For some years, John has been in the household of the Duke of York – now King James II – but his wife Sarah is now Lady of the Bedchamber to the Duke's daughter, the Princess Anne: a Protestant who might be Queen someday. And among those Londoners who whisper into each other's ears for a living, this has been taken to mean that John's merely putting on a show of loyalty to the King, biding his time until the right moment to betray that Papist and bring a Protestant to the throne. Nothing more than Court gossip – but if Monmouth used John's very home ground as the beach-head of a Protestant rebellion, how would it look?