Edward IV's time, small and
round-arched, all stone and dark and bare, she went with the Lady Mary
alone. Her ladies and her doorguards they left at the stair foot, on a
level with the sleeping rooms of the poorer sort, but up the little
stairway they climbed by themselves, in darkness, to pray privately for
the conversion of England. For this little place was so small and so
forgotten that it had never been desecrated by Privy Seal's men. It had
had no vessels worth the taking, and only very old vestments and a few
ill-painted pictures on the stone walls that were half hidden in the
dust.

Katharine had found this little place when, on her first day at
Pontefract, she had gone a-wandering over the castle with the King. For
she was curious to know how men had lived in the old times; to see their
rooms and to mark what old things were there still in use. And she had
climbed thus high because she was minded to gaze upon the huge expanse
of country and of moors that from the upper leads of the castle was to
be seen. But this little chapel had seemed to her to be all the more
sacred because it had been undesecrated and forgotten. She thought that
you could not find such another in the King's realm at that time; she
was very assured that not one was to be found in any house of the King's
and hers.

And, making inquiries, she had found that there was also an old priest
there served the chapel, doing it rather secretly for the well-disposed
of the castle's own guards. This old man had fled, at the approach of
the King's many, into the hidden valleys of that countryside, where
still the faith lingered and lingers now. For, so barbarous and remote
those north parts were, that a great many people had never heard that
the King was married again, and fewer still, or none, knew that he and
his wife were well inclined again towards Rome.

This old priest she had had brought to her. And he was so well loved
that along with him came a cluster of weather-battered moorsmen, right
with him into her presence. They kneeled down, being clothed with skins,
and several of them having bows of a great size, to beg her not to harm
this old man, for he was reputed a saint. The Queen could not understand
their jargon but, when their suit was interpreted to her by the Lord
Dacre of the North, and when she had had a little converse with the old
priest, she answered that, so touched was her heart by his simplicity
and gentleness, that she would pra