He was, indeed, not of the stuff from which martyrs are made, and when his first patron and friend, Somerset, finally fell, to the sorrow of all England, and lost his head on Tower Hill, Cecil’s own position remained unassailed. This is not the place to enter fully upon the vexed question of the guilt of Somerset in the alleged plan to murder Warwick and his friends, but a glance at Cecil’s attitude at the time will be useful. According to the young King’s journal, the first revelation of the conspiracy was made on the 7th October 1551 by Sir Thomas Palmer, who on the following days amplified his information and implicated many of Somerset’s friends. On the 14th, Somerset had got wind of the affair, and sent for his friend Secretary Cecil to tell him he was afraid there was some mischief brewing. Cecil answered coldly, “that if he were not guilty he might be of good courage; if he were, he had nothing to say but to lament him.”[35] In two days Somerset and his friends were in the Tower, and thenceforward through all the shameful trial, until the sacrifice was finally consummated, Cecil appeared to be prudently wrapped up in foreign affairs;[36] for to him had been referred the appeal of the Protestant princes brought by his friend A’Lasco, for help against their suzerain the Emperor, and to others fell the main task of removing the King’s uncle from the path of Northumberland. Cecil’s position as a Protestant Secretary of State was one that required all his tact and discretion. Somerset was his first friend and “master”; and although it is not well established that the Duke personally was guilty of the particular crime for which he suffered, it is unquestionable that he had been for several months coquetting with the Catholic party, had agitated for the release of Gardiner from the Tower, and that his friends were busy, almost certainly with his own connivance, to obtain for him in the coming Parliament the renewal of his office of Protector. Light is thrown upon Cecil’s share in bringing about the Duke’s downfall, by the letters to him of his friend Whalley,[37] who had been officiously pushing Somerset’s interests early in 1551, and had been imprisoned for it. In June he had been released, and was apparently made use of by Cecil to convey letters from the latter in London to Northumberland in the country, complaining of Somerset’s efforts in favour of Gardiner, and his intrigues with the Catholics. That Cecil should resent, as Secretary of State, any movement that threatened Northumberland and the Protestant cause at the time was natural. It will be recollected that he did not become Northumberland’s Secretary of State until the former had thrown over the Catholics—but it was perhaps an ungenerous excess of zeal to be the first to denounce his former patron. At all events, Northumberland was delighted with the Secretary’s action in the matter, and told Whalley so—“He declared in