On Saturday 2 December Norfolk was at Welbeck writing desperate letters to the King. On Sunday 3 December he was at Hatfield, and with him were his half-brother Lord William Howard, Sir William Fitzwilliam and Sir Anthony Browne[44]. He had summoned Shrewsbury to join them, but Shrewsbury that day sent word that he was so ill that it would be impossible for him to reach Doncaster before Wednesday[45]. Probably Lancaster Herald arranged to defer the meeting when he went to Pontefract that eventful Sunday. Shrewsbury’s letter was written in the morning, and after dinner Norfolk mentioned in a letter to the King that the meeting would not be till Wednesday. The principal object of the letter was to give warning that William Steward of Scotland was on his way to France and had passed right through the rebel country. It would therefore be well to stop him, as he might be carrying messages from the rebels to the King of Scotland. Norfolk reported that the nobles at Pontefract were in half captivity to the commons, who were very numerous and wild, but he was not without hopes of winning over some of the gentlemen[46]. This no doubt is an allusion to the Archbishop’s sermon and the tumult in the church. Norfolk must have written on the report of Lancaster Herald. It is rather difficult to discover exactly what arrangements the Herald made for the first meeting on Monday. Robert Aske said afterwards that he delivered the King’s safe-conduct for ten knights and esquires, each accompanied by three servants[47]. On the other hand Fitzwilliam, writing on Monday 4 December, told the King that the gentlemen were coming with only two servants each and “upon our honours without your Grace’s safe-conduct.”[48] Fitzwilliam would be the better authority, as Aske may easily have forgotten the exact particulars, if it were not possible that Fitzwilliam was trying to soothe the King, whose angry letters of 2 December had just been received. They seem to have arrived early on Monday morning before the meeting, and Norfolk and Fitzwilliam answered them at 8 A.M. In these replies therefore there is no record of what passed. Norfolk wrote to the King and to the Council. Both his letters are full of protestations of loyalty; he insisted that he had only spoken the plain truth all through, as it was his duty to warn the King of the danger in which he stood. Doubtless he had mismanaged affairs, but that was due to his old age and feebleness, unfit as he was for the great duties which the King had forced upon him. He hoped now that they would not send him north, as he had suggested, because he wanted to go home[49]. The letters are very picturesque but they contain no information about the negotiations with the rebels.