midnight
`` I would rather be left alone , '' said Tristram . `` I doubt it not , '' replied the king ; `` but it shall not be . '' And without bestowing a look at Mabel , whose supplications he feared might shake his purpose , he quitted the vault with his attendants , leaving her alone with her grandsire . `` I shall return at midnight , '' he said to the arquebusier stationed at the door ; `` and meanwhile let no one enter the dungeon -- not even the Duke of Suffolk -- unless , '' he added , holding forth his hand to display a ring , `` he shall bring this signet . '' Of the Brief Advantage gained by the Queen and the Cardinal . As the king , wholly unattended -- for he had left the archers at the Curfew Tower -- was passing at the back of Saint George 's Chapel , near the north transept , he paused for a moment to look at the embattled entrance to the New Commons -- a structure erected in the eleventh year of his own reign by James Denton , a canon , and afterwards Dean of Lichfield , for the accommodation of such chantry priests and choristers as had no place in the college . Over the doorway , surmounted by a niche , ran -LRB- and still runs -RRB- the inscription -- `` AEDES PRO SACELLANORUM CHORISTARUM COVIVIIS EXTRUCTA , A.D. 1519 . ''