The queen had the day before journeyed to Windsor.
Half an hour before she arrived at the wood near Datchet a strong party
of her guard had suddenly surrounded it, and had found twelve armed men
lurking there. These had been arrested and lodged in the Tower. Three
of them were foreigners, the rest members of Catholic families known to
be favourable to the Spanish cause. Their trial was conducted
privately, as it was deemed advisable that as little should be made as
possible of this and other similar plots against the queen's life that
were discovered about this time.
Geoffrey and Lionel gave their evidence before the council. As the only
man they could have identified was not of the party captured, their
evidence only went to show the motive of this gathering in the wood
near Datchet. The prisoners stoutly maintained that Geoffrey had
misunderstood the conversation he had partly overheard, and that their
design was simply to make the queen a prisoner and force her to
abdicate. Three of the prisoners, who had before been banished from the
country and who had secretly returned, were sentenced to death; two of
the others to imprisonment for a long term of years, the rest to
banishment from England.
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