ck's
impudent speech, had angrily said that she cared nothing for him; but he
managed the next time he saw her, by her own contrivance, to persuade her
that he was so much in love as not to know what he said.

Before long, however, a more dangerous lover, because one of better rank,
appeared in the field, and spoilt Mannock's game. This was Francis Derham,
a young gentleman of some means in the household of the Duke of Norfolk,
of whom he seems to have been a distant connection. In his own confession
he boldly admitted that he was in love with Katharine, and had promised
her marriage. The old Duchess always had the keys of the maids' dormitory,
where Katharine also slept, brought to her chamber after the doors were
locked; but means were found by the women to laugh at locksmiths, and the
most unbridled licence prevailed amongst them. Derham, with the lovers of
two of the women, used to obtain access almost nightly to the dormitory,
where they remained feasting and rioting until two or three in the
morning: and there can remain little doubt that, on the promise of
marriage, Derham practically lived with Katharine as his wife thus
clandestinely, for a considerable period, whilst she was yet very young.
Mannock, who found himself supplanted, thereupon wrote an anonymous letter
to the Duchess and left it in her pew at chapel, saying that if her Grace
would rise again an hour after she had retired and visit the gentlewomen's
chamber she would see something that would surprise her. The old lady, who
was not free from reproach in the matter herself, railed and stormed at
the women; and Katharine, who was deeply in love with Derham, stole the
anonymous letter from her grandmother's room and showed it to him,
charging Mannock with having written it. The result, of course, was a
quarrel, and the further enlightenment of the Duchess with regard to her
granddaughter's connection with Derham. The old lady herself was
afterwards accused of having introduced Derham into her own household for
the purpose of forwarding a match between him and Katharine; and finally
got into great trouble and danger by seizing and destroying Derham's
papers before the King's Council could impound them: but when she learnt
the lengths to which the immoral connection had been carried, and the
shameful licentiousness that had accompanied it, she made a clean sweep of
the servants inculpated, and brought her granddaughter to live in Lambeth
amongst a fresh se