erkeley Castle. God knew
how: and I think she knew who had sat by his side on the throne, and who
was the mother of his children. We only heard at Sempringham, that on
that night shrieks of agony rang through the vale of the Severn, and men
woke throughout the valley, and whispered a requiem for the hapless soul
which was departing in such horrible torment.

"But that opened the eyes of the young King (for the Prince of Wales had
been made King; ay, and all the hour of his crowning, Dame Isabelle
stood by, and made believe to weep for her lord): he began to see what a
serpent was his mother; and I daresay Brother John de Gaytenby, the
Friar Predicant who was his confessor, let not the matter sleep. And no
sooner did Edward of Windsor gain his full power, than he shut up the
wicked Jezebel his mother in the Castle of Rising. She lived there
twenty years: she died there, fourteen years ago.

"So the tide turned. The friends of Dame Isabelle died on the scaffold,
four years later, even as _he_ had died; and we heard it at Sempringham,
and knew that God and the saints and angels had taken up our cause at
last. Child, God's mill grindeth slowly, but it grindeth very small.

"Ere this, Hugh, my brother, had been granted his life by the King, but
not our father's earldom [see Note 5]; and when my father had been dead
only two years, leaving such awful memories--our mother wedded again.
Ah, well! she was our mother. But, child, I have seen a caterpillar,
shaken rudely from the fragrant petals of a rose, crawl to the next weed
that grew. She was fair and well-dowered; and against the King's will,
she wedded the Lord de la Zouche, in whose custody she was.

"And now for the end of my woeful tale, which is the story of Isabel
herself. For, one year later, the Castle of Arundel was given back to
Richard Fitzalan; and two years thereafter the Lady of Arundel died.
Listen a little longer with patience: for the saddest part of the story
is that yet to come.

"When Richard and Isabel went back to the Castle of Arundel, I was a
young novice, just admitted. And considering the second marriage of our
mother, and the death of the Lady of Arundel, and the extreme youth of
Isabel (who was not yet fourteen), I was permitted to reside very much
with her. A woeful residence it was; for now began the fourteen
terrible years of my darling's passion.

"For no sooner was his mother's gentle hand removed, than, even on the
very day