[1] Somerville publicly exclaimed his desire and intention to assassinate Elizabeth I of England.
Nevertheless, the deeply suspicious Elizabethan security services took him seriously; perhaps as a precaution or to make an example, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London and tortured.
His father-in-law, Edward Arden was also arrested, tortured, tried and found guilty of treason by Christopher Wray.
While it is possible that the Somerville and Arden case was dealt with maliciously by Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, Warwickshire was a stronghold of Catholic recusancy.
Moreover, a number of well established, and inter-linked, families of the county, such as the Throckmortons, Catesbys and Treshams were all variously implicated in real conspiracies – including the Gunpowder Plot.