But over the inwards of the wedding must I not linger, for much is yet to write. The latter end of February was the Lady La Despenser loosed from the Tower, and in April was all given back to her. All, to wit, that could be given. Her little children, that the Queen Isabel had made nuns without any leave given save her own, could come back to her never more. I misdoubt if she lamented it greatly. She was one from whom trouble and sorrow ran lightly, like the water from a duck's back: and I reckon she thought more on her second marriage, which had place secretly about a year after her release, than she ever did for her lost children. And here may I say that those sisters, coheirs of Gloucester, did ever seem to me the queerest mothers I wist. The Lady Margaret Audley gave up her little Kate (a sweet child she was) to the Ankerage at Ledbury with scarce a sigh; and the Lady Alianora, of whom I write, took but little thought for her maids at Sempringham, or I err. I would not have given up my Alice after that fashion: and I did sore pity those little barnes, of which the eldest was not seven years old. Folk said it was making of gift to God, and was an holy and blessed thing. Soothly, I marvel if God setteth store by such like gifts, when men do but cast at his feet that whereof they would be rid! The innermost sanctuary of the Temple, it seemeth me, is scarce the fittest place to shoot rubbish. And when the rubbish is alive, if it be but vermin, I cannot slack to feel compassion for it. Methinks the Lady Alianora felt it sorer trouble of the twain, when she suffered touching certain jewels reported to be missing from the Tower during her governance thereof--verily a foolish charge, as though the Lady of Gloucester should steal jewels! Howbeit, she was fined twenty thousand pound, for the which she rendered up her Welsh lands, with the manors of Hanley and Tewkesbury, being the fairest and greatest part of her heritage. The King allowed her to buy back the said lands if she should, in one and the same day, pay ten thousand marks: howbeit, one half the said fine was after remitted at the intercession of the Lords and Commons.