Edward is bitter about being placed in prison; the cells are overcrowded and filthy, the food is inedible, and there is continuous fighting among the prisoners. A week passes, during which time, people are sent in to confirm that Miles Hendon is indeed an imposter. Then one day an old man arrives whom Hendon recognizes as a “good old honest soul”—Blake Andrews. He is confident that this man will identify him. However, even old Andrew denies him, but stays behind when the jailer leaves; he wants to give the imposter “a piece of [his] mind.”
As soon as they are alone, the old man drops to his knees and praises God that Sir Miles is still alive. If Sir Miles so desires, Andrews will go forth immediately and “proclaim the truth” throughout the land, even though he knows that he will be strangled for doing so. Hendon will not let the old man sacrifice himself, but the old servant does make himself useful because he is able to smuggle in some good food for the young king and bring Hendon an accurate account of the things that have happened during Miles’s absence. First, Miles’s brother Arthur died; Miles’s father weakened and insisted that Hugh marry the Lady Edith. She protested as long as possible but finally the marriage took place at the old man’s deathbed.
Old Andrews also brings more news: It seems as though there is a “rumor that the king is mad.” But he says that it means “death to speak of it.” Upon hearing this, young Edward Tudor rouses up and announces that “the king is not mad.” Andrews then reports that Henry VIII will soon be buried and that the new king will soon be crowned. Sir Hugh will attend the coronation. Edward then learns that “the new king” has won the hearts of the people by saving the Duke of Norfolk from death and that now he is “bent on destroying the cruelest of the laws that harry and oppress the people.” Hearing this, Edward’s captivity becomes almost unbearable to him. Nothing Miles can do comforts the young boy, however.
One day, two women are brought in chains and thrown in prison; they take pity on little Edward, and he discovers that they were arrested simply because they are Baptists. One day, they are gone, and he hopes they have been freed. He could not be more wrong, for he finds them chained to posts, fagots piled about them, and in an instant they are burned alive, while their daughters plead for mercy. The world is “drowned under a volley of heart-piercing shrieks of mortal agony.” The young king says: “That one little moment will never go out from my memory, but will abide there, and I shall see it all the days, and dream of it all the nights, till I die. Would God I had been blind! “
Miles feels somehow pleased that the king is growing gentler and that his “disorder” is mending; once, he would have rushed forth and demanded that the women be released. That same day Edward witnesses more acts of injustice, including meeting an old lawyer who was thrown in prison because he wrote about the injustice of English laws. “The world is made wrong,” Edward realizes. “Kings should go to school to their own laws, at times, and so learn mercy.”
