y Lord Grey de Wilton are committed to the Tower."

"The Duke of Somerset again!" she cried. "But my Lord Grey de Wilton!--
what hath he done?"

"Served the King well in Cornwall," answered John; "I know of nothing
worse."

"'Tis that idiot, knave, dolt, and dizard [fool] of a Northumberland,"
cried Dr Thorpe in great indignation. "I would the whole Dudley race
had never been born! Knavery runs in their blood--'twill not out of
them!"

"There are a few honest men in England--but a few," said John,
mournfully, "and two of the foremost shall lie this night in the Tower
of London. And for what? Is it because my Lord Grey hath many times
shed his blood for England (the royal blood of England herself which
runneth in his veins [Note 3]), that now England herself shall shed it
on Tower Hill? Is it because my Lord of Somerset hath given her the
best laws she had for many a day, that now she will needs strain her
laws to condemn him? Shame upon England if it be so! She shall not be
held guiltless for it either before God or men."

"And yestereven," continued Dr Thorpe, "was my Lady of Somerset sent
also to the Tower, for the great crime, I take it, of being wife unto
her husband. And with her a fair throng of gentlemen--what they have
done I wis not. Maybe one of them sent the Duke a peacock, and another
doffed his bonnet to the Lord Grey."

"The Duchess, too!" exclaimed John, turning to him. "I heard not of her
committal. What can they lay to her charge?"

"Marry, she must have trade on the tail [train] of my Lady of
Northumberland last Garter day," scornfully answered Dr Thorpe. "Were
not this a crime well deserving of death?"

"Surely," said Isoult, "my Lady of Warwick [Note 4] will plead for her
own father and mother with her father of Northumberland?"

"Plead with the clouds that they rain not!" said he, "or with a falling
rock that it crush you not. Their bosoms were easier to move than John
Dudley's heart of stone."

"And what saith the King to it all, mewondereth?" said Isoult.

"Poor child!" answered Jack, "I am sorry for him. Either he pleadeth in
vain, or else they have poured poison into his ears, persuading him that
his uncle is his dire foe, and they his only friends [the last was the
truth]. God have pity on his gentle, childly heart, howsoever it be."

"More news, Isoult!" said Dr Thorpe, coming home on the following
Thursday. "'Tis my Lord Paget this time that hath had the great