Somerset saw at once that the case was hopeless, and he withdrew.It met in the drinking follow gourd music abbey.He was a man of high rank and of great accomplishments, but he was married, and he could not, therefore, innocently make her the object of his love.So great was the power of drinking follow gourd music such a man as Gloucester, that any open attempt to arrest him would have been likely to have been met with armed resistance, and might have led at once to civil war.He had a paper in his hand, and his countenance, as well as his air and manner, denoted great apprehension and anxiety.But the other ladies of drinking follow gourd music the court were not wholly satisfied with this explanation.Her countenance was beautiful, and her air and manner possessed an inexpressible charm, but her mental powers were of a very masculine character, and in the boldness of the plans which she formed, and in the mingled shrewdness and energy with which she went on to the execution of them, she evinced less the qualities of a woman than of a man.Lady Neville advanced to the king, and, falling upon her knees before him, she related the circumstances of the assault made by Gloucester upon the boat in the Thames, of the cruel murder of the passengers and boatmen, of the wound inflicted upon herself by drinking follow gourd music the dagger of the duke, and the almost miraculous manner in which she made her escape.He ascertained, or pretended to ascertain, that there had been some informalities connected with the marriage.The third was that he should do all he could to increase and strengthen the party against the duke, by turning as drinking follow gourd music many as possible of his friends, and those over whom he had any influence, against him, and then finally, when the party should become sufficiently strong, to prefer charges against him in Parliament, and bring him to trial.A great many instances had occurred in English history, she said, in which a favorite minister had been allowed to hold power so long, and to strengthen himself in the possession of it so completely, that he could not be divested of it, so that the king himself came at length to be held in subjection by his own minister.In the mean while, the Duke of Gloucester himself, who was now, however, considerably advanced drinking follow gourd music in life, lost his wife, she dying about this time, and he almost immediately conceived the idea of making Lady Neville her successor.Of course the Duke of Gloucester had no idea that any one could have escaped from the boat.