For the Lady Albion the weeks of gales were a time of trial indeed. For a start, she was kept, on Gorges's strict instructions, in the tiny gaol in Lymington. And although the mayor of Lymington petitioned many times for her to be taken to another place - or beheaded, or set free, or anything so long as the indefatigable lady could be removed from his charge - it was not until October that the council agreed that, although a traitor, the lady represented no actual danger to the state. After her release, while Albion had never ceased to profess his personal loyalty to her, she never felt quite the same about him. And the following year she had taken ship and gone to visit her daughter Catherine whose husband Don Diego had been lost - no one knew exactly how - in the great disaster of the Armada. That poor Don Diego had been safely buried by her son, the first night she had been in gaol, deep in the Forest where he would never be found, was something she never imagined.

It was hardly surprising that she remained with her daughter in Spain; and if, after failing to answer her summons that he join her there, Clement Albion forfeited any hope of inheriting her fortune, he was philosophical about it. 'I really think', he once confessed, 'that I'd give up one of my coppices just to make sure she never returned.'

Albion's own fortune remained modest, however, but that of his friends Thomas and Helena Gorges enjoyed a spectacular increase. For Queen Elizabeth looked kindly upon their request and granted them the hulk. By the time they had quietly emptied its contents, Sir Thomas Gorges and his wife the marchioness realized that they had one of the greatest fortunes in the south of England.

'And now', Helena joyfully declared, 'you can build your house at Longford, Thomas.'

It was not until nearly two years later that Albion was invited to accompany them up to the big estate below Sarum. 'The house isn't quite finished yet, Clement,' his host told him, 'but I'd like you to see it.'

They had certainly chosen a beautiful site, Albion thought, as they came to the lush parkland down by the Avon. But what no one had prepared him for, and which caused him first to gasp and then to burst out laughing, was the design.

For there, in the tranquil peace of an inland Wiltshire valley, built on a huge scale, with handsome windows instead of embrasures, was a massive triangular fortress. 'By all the saints, Thomas,' he cried, 'it's Hurst!'