She knew nothing as yet of her husband's regard for Lady Anne, nor of the reputed love of Lord Percy for Cicely. Her confessor only gave her carefully assorted pieces of information, and so all she heard of the affair was that there was danger that her favourite might be removed forcibly from the convent if she was not sent to a distance, and this so alarmed the Queen that she gave orders that the girl should be removed at once to a place of safety at some distance from Greenwich.
The community had a branch establishment in the neighbourhood of Oxford, and the very next night, under cover of darkness, a party of nuns and guards set out on the journey thither, while Miles was fondly imagining that his beloved was walking behind the wall he knew so well, and listening to the rustle of the trees, under which they had often walked together, and he had read to her scraps of his beloved Greek Testament, or some of the notes that Erasmus had written to make the text quite clear.
Under the trees in Greenwich Park, too, he had given her the translation he had copied for her; and he wondered now whether she had taken this with her to the convent, or left it with her girlish trinkets for her sister to claim by-and-bye.
Miles would have liked to know what had become of this. Certainly, such a gift as his was not calculated to make her stay in the convent any happier, and he almost hoped she had left it at home, and that he should hear the next time he came that his gift had been found, with her rings and brooches, in the drawer which she said was not to be opened until she had been in the convent two years.
The removal of Cicely from Greenwich was effected so quietly that her father and mother knew nothing about it. But the Cardinal, sitting in his room at Placentia, knew the whole matter, and where they were going to take the lady; however, he was careful that no breath of this should reach the ears of Miles just now, for fear he should make some rash attempt to run away with her while they were upon the road. Such clumsy methods would not have fitted in with the purpose the Cardinal had at heart. He could watch and wait, and he hoped to be able to outwit the Queen, and her confessor too, though he was an astute man, and a Spaniard to boot. If he did not possess a dwarf like Saladin, he had other spies in his service, for he could not have been at the King's elbow at every crucial moment if he had not watchful and intelligent spies about the Court, who kept him informed of every move in the game that was going forward on the chessboard of European politics.
This system of espionage was rapidly growing in his hand, but it was nothing to what it became in the hands of his successor, Thomas Cromwell.
Cromwell governed England and the King through his army of paid spies, he having studied deeply the methods of Machiavelli. The whole system of English government was built up on this system, so that no man could tell but that his dearest friend, or even son or daughter, was not a paid agent of Cromwell, and that his most simple and confidential words and deeds would not be reported to the Chancellor; with the result that the very springs of social and private life were poisoned at their source by the infamous system that was now coming into vogue everywhere, and was so largely used by the Cardinal for the furtherance of his own plans.
As soon as his business with the King was finished, he and his retinue returned to York House, and early the following day Miles was summoned to his presence.
"I shall require you to go to Oxford on certain business connected with the new college, that is now well-nigh completed," he said.
Miles was full of grief and anxiety on Cicely's account, but he could not help feeling delighted at the thought of revisiting his Alma Mater, and seeing the friends whom he had left behind; and he thanked the Cardinal for selecting him for the service that would allow him to see these dear friends again.