 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.