There was some truth in that. Yet she had every reason to blame me for Barak’s maiming, as I blamed myself. He gave me a nod, then walked back to his wife. Tamasin had seen him speaking to me; the look she gave me now had in it something despairing, defeated, that cut me to the heart. I turned away.

The murmuring had ceased, the crowd fallen silent again. Beyond the Holbein Gate the singing of prayers was growing louder as it approached. People bared their heads. I lowered my own hood, feeling the icy air against my coif. Two officials on horseback rode under the main arch, looking up the roadway to ensure the way was clear. Then beneath the wide arches walked the choir and priests of the Chapel Royal, still singing. There followed perhaps three hundred men in new black coats, carrying torches. The poor men who, by tradition, headed the funeral processions of the great. Well, there were plenty of poor men in England now, more than ever there had been.

The men who came next, on horseback, dozens of them bearing standards and banners, were certainly not poor: the great ones of the realm, flanked by Yeomen of the Guard. I glimpsed faces I recognized – Cranmer, Wriothesley, Paget. I lowered my head in a pretence of mourning.

Eventually they all passed, and the great hearse approached. A lawyer behind me leaned round Nicholas, saying impatiently, ‘Aside, beanpole, let me see!’

The hearse was drawn by eight great horses draped in black, each ridden by a little boy, the children of honour, carrying banners. It was richly gilded, with a cloth-of-gold canopy covering the huge coffin, on top of which lay a wax effigy of King Henry, startlingly lifelike, though looking not as I had seen him last summer but as he was in the Holbein mural: in his prime, hair and beard red, body solidly powerful. The effigy was fully dressed in jewelled velvet, a black nightcap on its head. The face wore an expression of peace and repose such as I doubted Henry had ever worn in life.

Bells began to toll. People lowered their heads, and I even heard a few groans. I looked at the effigy as it passed and thought, what did he really achieve, what did his extraordinary reign really bring? I remembered all that I had seen these last ten years: ancient monasteries destroyed, monks pensioned off and servants put out on the road; persecutions and burnings – I shuddered at the memory of Anne Askew’s head exploding; a great war that had achieved nothing and impoverished the country – and if that impoverishment continued to deepen, there would be trouble: the common people could only stand so much. And always, always under Henry, the shadow of the axe. I thought of those who had perished by it, and in particular of one I had long ago known well, and still remembered: Thomas Cromwell.