Sheffield Castle was one of the more uncomfortable prisons in which Alison had spent the last fifteen years with Mary Stuart. It was three hundred years old, and felt it. The place was built at the confluence of two rivers and had a moat on the other two sides, and to say it was damp was a grim understatement. Its owner, the earl of Shrewsbury, had quarrelled with Queen Elizabeth about the meagre allowance she gave him for Mary's keep; and in consequence Shrewsbury provided the cheapest food and drink.

The only redeeming feature of the place was a deer park of four square miles just across the moat.

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