The Duchess of Exeter and her daughter were among the royal guests. The flirtation between the former and Mr. St. Leger was thereby considerably promoted: while the aversion of the Lady Anne for Mr. Thomas Grey was very far from lessened. The Duchess, however, pushed on the settlements and preparations: and soon after the King's return to Westminster, both events were ready to happen. The divorce came first. On the twelfth of November, 1472, the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Exeter was dissolved by Papal bull: and in the following January, the Lady Anne de Holand was made to give her hand—not with her heart in it—to the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth.
On the evening before this sacrifice was offered at the shrine of politics and propriety, the Lady Anne, and several of her mother's chamberers, were gathered at Coldharbour. The bride had been trying on her wedding-dress, which Jane Grisacres and Marion Rothwell were carefully folding up. It was of rich crimson velvet, heavily furred with ermine, and was almost too great a weight for the slight shoulders which drooped beneath it. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Jane.
"Help us, holy Mary! If I have not lost my locket!"
"Dear heart!" responded Marion. "Look and see if it have not catched in my Lady's gown."
The search was made, but without success.
"Woe is me! I had liefer have lost all mine having rather than yon locket," lamented Jane.
"I know wherefore," suggested the teazing Tamzine, in that tantalising style which is always meant to provoke a request for further explanation: and Marion, who was not devoid of curiosity, responded as Tamzine intended she should.
"Wherefore? The saints be about us! Had she not yon locket for a token of Master Sellinger? I know!" announced Miss Thomasine, in a tone which called the colour into Jane's face.
The last-named young lady was still hunting for her lost treasure, in likely and unlikely places, with a running accompaniment of remarks addressed to nobody, such as are usual in similar cases.
"I am assured I put it on this morrow!—Dear, dear, but to think of it!—Where can it be?—I have looked every whither!—Had ever poor maid such an ill loss?"