Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/89

1533.] beginning to look coldly on the King. We find her surrounded also by the representatives of her mother's family—Lord Abergavenny, who had been under suspicion when the Duke of Buckingham was executed, Sir Edward Neville, afterwards executed, Lord Latimer, Sir George and Sir William Neville—all of them were her near connections, all collateral heirs of the Kingmaker, inheriting the pride of their birth, and resentfully conscious of their fallen fortunes. The support of a party so composed would have added formidable strength to the preaching friars of the Nun of Kent; and as I cannofc doubt that the Nun was endeavouring to press her intrigues in a quarter where disaffection if created would be most dangerous, so the lady who ruled this party with a patriarchal authority had listened to her suggestions; and the repeated interviews with her which were sought by the Marchioness of Exeter were rendered more than suspicious by the secrecy with which these interviews were conducted.

These circumstances explain the arrest, to which I alluded above, of Sir William and Sir George Neville, brothers of Lord Latimer. They were not among 'the many noblemen' to whom the commissioners referred; for their confessions remain, and contain no allusion to the Nun; but they were examined at this particular