Nothing, however, was said about the French ambassador. Only to Gardiner did Philip avow that he had been secretly present with Father de Castro at the meeting in the crypt, and the Chancellor counselled him not to allow this circumstance to transpire publicly, as they had proof enough against the conspirators without it; above all, Gardiner was opposed to any proceedings being taken against De Noailles. Thus the wily ambassador escaped with impunity as on previous occasions. A strict watch, however, was kept upon his movements. It was confidently anticipated, both by the King and Gardiner, that before many days all the chief conspirators would be arrested, but in this expectation they were disappointed. No traces of any of them could be discovered. Some doubts were entertained as to the fate of Osbert Clinton. Two persons were shot in the boat in which he escaped from Lambeth, and their bodies thrown into the Thames, and it was thought he was one of them; but this was by no means clear. While the search for the leaders of the outbreak was thus being actively, though unsuccessfully, prosecuted, Peckham and Werne were taken to the Tower and put to the torture, in order to compel them to accuse the Princess Elizabeth of complicity in the affair, but nothing could be wrung from them, and, with twenty other luckless personages who had been captured at the same time, they were hanged, drawn, and quartered, and their heads set upon the north gateway of London Bridge. Meanwhile, the religious persecution continued with unabated rigour. Bishop Hooper, with two others, had undergone martyrdom at different places, and six more prisoners, excommunicated by Bonner, and delivered over to the civil power, were about to perish in the same manner. Conscious of the odium attaching to these sanguinary measures, Gardiner prudently resigned his post at the ecclesiastical tribunal to Bonner, who thenceforward acted as supreme judge, and was undeterred by scruples of any sort. A momentary check was, however, given to his severity from an unexpected quarter. From the various manifestations made towards him by the Protestant party, and from other circumstances, Philip could not fail to perceive that if he took any further part in these barbarous proceedings, he should raise up a host of determined enemies, so he caused Father Alfonso to preach publicly, before him and the court, a sermon strongly condemnatory of religious persecution. The plan completely answered the King’s expectations, it being felt that such a sermon could not have been preached without his sanction, and it was argued, therefore, that he must disapprove of the course pursued by Bonner.