Once more the curtain falls on tragedy, and on its rise we see the Tower decked out for revelry. In 1546 a “great banquet” was given in honour of the peace between France and England, and the French High Admiral, the Bishop of Evreux, and others came on embassy to England, and were welcomed, amid much rejoicing, to the feast. For a space the Tower remembered there was laughter in life as well as tears. However, it rejoiced with difficulty, and very soon had returned to gloomy dignity and sadness. On paltry evidence the Duke of Norfolk, who had led to victory at [Illustration: THE COUNCIL CHAMBER IN THE KING’S HOUSE WHERE GUY FAWKES AND FATHER GERARD WERE TRIED] Flodden Field, and was now seventy-four years of age, was, with the Earl of Surrey, imprisoned in the Tower. Surrey, tried by jury in January 1547, on the 19th of the month was led out of the Tower gate to execution on Tower Hill. Thus was sent to death England’s first writer of blank verse and one of her most excellent poets. “Surrey’s instinct for prosody was phenomenal,” says Mr. Edmund Gosse, and “he at once transplanted blank verse from a soil in which it could never flourish [it had recently been invented in Italy], to one in which it would take root and spread in full luxuriance.” Yet the sweet singer who lit the torch that was handed on to Shakespeare was brought to the block with the tyrant and the malefactor. Norfolk would have shared a like fate, had not the King himself died a few hours before the time appointed for the Duke’s removal to Tower Hill. He was set free when Mary came to reign, and died in his own home in 1554 at the good old age of eighty-one.