But there was no time to grieve long over any single annoyance, for trouble succeeded trouble, one treading fast on the heels of another. Moreover, as the spring wore on lesser sorrows tended to become swallowed up in the terrible anxiety as to Strafford's fate. On March 16th it was decided that he should be tried for high treason; and it struck like an evil omen on the Queen's heart that on that very day the Lords and Commons agreed to petition the King for the removal from Court of all Papists, and particularly of her four chief friends, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir Tobie Matthew, Walter Montagu, and Sir John Winter. A few days later the trial began. It dragged along while, day after day, its course was watched by the King and Queen of England, who sat in a gallery, closely screened from curious eyes, looking down on the stern faces below them, and on the majestic figure of the man who was there to answer for his life. Not all the persuasions of the Commons could keep the royal couple away. It was the only thing they could do to encourage their faithful servant. With them sat their eldest son, the boy of whom it was said that he had been found weeping because the father who had received three kingdoms as his heritage would leave him never an one. It is needless to repeat the story of Strafford's trial: how all turned upon an alleged plot to bring over Irish troops to subdue England; how it was found to be impossible to convict him of conduct which could be brought within the scope of the Treason Act; how his enemies, determined that he should not escape, turned the impeachment into an attainder. All that is necessary is to indicate the Queen's action through these weeks of terror and struggle. Everything that she could she did to save the man whom once she had regarded almost as an enemy. Day after day she found opportunity for secret interviews with the Puritan leaders, in which she offered all (and perhaps more than all) that it was in her power to give in exchange for Strafford's life. Evening after evening, when the dusk had fallen, she sallied forth alone, lighting her steps with a single taper, to seek her foes in their own quarters.[249] Such efforts deserved success, and she at least believed that to them was due the remarkable conversion of Lord Denbigh, the husband of her dear and faithful lady-in-waiting, who, after being one of Strafford's bitterest opponents, turned round and defended him with all his ability in the House of Lords. Nor were these exertions the sum of Henrietta's activities. The marriage between little Princess Mary and the Prince of Orange, which took place in the middle of May, bringing as it did the hope of help in money and perhaps in soldiers, cheered her spirits and roused her to fresh efforts. It was now that the army plot was formed, the main object of which was to bring up to London the army which had been raised against the Scots, and by means of it to overpower Parliament and to release Strafford.