His second secretary of embassy, Muscorno, obtained leave to return to Venice on pretence of visiting his father who was ill, and when Foscarini was suddenly recalled he found the ground prepared for an abominable action against him. He himself, his valet, and his chaplain were all imprisoned, and his trial for high treason began. It proceeded very slowly, but he was acquitted after having been in prison three years, for Robazza confessed his treachery without being tortured. Having been declared innocent of high treason, Foscarini had little difficulty in disproving some minor accusations that were brought against him; and a few weeks after his release he appeared before the Senate to give an official account of his embassy in England. Muscorno, who had accused him falsely, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment in a fortress; Robazza, the valet who had been bribed, had his right hand struck off and was exiled for twenty years. James I. of England sent Foscarini especial congratulations, and he was again employed in important affairs. Unhappily, however, Muscorno had a successor worthy of him in the person of Girolamo Vano, a professional spy in the service of the Republic. If by any chance the smallest State secret was known abroad, it was always insinuated by Foscarini’s enemies that he was responsible for divulging it, and it was quite in keeping with the ordinary practice of the Venetian government to employ spies to watch a man who had been once suspected, even though he had been declared innocent and was again in high office. The spy Vano took advantage of Foscarini’s friendship, or affection, for the English Countess of Arundel, as a means of making out a strong case [Sidenote: _Rom. vii. 183._] against him. Foscarini had known her in London, and she had afterwards made long visits to Venice, in order to be near her sons, who were making their studies at the university of Padua. At her house Foscarini often met the Envoy of Florence and the secretaries of the Spanish and Austrian embassies. She did not spend all her time in Venice, however, but was often many months in England. It was when she was returning to Venice after one of these absences that she was stopped at some distance from the city by a messenger from the English ambassador, Sir Henry Wotton, who entreated her to turn back. The unfortunate Foscarini had been convicted of high treason and strangled, and his corpse was that very morning hanging between the two red columns of the fatal window in the ducal palace. Lady Arundel’s name had been connected during the trial with that of the condemned man, and the ambassador was anxious to save her any possible trouble. But she was not of the sort that turns back from danger at such times, and that very evening she reached [Illustration: GRAND CANAL, LOOKING TOWARDS MOCENIGO PALACE]