he had helped Richard Dacres, an attainted rebel who was a distant relative. However, Bromley played a notable part in 1571 trial of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, suspected of collusion with the Northern Earls and of involvement in the Ridolfi plot. Bromley spoke after Nicholas Barham, the Queen's Serjeant, who led the prosecution, and Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney General. He was apparently very zealous to secure a conviction. After evidence had been given about the proposed marriage between Norfolk and Mary, Queen of Scots, Bromley's focus was on the communications between Ridolfi and Norfolk. His only evidence of Norfolk's involvement in a plot to invade England and remove the queen was an alleged deciphered copy of a letter given to one Barker to deliver to the Duke. As Norfolk himself argued, there was no evidence that he had ever received the letter, much less that he approved its contents. Bromley was forced to resort to hearsay evidence: that a foreign ambassador in Flanders had heard about the plot and one of his servants had mentioned it to an unnamed English government minister. None of the links in this chain of intelligence gathering was available to give evidence or face questioning but Bromley's allegations were accepted as having explicit royal warrant. The following year Bromley was one of those sent to Sheffield to lay charges before Mary, Queen of Scots, with the aim of getting her to renounce her claim on both the English and Scottish thrones and to transfer her rights to her son, James. Bromley rehearsed the history of the recent plots and her alleged part in them, but to no avail. In 1574 he was one of the arbitrators appointed to resolve a dispute between the city of Oxford and the university. On 26 April 1579 Bromley was appointed Lord Chancellor, although he had been made a Privy Counsellor as early as 11 March. Lord Chancellor Appointment Bromley succeeded Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had died on 20 February 1579. Bacon had been Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and, on investiture, had been given all the powers of a Lord Chancellor, but never the office itself, probably because of his relatively humble origins. The queen had sent Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester, the main rivals for her attention, to York House, the Lord Keeper's residence, to collect the Great Seal of the Realm from Lady