and wounded her with a dagger. In three separate letters to Cromwell the Duchess repeated the accusation that the Duke had 'set his women to bind me till blood came out at my fingers' ends, and pinnacled me, and sat on my breast till I spit blood, and he never punished them'. Howard responded to the allegations by writing that 'I think the apparent false lies were never contrived by a wife of her husband that she doth daily increase of me'. Continued cohabitation was clearly impossible, and on 23 March 1534 Howard forced a separation. According to the Duchess, the Duke had ridden all night, and arriving home in a furious temper had locked her in a chamber and taken away all her jewels and apparel. She was sent to a house in Redbourn, Hertfordshire, from which she wrote a number of letters to Cromwell complaining that she was kept in a state of virtual imprisonment with a meagre annual allowance of only £200. At first the Duchess attempted to reconcile with her husband, but when she received no reply to her 'kind letters' to the Duke, she declared to Cromwell in a letter dated 30 December 1536 that 'from this day forward I will never sue to the King, nor to none other, to desire my lord my husband to take me again'. On his part, Norfolk refused to give up Bess Holland, and attempted to persuade the Duchess to agree to a divorce, offering to return her jewels and apparel and give her a great part of his plate and stuff of household, but she rebuffed his offers. She received little or no support from her family. Her eldest son and daughter became estranged from her, while her brother condemned her behaviour. Forsaken by almost everyone, the Duchess remained obdurate. On 3 March 1539, she wrote to Cromwell that: I am of age to rule myself, as I have done these five years, since my husband put me away. Seeing that my lord my husband reckoned me to be so unreasonable, it were better that I kept me away, and keep my own house still, and trouble no other body. . . I pray you, my lord, take no displeasure with me, although I have not followed your lordship's good counsel, and your letters, as touching my lord my husband for to come home again, which I