“Said he so?” Poor Grisell could not repress the inquiry.
“Yea, and that though no actual troth had passed between me and Lord Audley’s daughter, yet that the vows we had of our own free will exchanged would be quite enough to annul my forced marriage.”
“You think it evil in me, the more that it was I who had defaced that countenance. I thought of that! I would have endowed her with all I had if she would set me free. I trusted yet so to do, when, for my misfortune as well as hers, the day of Wakefield cut off her father and brother, and a groom was taken who was on his way to Sendal with tidings of the other brother’s death. Then, what do the Queen and Sir Pierre de Brezé but command me to ride off instantly to claim Whitburn Tower! In vain did I refuse; in vain did I plead that if I were about to renounce the lady it were unknightly to seize on her inheritance. They would not hear me. They said it would serve as a door to England, and that it must be secured for the King, or the Dacres would hold it for York. They bade me on my allegiance, and commanded me to take it in King Henry’s name, as though it were a mere stranger’s castle, and gave me a crew of hired men-at-arms, as I verily believe to watch over what I did. But ere I started I made a vow in Dr. Morton’s hands, to take it only for the King, and so soon as the troubles be ended to restore it to the lady, when our marriage is dissolved. As it fell out, I never saw the lady. Her mother lay a-dying, and there was no summoning her. I bade them show her all due honour, hoisted my pennon, rode on to my uncle at Wearmouth, and thence to mine own lands, whence I joined the Queen on her way to London. As you well know, all was over with our cause at Towton Moor; and it was on my way northward after the deadly fight that half a dozen of the men-at-arms brought me tidings, not only that the Gilsland Dacres had, as had been feared, claimed the castle, but that this same so-called lady of mine had been shown to deal in sorcery and magic. They sent for a wise man from Shields, but she found by her arts what they were doing, fled, and was slain by an arquebuss in the form of a hare!
“Do you believe it was herself in sooth?” asked Grisell.