But it can scarcely be said that they were wholly uncompromised. Through the months of February and March a series of evidence shows Aske, Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, a gentleman named Levening, and several others, holding aloof as an isolated group, in close and continued intercourse, yet after Bigod's capture taking no part in the pacification of the country. These men repeatedly, in public and private, assured the people that the Doncaster articles must be conceded. They were in possession of information respecting the risings in Westmoreland and Cleveland, and yet gave no information to the government. In an intercepted letter to Lord Darcy, Aske spoke of himself as having accomplished a great enterprise,--"as having played his part, and all England should perceive it."[243] It was proved that Darcy, when commanded in January to furnish Pomfret with stores, had repeated his former neglect,--that he and Aske were still in secret possession of cannon belonging to the government, which they had appropriated in the rebellion, and had not restored,--that Aske had interfered with the authorities at Hull to prevent the punishment of traitors taken in arms,[244]--that Constable, in a letter to Bigod, told him that he had chosen a wrong time of the year, that he ought to have waited till the spring,[245]--that Lord Darcy had been heard to say that it was better to rule than be ruled,--"and that where before they had had but two sovereign crowns they would now have four."[246] The lightest of these charges were symptoms of an animus[247] which the crown prosecutors would regard as treasonable. The secretion of the artillery and Aske's conduct at Hull would ensure a condemnation where the judges were so anxious to condemn. [Sidenote: Trials of the Lincolnshire prisoners.] [Sidenote: A hundred had been surrendered; nineteen were executed.]