Prince John refuse to recognize him.

"You are very young yet," Sir Baldwin said, "not eighteen, I think, and
can afford to wait, at any rate, to see whether King Richard returns.
Should he come back, he will see all these wrongs are righted; and one of
his first cares would assuredly be to cast this usurper out of his stolen
dignities. How old is the Lady Margaret?"

"She is fifteen," Cuthbert said. "She was three years younger than I."

"I wish she had been younger," Sir Baldwin said. "At fifteen she is not
by custom fairly marriageable; but men can strain these points when they
choose; and I fear that the news of your coming will hasten both the
prince and Sir Rudolph in their determination to strengthen the claim of
this usurper by marriage with the heiress of Evesham. The Lady Margaret
and her friends can of course claim that she is a royal ward, and that as
such the king alone can dispose of her person and estates. But,
unfortunately, force overrides argument."

"But surely," Cuthbert said, "they will never venture to take her by
force from the convent?"

"They venture a great many strange things in England now," Sir Baldwin
said; "and Worcester is perilously near to Evesham. With a clump of
twenty spears, Sir Rudolph might break into the convent and carry off the
young lady, and marry her by force; and although the Church might cry
out, crying would be of little avail when the deed was done; and a
handsome present on the part of Sir Rudolph might go far to shut the
mouths of many of the complainants, especially as he will be able to say
that he has the king's sanction for what he did."

"Methinks," Cuthbert said, "that if such be the case it would be perilous
indeed to wait for King Richard's return. Assuredly Sir Rudolph would not
tarry until she attained the age of seventeen, and it may well be that
two years may yet pass before King Richard comes back. It seems to me the
wiser part will be that I should give Prince John no notice that I am in
England. As you say, such notice would be of no avail in recovering my
lands and title, but it would put the prince upon his guard; and
assuredly he and his minions would press forward their measures to obtain
possession of the person of the Lady Margaret; while, on the other hand,
no harm can come of my maintaining silence."

"I think that you are right, Sir Cuthbert. It were indeed best that your
enemies should suppose you either dead or in some dungeon in the Tyr