tigress. But we were not to see them die. Perhaps Saint Luke had
interceded for us, as it was in his octave. The King was sent to
Berkeley Castle. My father they set on the smallest and poorest horse
they could find in the army, clad in an emblazoned surcoat such as he
was used to wear. From the moment that he was taken, he would touch no
food. And when they reached Hereford, he was so weak and ill, that Dame
Isabelle began to fear he would escape her hands by a more merciful
death than she designed for him. So she stayed her course at Hereford
for the Feast of All Saints, and the morrow after she had him brought
forth for trial. They had need to bear him into her presence, he was so
nearly insensible. Finding that they could not wake him into life by
speaking to him and calling him, they twined a crown of nettles and set
it on his head. But he was even then too near death to rouse himself.
So, lest he should die on the spot, they hurried him forth to execution.
He died the death of a traitor; but maybe God was more merciful than
they, and snatched his soul away ere he had suffered all they meant he
should. I suppose He allowed him to suffer previously, in punishment
for his allying himself with the wicked men of Edingdon: but I trust his
suffering purified his soul, and that God received him.

"Her vengeance thus satiated, Dame Isabelle set out for London. The
Castle of Arundel was forfeited, and the Lady and her son Richard were
left homeless. [See Note 4.] We set forth with them, a journey of many
weary days, to join my mother. But when we reached London, we found all
changed. Dame Isabelle, on her first coming, had summoned my mother to
surrender the Tower; and she, being affrighted, had resigned her charge,
and was committed to the custody of the Lord de la Zouche. So we
homeless ones bent our steps to Sempringham, where were two of my
father's sisters, Joan and Alianora; and we prayed the holy nuns there
to grant us shelter in their abode of peace. The Lord of Hereford gave
an asylum for young Richard.

"Those were peaceful, quiet days we passed at Sempringham; and they were
the last Isabel was to know. Meanwhile, the Friars Predicants, and in
especial the men of Edingdon and Ashridge, were spreading themselves
throughout the land, working well to bring back the King. Working too
well; for Dame Isabelle took alarm, and on Saint Maurice's Day, twelve
months after her landing, the King died at B