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Abergavenny, to whom he married his daughter; and that he had also threatened to punish the cardinal for all his ill actions and being his enemy without a cause.
The cardinal having proceeded thus far, went to the king and laid before him the danger he was in from the wicked designs of the Duke of Buckingham, and there-fore advised him, without delay, to provide for his own safety. To this accusation, aggravated to the height by the cardinal, the king made answer, "If the duke deserves punishment, let it be inflicted upon him accordingly. The duke hereupon was sent for to come to London, where he was presently taken into custody, and, on the 16th of April, carried to the Tower by Sir Henry Marney, captain of the guards. At the same time they took up a monk, named John de la Car, alias Court, the duke's confessor, and Gilbert Perk, a clergy-man, his chancellor.
The duke being in safe custody, inquisition was made in divers counties of the kingdom, of matters to be laid to his charge; and so there was a bill of high-treason found against him by the gentlemen of Surry, for words spoke by him at Blechingly to the Lord Abergavenny, which lord, as also the Lord Mountacute, were sent to the Tower. Moreover, the duke also, to use the words of my author, was, by an inquest of which one Giles Gerrard was foreman, indicted upon several articles of high-treason, at Guildhall, London, before Sir John Brugge, knight, lord-mayor of that city; and the substance of the indictment was:
"That the said duke, intending to exalt himself, and to usurp the crown and regal dignity, and to deprive the king's majesty of it, that so he might take the same upon himself against his allegiance, had, on the 10th of March, in the second year of the king's reign, and at several other times, both before and after, imagined and compassed the king's death and destruction at London and at Thornbury in the county of Gloucester ; and, in order to the accomplishinent of his wicked designs and purposes, he sent one of his chaplains, John de Court by name, on the 24th day of April, in the fourth year of the king's reign, to the priory of Henton in the county of Somerset, which is a house of Carthusian monks, the substance of whose message was, to know of one Nicholas Hopkins, a monk of the same house, who was reputed to have the foreknowledge of future things revealed to him, what should happen concerning the matters he had entertained in his imagination, causing the said de la Court first to swear to him, he would never divulge the words to any other person whatsoever