the man who had