Ashley,” Sir Leonard Chamberlain, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower, informed me, poking only his head in the door of my cell, “good news for you and Master Ashley, for word has come you are both to be released today.” So great was my shock and relief, I gasped and broke into tears. “And to be returned t-to Her G-grace’s household?” I stammered. By my reckoning, this was the nineteenth of March, and I had been in this place for nigh on four months. I dashed tears from my face and waited for news of the second-most-desired dream, a reunion with Elizabeth. “Hardly that,” he told me, “but you are to be released into the custody of one William Cecil, privy secretary to Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector Somerset. I’ll be back for you within the hour,” he added, and closed the door. Freedom! A reunion with John, though not with Elizabeth. I must be grateful for this blessing, yet I cursed those who would keep me from my girl. Would John and I ever be permitted to serve her again?
