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not speak so flippantly of the Earl of Surrey. He is a very great gentleman.”
    “He must be if he can sport the royal arms.”
    “That was foolish of him.”
    “He might have known the Seymours were ready to pounce.”
    I was upset. I had felt quite a fondness for Henry Howard. He was a very handsome man but what made him more attractive in my eyes was that he wrote beautiful verses and people said he had me in mind when he wrote them. I always read them avidly and they gave me great pleasure so it was distressing to think of him in that cold dank prison. And his father with him—for the Duke of Norfolk could not be very young. He had once been my mother's chief adviser and although he had presided at her trial and arranged for her execution, he was still a blood relation—my own uncle.
    “It is all Seymour now,” said Kat. “My word, how they have come up in the world since their sister married the King. Edward the elder is a sharp one and he has the King's ear. As for Thomas …” Kat smiled knowingly. “Now there is a man. Do you know, I don't think there is another at Court to match him.”
    “Match him for what?” I asked.
    “For grace… for charm…He is so good-looking…so tall, so commanding.He's much more of a man than his brother. They say there is a little rivalry between Thomas and Edward Seymour. Thomas has no wife—as yet.”
    “Kat,” I cried, “since you have discovered the glories of marriage you think of nothing else. Have a care or Mr Ashley will be taking you to task.”
    She laughed but I could not join in her merry mood because I was thinking of poor Henry Howard in the Tower where my own mother had lodged before her death.
    I was quite fond of Hatfield then, although later I came to regard it as a prison. There was an air of peace about the ivy-covered walls, and Edward kept splendid state in the lofty banqueting hall. When we dined there I always sat beside him and we would talk seriously together, for Edward, who was as aware of the growing tension as I was and far more frightened of it, was becoming very serious indeed.
    I heard that the King was at Whitehall, the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey still in the Tower, and the Queen in constant attendance upon the King who could not bear her out of his sight these days.
    It was December when visitors came to Hatfield. Kat saw the party in the distance and hastened to find me that she might be the first with the news. We went up to one of the turrets to watch the riders approach.
    I said: “I'll guess they are coming to tell us we are going to Court and I must warn Edward of their approach.”
    “Yes, you two should go down to greet them,” replied Kat.
    We had a shock instead of a welcome. Our visitors were guards who had come to escort us—not to Whitehall as we had thought—but Edward to Hertford Castle and me to Enfield. We were to be separated! We protested with horror at being parted but were assured that these were the King's orders and must be obeyed without question.
    How different was that Christmas from what I had anticipated! Poor Edward had been so unhappy at our parting and, since he was younger, he was less able to control his grief. I wrote a little note to tell him that I was as unhappy as he was by our forced separation and I was thinking of him all the time. He wrote such a tender letter back. I still have it.
“The change of place, dear sister, does not so much vex me as your departure from me…It is a comfort to my regret that I hope shortly to see you again if no accident intervenes…”
    Tragedy intervened. We saw each other, but only briefly.
    In January I heard that the Earl of Surrey had been beheaded on Tower Hill. This depressing knowledge did not help me to bear the separation from my brother. Poor reckless Surrey! How prodigal people were of life…inrisking it and taking it. It seemed to me such a trivial matter to die for. Oh, but I knew it was more than arms on an escutcheon. It was the