It is strange, indeed, that it should be Dame Vernon, whose husband, Sir Jasper Vernon, received the fiefs of Westerham and Hyde." "Why should it be curious that it is she ?" Walter asked.
"Oh!" Geoffrey said, rather confusedly.

"I was not thinking--that is--I mean that it is curious because Bertha Fletcher was for years a dependant on the family of Sir Roland Somers, who was killed in the troubles when the king took the reins of government in his hands, and his lands, being forfeit, were given to Sir Jasper Vernon, who aided the king in that affair." "I wish you would tell me about that," Walter said.

"How was it that there was any trouble as to King Edward having kingly authority ?" "It happened in this way," Geoffrey said.

"King Edward II, his father, was a weak prince, governed wholly by favourites, and unable to hold in check the turbulent barons.

His queen, Isabella of France, sister of the French king, a haughty and ambitious woman, determined to snatch the reins of power from the indolent hands of her husband, and after a visit to her brother she returned with an army from Hainault in order to dethrone him.