[Sidenote: Projects to seize or murder Aske.]
In Suffolk's camp at Lincoln a suggestion was started whether Aske's attack might not be anticipated,--whether, by a swift, silent enterprise, it might not be possible to seize and carry off both him and Sir R. Constable. Two volunteers were found who offered to make the experiment. One of them, Anthony Curtis, a cousin of Aske, "for private malice, said that if he might have licence, he would find sureties, and would either kill his kinsman or be killed himself."[179] Another attempt for Aske's destruction was made by the Duke of Norfolk, who had no objection to a coalition of noblemen against Cromwell, but disdained the dictation of an unknown upstart. He supposed that he might tempt Lord Darcy to an act of treachery, and sent a questionable proposal to him by the hands of a servant of Lord Hussey, a certain Percival Cresswell. The attempt failed; but Cresswell's account of his mission is not a little curious.
[Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk sends Percival Cresswell to Lord Darcy.]
[Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk desires Lord Darcy to betray Aske.]
[Sidenote: Darcy will not stain his coat for the best dukedom in France.]
He arrived at Templehurst on Friday, November the 10th, shortly before dinner. Lord Darcy was walking with Aske himself, who was his guest at the time, and a party of the commons in the castle garden. Cresswell gave him a letter from Norfolk, which was cautiously worded, in case it should fall into wrong hands, and said he was charged also with a private message. The danger of exciting suspicion was so great that Darcy had a difficulty in arranging a separate conversation. He took Cresswell into the castle, where he left him in an anteroom full of armed men. They gathered about him, and inquired whether Cromwell, "whom they called most vilipendiously," was put out of the king's council. He replied that the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Oxford, Lord Sussex, and Sir William Fitzwilliam were with the king. "God save the king!" they said; "as long as noblemen of the true blood rule about the king all will be well. But how of Cromwell? Is he put from the council or no?" Cresswell said that he was still on the council. "Then, whatsoever the Lord Darcy say to you," they answered, "show the king and the lords that until our petitions are granted we will take no pardon till we have our will." Darcy had by this time secured a private room and a few private moments. He called Cresswell in. "Now tell your message," he said. "The Duke of Norfolk desires you," announced the messenger, "to deliver up Aske, quick or dead, but if possible, alive; and you shall so show yourself a true subject, and the king will so regard you."[180] Darcy replied like a nobleman. He had given his faith, he said, and he would not stain his coat.[181] He wrote a few lines to Norfolk. "Alas, my Lord!" his letter said, "that you, being a man of so great honour, should advise or choose me to betray any living man, Frenchman, Scot, yea, or even Turk. To win for me or for mine heirs the best duke's lands that be in France, I would not do it to no living person."[182] The next morning, after mass, he again called Cresswell to him, and bade him tell the king that he had never done better service either to him or to his father than he was doing at that moment, and if there was to be peace, he recommended that the answer to the petition should be returned instantly.