I was involved in a matter potentially more deadly than anything in my prior experience. It reached right into the heart of the royal court, at a time when the manoeuvring of various factions had never been more vicious. Recalling that spectacle of the King in the courtyard, I realized now that everything which had happened since the beginning of the year was part of a struggle to decide who would control the realm when Henry died and his throne passed to a child. In whose hands would the King leave the realm? Norfolk? Edward Seymour? Paget? The Queen?

I had let myself in for long days of fear and anxiety, as a harbourer of dangerous secrets which I did not want to possess. But a wise man knows he is a fool, and I was aware, of course, of my true motives. It was because I had long cast a fantasy of love around the Queen. It was an ageing man’s hopeless foolishness, but that morning I realized how deeply I still felt.

And yet I knew I must see Queen Catherine clearly: her religious radicalism had led that most careful and diplomatic of women to risk all. She had called it her vanity but it was more like a loss of judgement. I wondered uneasily if she were verging towards fanaticism, like so many in these days. No, I thought, she had tried to draw back by submitting to the King and by asking for Cranmer’s approval of the Lamentation; and yet her refusal to dispose of the book had led to potentially disastrous consequences.

The thought came to me, why not let the factions fight it out to the death? Why was the radical side any better than the conservative? But then I thought, the Queen would harm no man willingly. Nor, I believed, would Cranmer. I wondered, though, about Lord Parr. He was old and looked ill; but I had seen his devotion to his niece and sensed a ruthlessness about him, too – I was useful to him, but probably dispensable as well.

Lord Parr had handed me the power of attorney from Greening’s parents. I would go to the streets around St Paul’s to talk to the constable, then to Greening’s neighbour Okedene, and finally the dead man’s apprentice, who had witnessed the earlier break-in. And I should try and find out who Greening’s friends were.