the Courte-Yard". As Harington had previously been imprisoned in the Tower from early 1549 to the spring of 1550 for complicity in the treason of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and his involvement in the plot to bring about a marriage between King Edward VI and Lady Jane Grey, it is curious to note that the object of his love was in fact the daughter of his former jailer. Sir John Markham served as Lieutenant of the Tower during the period of Harington's incarceration. Elizabeth was moved to Woodstock Palace in May and placed under house arrest, and it is not known if Markham went with her; however, upon Elizabeth's return to her residence at Hatfield House in October 1555, Markham was installed once more in the princess's household as one of her six gentlewomen. Harington, having already secured his own freedom in January 1555, paid frequent visits to Hatfield, where he encountered Markham. He was described as having already been very much in love with her in the early years of Mary I's reign. Upon Elizabeth's ascension to the throne in 1558 as Elizabeth I, Markham was appointed a Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber, a post she held for the rest of her life. Poet's muse Markham, who was described as having possessed "great beauty" inspired Harington to write letters and pay homage to her in poems and sonnets, usually addressing her as "Sweete Isabella Markham". He had started composing the sonnets as early as 1549 when she was 22 years old. One of these reads in part as follows: "John Haryngton to Isabella Markham, 1549 Question. Alas! I love you overwell, Myne owne sweete deere delygte! Yet, for respects I feare to tell What moves my trobled spryghte: What workes my woe, what breeds my smarte, What wounds myn harte and mynde; Reason restrayns me to emparte Such perylls as I fynde." Marriage Sometime in 1559, after the death of his first wife, which occurred before 1 April, Markham married Harington, who had inherited considerable property from the childless Ethelreda. The match met with the Queen's approval as both Isabella Markham and John Harington were held in high favour. This was made manifest when Elizabeth stood as godmother to Markham's first child, John on 4 August 1561, with Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, acting as the infant's godfathers.