scussions in secret, "and when we did commence," said
Throgmorton, "we did bid the servants of the house go out, and likewise our
own servants, because we thought it not convenient that they should hear us
speak of such matters."--Throgmorton to the King: _MS. State Paper Office._

[356] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 20.

[357] Printed in STRYPE, _Eccles. Mem._, vol. i. p. 201. Strype, knowing
nothing of the first answer, and perceiving in the second an allusion to
one preceding, has supposed that this answer followed the third and last,
and was in fact a retractation of it. All obscurity is removed when the
three replies are arranged in their legitimate order.

[358] STRYPE, _Eccles. Mem._, vol. i. p. 199, etc.

[359] 23 Hen. VIII. cap. 20.

[360] STOW, p. 562.

[361] "In connection with the Annates Act, the question of appeals to Rome
had been discussed in the present session. Sir George Throgmorton had
spoken on the papal side, and in his subsequent confession he mentioned a
remarkable interview which he had had with More.

"After I had reasoned to the Bill of Appeals," he said, "Sir Thomas More,
then being chancellor, sent for me to come and speak with him in the
parliament chamber. And when I came to him he was in a little chamber
within the parliament chamber, where, as I remember, stood an altar, or a
thing like unto an altar, whereupon he did lean and, as I do think, the
same time the Bishop of Bath was talking with him. And then he said this to
me, I am very glad to hear the good report that goeth of you, and that ye
be so good a Catholic man as ye be. And if ye do continue in the same way
that ye begin, and be not afraid to say your conscience, ye shall deserve
great reward of God, and thanks of the King's Grace at length, and much
worship to yourself."--Throgmorton to the King: _MS. State Paper Office_.

[362] In part of it he speaks in his own person. Vide supra, cap. 3.

[363] BURNET'S _Collectanea_, p. 435.

[364] Note of the Revelations of Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._

[365] It has been thought that the Tudor princes and their ministers
carried out the spy system to an iniquitous extent,--that it was the great
instrument of their Machiavellian policy, introduced by Cromwell, and
afterwards developed by Cecil and Walsingham. That both Cromwell and
Walsingham availed themselves of secret information, is unquestionable,--as
I think it is also unquestionable that they would have betrayed the
interests