It was during Cecil’s absence from court in May that Lady Jane Grey was married to Northumberland’s son Guildford Dudley;[49] but by the time the plot was ready for consummation, Sir William could stay away no longer, and was at work again in his office. The letter, dated 11th June 1553, addressed to the Lord Chief-Justice and other judges, summoning them to the royal presence, was signed by Cecil, as well as by Cheke and Petre. When the young King handed to the Chief-Justice a memorandum of his intention to set aside King Henry’s will, and leave the crown to the descendants of Henry’s youngest sister Mary, to the deprivation of his daughters, the Chief-Justice told him that such a settlement would be illegal. The King insisted that a new deed of settlement must be drawn up. The next day at Ely Place, when Northumberland threatened Chief-Justice Montagu as a traitor, Petre was present, but not Cecil; but he must have been at the remarkable Council meeting on the 14th June, when the Chief-Justice and the other judges with tears in their eyes were hectored into drawing up the fateful will disinheriting Mary and Elizabeth; for upon Northumberland insisting that every one present should sign the document, he, Cecil, like the rest of them—with the honourable exception of Sir John Hales—dared not refuse, and appended his name to it. He was probably sorry that his illness did not delay him a little longer at Wimbledon, for shortly before he had, in a conversation with Roger Alford, one of the confidential members of his household, expressed an intention to be no party to a change in the order of the succession. Alford relates the story.[50] He was walking in Greenwich Park with Cecil, when the latter told him that he knew some such plan was in contemplation, “but that he would never be a partaker in that device.” If Alford is to be believed, Northumberland was from the first suspicious of Cecil’s absence. He says that the Secretary feared assassination, and went armed, against his usual practice, visiting London secretly at night only, and concealed his valuables. His household biographer also says that he incurred the particular displeasure of Northumberland “for mislyking or not consenting to the Duke’s purpose touching the Lady Jane.”[51] And Alford, in his testimony in Cecil’s favour, asserted that the latter told him that he had refused to sign the settlement as a Councillor, but only did so as a witness, which the paper itself disproves. The position of Cecil was indeed a most difficult one. He was not a brave or heroic man, he hated extreme courses, and this was a juncture where his usual non-committal _via media_ was of no avail. Of the two evils he chose the lesser, and not only signed the settlement like the rest of the Councillors, but also the instrument by which certain members pledged themselves on oath to carry it out. But though he, like others, was terrorised into bending to Northumberland’s will, it is certain that he disliked the business, made no secret of his unwillingness to acquiesce in it, and separated himself from it at the earliest possible moment that he could do so with safety. There is in the Lansdowne MSS.[52] a paper in Cecil’s hand, written after the accession of Mary, in which is contained his exculpation. As it throws much light on the matter, and upon Cecil’s own character, it will be useful to quote it at length. It is headed “A briefe note of my submission and of my doings.