In the Shadow of the Crown - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,98

kept himself in a position to marry.

I could see danger creeping close to me, ready to catch up with me. Of course my father was anxious. There were murmurings in the Court against him. The spoliation of the shrine of Canterbury, the dissolution of the monasteries to the great profit of the King and his friends, the severance from the Pope whom they had looked upon as the Vicar of Christ all their lives… this could turn many against him.

And now the Pope had excommunicated him. Reginald Pole was circulating evil gossip about him. He was without a wife and the ladies of France were not eager to marry him; even though he might offer them the crown of England, they did not want it since they had to take him with it. The pain in his leg was cruel; the wretched ulcer seemed to get better and then would flare up again. My father was an angry man.

He gave orders that Sir Geoffry was to implicate his brothers and his friends. At any cost this must be achieved.

As my father must have guessed, Sir Geoffry was not able to stand out against the rigorous questioning and as a result broke down and said all that was required of him.

As a result his eldest brother, Lord Montague, and Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, among others, were arrested and put in the Tower.

My father now had in his power the Plantagenet Poles and Courtenay whose mother was the youngest daughter of Edward IV and therefore in the Plantagenet line. If he could have arrested Reginald at the same time, he would have been overjoyed. As it was, he must leave it to him to wreak his mischief abroad. But he would see that the others did not continue to plague him.

It was tragic. There could not have been a family in the country who had been more ready to support the King when he had first come to the throne; but they were a devout Catholic family; they could not accept first the divorce from my mother and secondly the break with Rome. It was revealed that they and the Marquis of Exeter had expressed approval for what Reginald was doing abroad. They had been in communication with him, and Montague had said there would be civil war in the country because of outraged public opinion on what was being done; and if the King were to die suddenly, it would be certain.

My father could never bear talk of death—and he had always considered mention of his own treasonable.

Lord Chancellor Audley and the jury of peers knew what verdict my father wanted and they gave it.

I was deeply distressed. My thoughts were for the Countess. What anguish she must have suffered. Her sons on trial for their lives, and in the present climate facing certain death.

For some reason Geoffry was pardoned. Perhaps the King was too contemptuous of him to demand the full penalty and possibly believed that more information might be extracted from him. But on the 9th of December Lord Montague and the Marquis of Exeter were beheaded on Tower Hill.

They went bravely to their deaths. Geoffry was released; his wife had pointed out that he was so ill that he was nearly dead. Poor Geoffry—his, I suppose, was the greater tragedy. How did a man feel when he had betrayed his family and friends whom he loved? Desperately unhappy, I know, because a few days after he was released he tried to kill himself. He did not succeed and lived on miserably.

All I could think of was the Countess. How I longed to see her, but I guessed that, in view of the suspicions under which her family now lived, that would never be allowed.

Then, to my horror, I learned that the Earl of Southampton and the Bishop of Ely had been sent to her home to question her and as a result she was taken to Southampton's house at Cowdray and kept a prisoner there. What was my father trying to prove? It was years since the Countess had been snatched from me, but I wondered if he were trying to implicate me.

He was in a vicious mood. Many people were against him, and that was something he could not endure. I heard, too, that his leg, far from improving, was growing more painful. He had always been watchful of those of royal blood. I waited for news in trepidation.

An attainder was passed by Parliament against Reginald