The letter is dated Westminster, June 22, 1592, and advises the queen: “I have him here within my strong chamber in Westminster churchyard (_i.e._ the gatehouse). I have made him assured for starting or hurting of himself by putting upon his arms a pair of;[21] and so to keep him either from view or conference with any but Nicolas, the underkeeper of the gatehouse.... Upon this present taking of him it is good forthwith to enforce him to answer truly and directly; and so to prove his answers true in haste, to the end that such as he be deeply concerned in his treachery may not have time to start, or make shift to use any means in common prisons; either to stand upon or against the wall will give warning. _But if your highness’ pleasure be to know anything in his heart, to stand against the wall, his feet standing upon the ground, and his hands put as high as he can reach against the wall_ (like a trick at Tremshemarn), will enforce him to tell all; and the truth proven by the sequel....[22] It may please your majesty to consider, I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly considered.”[23] The reader will here readily recognize a partial description of one of the modes of torture then most common in use throughout the reign of Elizabeth. It seems that it _was_ “her highness’ pleasure” to know something that was in this poor martyr’s heart, for Southwell was afterwards again repeatedly tortured. The intimate personal relations existing between the virgin queen and this man Topcliffe, whose very name was a stench in the nostrils of Protestants of respectable behavior, were maintained long after the Southwell capture, as we learn from the best authority. The cruelty of Elizabeth was only surpassed by her mendacity, as her mendacity was only exceeded by her mean parsimony, and when she travelled or made progress from one country to another it was always at the expense of her good and loyal subjects. Eventually the announcement of a visit from their good queen, received outwardly with such declarations as might naturally follow the promise of the call of a special envoy from heaven, was in reality looked upon as the coming of a terrible calamity. It was at that time considered at the English court—where, as we all know, all the civil and religious virtues had taken refuge—an excellent jest to so direct the course of the queen’s progress as to make her visits fall at the residences of well-known Catholic gentlemen. It is only necessary to say that the anniversary of all such events yet lives in the traditions of the descendants of such families as that of a day of horror. The royal retinue treated the house like a captured place, and it was well for the proprietor if confiscation or death, or both, were not the sole reward of his generous hospitality.