helpless charge. It must have been this sympathy which drew him into communication with the White Rose party. About midsummer 1534 Darcy dined with Hussey at his London house, and his old friend Sir Robert Constable was there as well. They talked of a sermon preached by Sir Francis Bigod’s priest; Bigod was a young man of great lands in the north, who inclined to the New Learning; his father had been among Darcy’s friends. In the sermon under discussion the chaplain had “likened our Lady to a pudding when the meat was out.” Not unnaturally shocked by such an expression, they all declared they would be “none heretics” but die Christian men. There by Hussey’s account the matter ended; but in September of the same year he was in communication with the Imperial ambassador[80]. Hitherto one of the King’s most unfaltering supporters, Hussey at this time unquestionably indulged in treasonable practices. All the disaffected nobles carried on secret correspondence with Chapuys, and Hussey among the rest begged him to urge the Emperor to invade England[81], where everyone was ready to welcome him. Chapuys’ correspondence reveals the fact that the nobles, at least, were at that time thoroughly out of sympathy with the King’s policy. Sir Geoffrey Pole, the younger brother of Lord Montague and Reginald, was anxious to leave England, and offered to enter the Emperor’s service in Spain. He gave up the plan when Chapuys pointed out that he would leave his friends in the greatest danger; they were already regarded with enough suspicion[82]. Meanwhile Darcy was making every effort to obtain permission to quit the Court and go home[83]. But this was steadily refused. In July (1534) he was upon the jury of peers which acquitted Lord Dacre from a charge of high treason[84].