This is not how I am to be treated and I shall teach him so. I shall not wait for him again, I shall not even agree to meet him next time he asks me. He will have to ask me more than once, I swear it. I shall give up flirtation for Lent and it will serve him right. Indeed, perhaps I shall grow thoughtful and serious and never flirt with anyone again.

Lady Rochford asks me why I am in such a temper when we go in to dine and I swear to her that I am as happy as the day is long.

‘Mind your smiles then,’ she says as if she doesn’t believe me for a moment. ‘For my lord duke is back from France and he will be looking for you.’

I lift my chin at once and I smile at her quite dazzlingly, as if she has just said something very witty. I even give a little laugh, my court laugh, ‘ha ha ha’, very light and elegant, as I have heard the other ladies do. She gives a little nod.

‘That’s better,’ she says.

‘What was the duke doing in France, anyway?’ I ask.

‘You are taking an interest in affairs of the world?’ she asks quizzically.

‘I am not a complete fool,’ I say.

‘Your uncle is a great man in the favour of the king. He went to France to secure the friendship of the French king so that our country is not faced with the danger of the Holy Fa—, I mean the Pope, the emperor and the King of France all in alliance against us.’

I smile that Jane Boleyn herself should nearly say ‘Holy Father’, which we can’t say any more. ‘Oh, I know about that,’ I say cleverly. ‘Because they want to put Cardinal Pole on our own throne, out of wickedness.’

She shakes her head. ‘Don’t speak of it,’ she warns me.

‘They do,’ I insist. ‘And that is why his poor old mother and all the Poles are in the Tower. For the Cardinal would call on the Papists of England to come against the king, just as they did before.’

‘They won’t come against the king any more,’ she says dryly.

‘Because they know they are wrong now?’

‘Because most of them are dead,’ she says shortly. ‘And that was your uncle’s doing too.’

ANNE, HAMPTON COURT,

MARCH 1540

I was told the court would observe the period of Lent with great solemnity. I was assured that we would eat no red meat at all. I was expecting to dine on fish for the whole of the forty days but I discover, the very first night at dinner, that English consciences are easy. The king is tender to his own needs. Despite the fast of Lent there is an enormous range of dishes marching into the hall held high above the heads of the servers, and they come first to the royal table and the king and I take a little from each, as is the custom, and send them out to our friends and favourites around the hall. I make sure I send them to my ladies’ table and to the great ladies of court. I make no mistake about this and I never send my favourite dish to any man. This is no empty politeness, the king watches me. Every word I speak at dinner, everything I do, his bright little eyes almost hidden by his fat cheeks follow everything, as if he would like to catch me out.