[Footnote 563: Although they be promised by your
means to move the queen's majesty to be gracious
lady to them, they know that it is not so meant;
but to suck out of others all ye may, and yet
thereby to have no mercy shewed.--Thomas White to
the Council: _MS. Mary, Domestic_, vol. vii.]

Derick turned approver, so did Rosey, so did Bedyll: Uvedale, who was
ill and feeble, yielded to the rack; and, piece by piece, the whole
conspiracy was drawn out. The investigation was committed exclusively
to the queen's clique, Rochester, Englefield, Waldegrave, Jerningham,
and Hastings. The rest of the council refused to meddle,[564] for
reasons which, perhaps, the queen hoped to learn from one or other of
the prisoners. Throgmorton, however, who could tell the most, would
tell nothing, though the rack was used freely to open his lips. How
much he suffered may be gathered from a few words which he used to a
Mr. Walpole, who was one of his examiners.

[Footnote 564: Robert Swift to Lord Shrewsbury:
Lodge's _Illustrations_, vol. i.]

"Tell me, I pray you, Mr. Walpole," he said, "if the council may rack
me, or put me to torment, after the time I am condemned, or no?"

"They may," Walpole answered, "if it shall please them."

"Then," said Throgmorton, "I fear I shall be put to it again; and, I
will assure you, it is terrible pain."[565]

[Footnote 565: Walpole's Deposition: _MS._ Lodge's
_Illustrations_, vol. viii.]

When torture would not answer, promises were tried, and promises
apparently of an emphatic kind.

"I pray you, pray for me," Throgmorton said to his brother prisoners;
"for I shall not be long with you. I cannot live without I should be
the death of a number of gentlemen; and therewithal the said
Throgmorton recited a story of the Romans, commending much an old man
that was taken prisoner by the enemy, whom the Romans would have
redeemed with a great number of young men, which would have been much
more worth to the Romans; but this old man would in no case agree
{p.268} thereto, but received his death at the enemies' hand very
patiently, considering his old years, and also what profit these young
men should be to the Romans."[566]

[Footnote 566: Peckham's Confession: _MS._ Lodge's
_Illustrations_,