'My father tells me that it was from this place that William de la Pole, the first Duke of Suffolk, took his departure thirty years ago. What an ambitious family has that been, and how soon do the rewards of iniquity fall upon the wicked!' 'My grandfather,' replied Ellen, 'was the last friend that met him at Ipswich, and brought him on his way to our castle. The vessel which was to bear him into exile could not get higher up the river than the channel opposite the priory, and from this spot my father's barge carried him on board his foreign ship. Alas! he soon heard of his destruction!' 'And must wo not own, fair Ellen, that the retributive hand of justice was here displayed against the murderer of the good Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester? No sooner is de la Pole beyond the precincts of his native power, than he finds he cannot escape. Oh! that Gloucester's friends had prevailed to keep the Parliament in the metropolis, and this blot upon the escutcheon of the Duke of Suffolk would never have been seen.' 'Say, rather, Latimer, that it would have been well for the merchant of Ravenspurn to have kept to his northern port, at the mouth of the Humber, or have come no further south than Hull, than to have purchased lands, title, and fame, to fall by such a foul and fiendish crime, and to finish his right of nobility in England!' 'I do not hold with thee, Wolsey, in such a doctrine, that man is never to aspire to lift himself beyond the mud. The mouth of the Humber may give birth to as noble blood as the banks of the Orwell; and, if I mistake not thy spirit, thou wouldst bid fair to be a candidate for nobility.' 'It should not be my wealth that should entitle me thereto. The king's favour should be purchased with wisdom, not with gold.' 'Yet wisdom brings gold as naturally as that folly wastes it.' 'Ay! but it wastes faster than it is attained. But here we are at the Tower.' 'Come, then, in to breakfast; I see Lord de Freston coming; let us drop the subject of the de la Poles: it always carries with it a pang to my father's heart.' The party then stood before the celebrated Tower, the construction of which arose from an accidental conversation between De Freston and Latimer, two years previous. The latter had seen the uncommon genius and application of Ellen to study, and had remarked to her father that, if her studies were not diversified, she would lose the sprightliness and vivacity of youth, and forget quickly what she had learnt with difficulty.