There is an old tradition that King John also figured as a poisoner, and got rid of the unfortunate Maud Fitz-Walter by means of a poisoned egg. The story is a romantic one, and is related by Hepworth Dixon in "Her Majesty's Tower." "In the reign of King John, the White Tower received one of the first and fairest of a long line of female victims, in that of Maud Fitz-Walter, who was known to the singers of her time as Maud the Fair. The father of this beautiful girl was Robert, Lord Fitz-Walter, of Castle Baynard, on the Thames, one of John's most powerful and greatest barons. Yet the King, during, it is said, a fit of violence or temper with the Queen, fell madly in love with the fair Maud. As neither the lady herself nor her powerful sire would listen to his disgraceful suit, the King is said to have seized her by force at Dunmow and brought her to the Tower. Fitz-Walter raised an outcry, on which the King sent troops into Castle Baynard and his other houses, and when the baron protested against these wrongs, his master banished him from the realm. Fitz-Walter fled to France with his wife and other children, leaving poor Maud in the Tower, where she suffered a daily insult in the King's unlawful suit. But she remained obdurate, and refused his offers. On her proud and scornful answer to his overtures being heard, John carried her up to the roof and locked her in the round turret, standing on the north-east angle of the keep. Maud's cage was the highest and chilliest den in the Tower; but neither cold, solitude, nor hunger could break her strength, and at last, in the rage of his disappointed love, the King sent one of his minions to her room with a poisoned egg, of which the brave girl ate and died." Bluff King Hal at one period of his life was apprehensive of being poisoned, and it was commonly believed that Anne Boleyn attempted to dose him. It is recorded that the King, in an interview with young Prince Henry, burst into tears, saying that he and his sister, the Princess Mary, might thank God for having escaped from the hands of that accursed and venomous harlot, who had intended to poison them. According to the French Chronicles, "After the death of Gaultier Giffard, Count Buckingham, in the early part of the twelfth century, Agnes his widow became enamoured with Robert Duke of Normandy and attached herself in an illicit manner to him, shortly after which time his wife Sibylle died of poison." Pope Alexander VI and his son the Duke Valentinois employed arsenic to carry out their fiendish plans, not only on their enemies, but their friends also. Thus perished by their hands the Cardinals of Capua and Modena; and Alexander himself by a cup intended for Adrian, Cardinal of Corneto, who had invited the pope to a banquet in the Vineyard of Belvedere, was destroyed instead of his host.