She had said that she would ride to Durham on the day when the Young Lovell should have been ninety days away and that was the ninety-first. That night she lay at Warkworth where she had the hospitality of the Percies. She had with her an old lady called Bellingham and three maids with forty men-at-arms under the direction of the husband of the lady called Bellingham, an old esquire who had never come to be a knight, but yet a very honest man and capable for such a post. For if he had little skill or desire to take fortresses or the like, he could very well set out his men so as to drive off any evil gentry. And that night the Lady Margaret, after supper—which was late because it was the time of the haying when every man of the largest castle must be in the fields whilst daylight lasted—the Lady Margaret held a hot discussion with the Earl of Northumberland. The Lady Maud his wife was by, that was daughter to the Earl of Pembroke, and she sought to moderate at once the anger of that lord and the importunities of that hotheaded damsel. The Lady Margaret would have the Percy raise his many with cannon and siege apparatus and march against Castle Lovell to release her aunt, the Lady Rohtraut who was also that Earl’s cousin. And so she exhorted him, in the light of a great fire of sea coal, for the nights were chilly enough if the days were fine. She said many words in that sense to the Earl before he answered her. At last he spoke to a page standing behind her, that was son to the esquire, John Harbottle, and gave him a key and bade him bring a little box that he would find in an aumbry in the tower where his muniments and charters were locked up. For this Earl, according as he was at Alnwick which he did not much love, or at Warkworth where he much delighted to be, so he moved his window-glass, his muniments and his charters from the one Castle to the other, and for their greater safety they were placed in the tower called the Bail. Night and day watch was kept in the chambers that were both above them and below, with the best ancients and lieutenants that he had, keeping watch upon the men-at-arms. So high a value did his lord set upon his charters. And when the box was brought to him he opened it with another key and took out certain old and stained papers and parchments which he bade this lady read. And she could make little of them because there was no light but the firelight, for the Earl and his wife were accustomed to go to bed after supper. When she could not read them, the Earl took them from her and read them easily enough, for he had them nearly by heart, though the writing was cramped and nearly fourscore years of age, or more. And once, whilst he read them, the Earl looked over the edge of a parchment at the Lady Margaret and asked her if she had heard of a Percy called Hotspur. She answered, yes, indeed; so he read out lugubriously what was in that writing.