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At such a time and in face of the fresh hubbub caused at Court by the marriage of Lady Mary Grey (“an unhappy chance and monstruoos,” comments Cecil, in a letter to the English Ambassador in France), the peace and security of Chatsworth offered themselves as a happy refuge against all complications. There is a grotesque humour in Cecil’s use of that word monstrous, for Lady Mary was almost a dwarf, and Keys, whom Cecil calls “the biggest gentleman in this Court,” had secured his post of Serjeant Porter owing to his magnificent size and height. He was twice Lady Mary’s age, and was a widower with several children. The Queen clapped him in the Fleet, and condemned Lady Mary to confinement in the houses of successive friends. The pair never met after their hasty wedding.

Thus, on all sides, Court was a place of “dispeace,” while in Derbyshire Lady St. Loe had good neighbours, people of quality and substance, and was safe within her parks and palings. She did not share her royal mistress’s distrust of matrimony, for she was free to choose her next lord, and there was no reason why she should remain a widow longer than she could help.