while the King befriended him, he was barbarously beheaded at sea; but his widow Alice, Chaucer's daughter, was made custodian of the Castle in his place. The House of Lancaster had raised Alice de la Pole to her dignities and honours; yet when the commencement of the Wars of the Roses favoured the rival house, she at once transferred her support to the Yorkists. In 1461, Edward of York became King, and the reward of Alice's faithlessness was the marriage of the young Duke, her son, with the lady Elizabeth, the King's sister, while she herself retained her Castle. There the heartless duchess and her son received under their custody the ex-Queen Margaret of Anjou, who had been the friend and patroness of her youth, but who now remained for five years her prisoner, until in 1476 her ransom was paid, and she returned to France. In the events of the succeeding years there is little of immediate connection with Wallingford. Lord Lovell, who had been a ward of the Duke of Suffolk, was made constable by Richard III., but he fled to Flanders when his master fell at Bosworth. Henry VII. reinstated Suffolk in the office, which he held for life, in spite of the rebellion of his son, Lord Lincoln, whom Edward IV., his uncle, had designated as his heir. After him the office was held for a time by Arthur, Prince of Wales. On one occasion at least, in 1518, Henry VIII. and his Court appear to have been residing here. Some twelve years later he entirely renovated the College of St. Nicholas; to which shortly afterwards "a fair steeple of stone," as Leland describes it, was added by Dr. Underhill, the Dean. No new appointment to the office of constable appears until 1535, when it was granted to Henry Norris, a nephew of the Lord Lovell who had held it fifty years before; but after six months he fell a victim to the King's displeasure and died upon the scaffold. In 1540 an Act of Parliament separated the Castle and Honour from the Duchy of Cornwall and annexed it to the Crown. Edward VI. dissolved the College, and its buildings were shortly afterwards dismantled, together with those of the Castle-Keep and the Gatehouse. In the next reigns the lead and stones were conveyed in large quantities to Windsor Castle to be used in repairs and in building the Poor Knights' lodgings. Yet the main fabric of the Castle remained, and was used for the imprisonment of heretics in the early years of Elizabeth. During all this time Sir Francis Knollys was constable, having been appointed to the office by Edward VI. in 1551. In the latter part of Elizabeth's reign he was succeeded by his son, Sir William, who became Viscount Wallingford under James I., and Earl of Banbury under Charles I.