[202] Murden's _State Papers_, 134, 180. Norfolk was a very weak man, the dupe of some very cunning ones. We may observe that his submission, to the queen (_Id._ 153) is expressed in a style which would now be thought most pusillanimous in a man of much lower station, yet he died with great intrepidity. But such was the tone of those times; an exaggerated hypocrisy prevailed in everything. [203] _State Trials_, i. 957. He was interrogated by the queen's counsel with the most insidious questions. All the material evidence was read to the Lords from written depositions of witnesses who might have been called, contrary to the statute of Edward VI. But the _Burghley Papers_, published by Haynes and Murden, contain a mass of documents relative to this conspiracy, which leave no doubt as to the most heinous charge, that of inviting the Duke of Alva to invade the kingdom. There is reason to suspect that he feigned himself a catholic in order to secure Alva's assistance. Murden, p. 10. [204] The northern counties were at this time chiefly catholic. "There are not," says Sadler, writing from thence, "ten gentlemen in this country who do favour and allow of their majesty's proceedings in the cause of religion." Lingard, vii. 54. It was consequently the great resort of the priests from the Netherlands, and in the feeble state of the protestant church there wanted sufficient ministers to stand up in its defence. Strype, i. 509, _et post_; ii. 183. Many of the gentry indeed were still disaffected in other parts towards the new religion. A profession of conformity was required in 1569 from all justices of the peace, which some refused, and others made against their consciences. _Id._ i. 567. [205] Camden has quoted a long passage from Hieronymo Catena's _Life of Pius V._, published at Rome in 1588, which illustrates the evidence to the same effect contained in the _Burghley Papers_, and partly adduced on the Duke of Norfolk's trial. [206] Strype, i. 546, 553, 556. [207] _Id._ 578; Camden, 428; Lodge, ii. 45. [208] Strype, ii. 88; _Life of Smith_, 152. [209] Strype, i. 502. I do not give any credit whatever to this league, as printed in Strype, which seems to have been fabricated by some of the queen's emissaries. There had been, not perhaps a treaty, but a verbal agreement between France and Spain at Bayonne some time before; but its object was apparently confined to the suppression of protestantism in France and the Netherlands. Had they succeeded, however, in this, the next blow would have been struck at England. It seems very unlikely that Maximilian was concerned in such a league. [210] Strype, vol. ii.