In May 1562, Sir Edward Warner received orders to conduct the two prisoners before the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth, to be further examined as to what Elizabeth was pleased to describe in the warrant as “the infamose conversation and pretended marriage betwixt the Lady Katherine Grey and the Earl of Hertford.” Despite the ecclesiastical nature of this court, it would seem that the prisoners were not taken to Lambeth, but that whatever trial ever took place occurred in the Tower. On May 12, 1562, the commission, composed, it may be, of the officers who had examined Hertford on his first entering the Tower, passed sentence, at the Bishop of London’s palace near to St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the effect that “there had been no marriage between the Earl of Hertford and the Lady Katherine Grey.” It is probable that neither Hertford nor Lady Katherine was present during this adjudication. Five months later, in October 1562, Lady Katherine, still confined in the Belfry of the Tower, came nearer being placed on the Throne than at any time in her life. On the 10th of that month, Queen Elizabeth went with her train to Hampton Court, and there fell seriously ill. After several days of high fever, and a fit of syncope lasting two hours, during which her life was despaired of, Her Majesty was found to be suffering from small-pox, aggravated by a bad chill. Quadra’s dispatches, written at this time, show how precarious was her condition. “Last night,” he writes, in a letter dated the 17th October, “the palace people were all mourning for her as if she were already dead ... She was all but gone.” Naturally, the chief effect of the queen’s sudden illness was to raise the hopes of the various pretenders to her succession and of those who, from interest or conviction, supported them. There was such diversity of opinion, however, even amongst the members of the privy council,[75] as to who was the rightful or most suitable future sovereign, that it is not improbable, that had the queen died at this juncture, England, between the ambitions of one party and of another, would have been plunged into a civil war, since some of the pretenders seem to have been prepared to assert their rights by an appeal to arms; “Lord Robert [Dudley],” says the Spanish Ambassador, “has a large armed force under his control, and will probably pronounce for his brother-in-law, the Earl of Huntingdon.” Lady Katherine Grey’s partisans did not miss this opportunity to agitate in her favour; and in the event of the queen’s death, a determined attempt would undoubtedly have been made to seat her on the Throne of her oppressor. The news of Elizabeth’s precarious condition produced a profound feeling of anxiety in the political world both at home and abroad; and Quadra writes to King Philip, that “if her improvement had not come soon, some hidden thoughts would have become manifest. The council discussed the succession twice, and I am told there were three different opinions.