To whom, the Lieutenant [Lord Chandos, see p. 78] then being, said, "Madam, you were best to come out of the rain! for you sit unwholesomely."
She then replying, answered again, "Better sitting here, than in a worse place! For, GOD knoweth! I know not whither you will bring me!"
With that, her Gentleman Usher wept. She demanded of him, "What he meant so uncomfortably to use her, seeing she took him to be her comforter, and not her dis-mayer: especially for that she knew her truth to be such, that no man should have cause to weep for her." But forth she went into the prison.
The doors were locked and bolted upon her; which did not a little discomfort and dismay Her Grace. At what time, she called to her gentlewoman for her book [i.e., her Bible], desiring GOD, "Not to suffer her to build her foundation upon the sands, but upon the rocks! whereby all blasts of blustering weather should have no power against her."
After the doors were thus locked, and she close shut up; the Lords had great conference how to keep ward and watch, every man declaring his opinion in that behalf, agreeing straightly and circumspectly to keep her: while that one of them, I mean the Lord of Sussex, swearing, said, "My Lords! let us take heed! and do no more than our Commission will bear us! whatsoever shall happen hereafter. And, further, let us consider that she was the King our Master's daughter! and therefore let us use such dealing, that we may answer unto it hereafter, if it shall so happen! For just dealing," said he, "is always answerable."
Whereunto the other Lords agreed that it was well said of him: and thereupon departed.
It would make a pitiful and strange story, here by the way, to touch and recite what examinations and rackings of poor men there were, to find out the knife that should cut her throat! what gaping among the Lords of the Clergy to see the day, wherein they might wash their goodly white rochets in her innocent blood? But especially the Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner, then Lord Chancellor, and ruler of the rost.
Who then, within few days after [March, 1554], came unto her, with divers other of the Council, and examined her of the talk that was at Ashridge, betwixt her and Sir James a Croft concerning her removing from thence to Donnington Castle, requiring her to declare, "What she meant thereby?"
At the first, she, being so suddenly taken, did not well remember any such house: but within a while, well advising herself, she said, "Indeed, I do now remember that I have such a place: but I never lay in it, in all my life. And as for any that hath moved me thereunto, I do not remember."