The precious manuscript was to be conveyed to the printers, and Gabriel was much afraid that the Bishop would be too much occupied with it to talk of his granddaughter. However, in the course of the drive he heard many little details which the home letters had failed to give him, and as he parted with the kindly old man he felt more than ever drawn to him. His dismay was, therefore, all the greater when, happening to be with Ned Harley in Sir Robert’s room late the next day, he heard that the Protestation which Bishop Coke had signed inadvertently was very far from being the simple matter that Digby had represented it to be. “It seems,” explained Sir Robert, “that Archbishop Williams took it to the King at Whitehall last night, that his Majesty without reading it handed it to Nicholas, who gave it to the Lord Keeper to place before the House of Lords. Doubtless his Majesty knew beforehand what it contained.” “What did it contain, sir?” asked Gabriel, curiously. “It protested that all laws, orders, votes and so forth made in the absence of the Bishops were null and void. Clearly it was got up by my Lord Digby, who was in high ill-humour because a day or two since he had been worsted in his effort to obtain the assent of the Lords to a declaration that Parliament was no longer free. It would have suited him very well that this vote should be treated as null and void. The unfortunate Bishops will pay dearly for their protest.” “Why, sir, what has been done to them?” asked Gabriel, with some anxiety in his tone. “The Lords at once acquainted the Lower House that the Protestation entrenched on the fundamental privileges and being of Parliament, and Mr. Pym told them that a scheme for seizing the Parliamentary leaders was on foot; he then moved that the Bishops who had signed the Protestation should be impeached of treason for having tried to subvert the very being of Parliament. I believe that they are all by now in the Tower.” Gabriel, having mixed of late with men of every shade of opinion, had learnt to hold his tongue. He said not a word as to having been present when Digby visited Bishop Coke. But the next day he hurried off to the Tower, where he found the Bishop of Hereford in sore distress. “You well know that I had no treasonable intention in signing,” said the old man. “I merely wished for order in Palace Yard, and that we might be able to go to and from our duties in Parliament unmolested. Well,’tis after all my own fault. I ought to have read the document through instead of yielding to my Lord Digby’s haste. Truth to tell, my thoughts were more with my manuscript--and now what will become of it?” “My lord, if you will trust me as a messenger, I would bear your wishes to the printers, who saw me of late with your lordship,” said Gabriel.