I hear a clatter from the Byward Tower gate and peer over the wall to see who is entering. They are prisoners, there is a guard around them, and there are half a dozen men. I can hear the jeers of the crowd outside the gate, silenced when the gate slams shut and the bolts are drawn. I can just see the face of the leading prisoner. Lord, it is my father-in-law, John Dudley, walking proudly with his head up and his hat in his hand, and now I recognize his sons among the disgraced party. I thank God for His grace that my father is not among them. The Dudleys have been arrested and my father is free. He will be meeting our cousin Princess Mary and explaining how it came about, applying for my release. I thank God that it is the Dudleys who will be blamed for all this. It was their plan, and everyone knows it. They have been vaultingly ambitious for years, now they will be brought low, and serve them right.

The party is divided. My father-in-law goes to St. Thomas’s Tower over the watergate, and his sons are taken to the Beauchamp Tower to share their brother Guildford’s rooms. I watch them go down the steps, bowing their heads to enter the low doorway, and I feel nothing—neither sympathy nor fear for them. There is a little struggle as John Dudley tries to force his way down the steps to be with his sons. I can see the youngest, Henry, is crying. I suppose that Guildford will be glad to be with his brothers, but he will find that being drunk and knowing nothing will not save him now that his father is arrested.

I think I had better go back to my rooms, but when I get there I find that my clothes and my books have been moved, and I am now to live in the house of Mr. Nathaniel Partridge, the gentleman-jailer of the Tower. It is a pretty house, facing inwards over the gardens, looking towards the White Tower. My rooms are a good size and comfortable. I still have three ladies-in-waiting and a manservant. It makes no difference to me, I tell Mrs. Partridge, the wife of the jailer: “Outward show means nothing to me. While I have my books and my studies and I can pray, I need nothing else.”

She bobs a little curtsey, not the deep obeisance that she used before the Dudleys came in, under arrest. I find this very irritating, but then I remember that it is outward show, and I care nothing for it.

“Leave me,” I say quietly. “I am going to write.”