The biography of Edmund Campion in the Dictionary of National Biography describes how, after a year of ministering to English Catholics, Campion was captured in Berkshire with three other priests on 17 July 1581, was brought to London, and was imprisoned in the Tower on Saturday 22 July. The DNB continues:
He remained there until the fourth day (25 July), when, with great secrecy, he was conducted to the house of the Earl of Leicester. There he was received by Leicester, the Earl of Bedford, and two secretaries of state, with all honour and courtesy. They told him they had sent for him to know the plain truth, why he and Parsons had come into England, and what commission they brought from Rome . . . Nothing more was known at the time concerning this interview; but at the trial it came out that the queen herself was present, that she asked Campion whether he thought her really queen of England . . .