He did not know that it had been in existence, nearly as long as he had, in the three governing minds of England, of which one had just passed away. It was the only point of all their opinions in which the Princess and the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester were agreed. The private reasons of each were utterly diverse from those of the other two. The Princess wished to secure two points—the happiness of her son, and the welfare of the Lollard Church of which she was the nursing mother. To this end the heir must entertain a personal affection for His Majesty which would prevent him from coveting his position, and must be brought up in an atmosphere which would dispose him toward the Lollard doctrines. The Duke of Lancaster’s object was the welfare of England; added to which he did not want to reign himself, and Roger or his brother were the only persons who could reasonably be placed before him. The Duke of Gloucester’s object was almost the opposite of the last. He did wish to reign, but he cared more for the reality of power than for the semblance, and knowing that equity would be outraged by his being preferred to his elder brothers, he desired such a monarch as he would easily be able to influence. This he fancied he saw in Roger,—warm-hearted, impulsive, readily swayed, and not too suspicious of ulterior motives. The only person, at that day, who had ever been able to read the true character of Gloucester was the dead Princess. She must have been a very clever woman. Her feminine instinct penetrated all the joints of his closely-riveted armour, and without his being in the least aware of it, "to her he had shown his naked heart." Somebody who could be trusted must be put in his way; and she read Roger also more accurately than he had done. Through all the outward impulsiveness she discerned the heart’s fidelity—through all the thorny surroundings of temptation the ever straightforward aim at the one goal of right. Perhaps her cleverest move of all was just that which looked on the surface the least likely to forward her intentions. She had removed him from the noxious atmosphere of Bermondsey House, and had placed him in a family which was not marked by Lollard proclivities—a family of which, in that respect, even the anti-Lollard Gloucester could feel no suspicion. But she saw that Roger was more easily led than driven: that his intensely Lollard uncle, John de Montacute, "the most pestilent of all that sect," was likely to have far more influence with him as an occasional and interesting visitor, than as the man who decided his fate and sat in judgment on all his little peccadilloes; beside which, had he been consigned to the care of a distinctly Lollard family, Gloucester would have been certain to scheme for his removal. He would probably be content to leave him at Woking, where Lollardism was something quite outside the family notions—a matter which they left to the priesthood, whose business they considered it to be.