‘I learn English,’ she says with quiet dignity. ‘All the time. And I her stepmother am.’

The king gets up from the table so fast that his heavy gold chair scrapes on the floor and almost tips over. He has to steady himself on the table. His face is red and there is a pulse beating at his temple. I am half-dead of terror just looking at him, but she is still seated, her hands gripped together on the table before her. She is like a little block of wood, rigid with fear but not moving, not crumbling. He glares down at her as if to frighten her into silence; but she speaks.

‘I shall do my duty. To our children, and to you. Forgive me if I offend.’

‘Invite her,’ he snarls and he stamps from the high table to the door behind the throne which leads to his private rooms. He hardly ever uses this door, so there is no-one there to open it for him and he has to throw it open himself, and then he is gone, and we are all left dumbstruck.

She looks at me and I see that her stillness is not calm, she is frozen with terror. Now he has gone and the court scrambling to their feet to bow to the slammed door, and we are all alone.

‘It is the queen’s right to invite ladies to her household,’ she says unsteadily.

‘You won,’ I say disbelievingly.

‘I shall do my duty,’ she says again.

‘You won,’ I repeat incredulously. ‘He said: “invite her”.’

‘It is the right thing,’ she says. ‘I do my duty, for England. I shall do my duty to him.’

ANNE, HAMPTON COURT,

MARCH 1540

I am waiting in my rooms at Hampton Court for my new ambassador who arrived late last night and is to come to see me this morning. I had thought that the king would see him before I did, but there are no plans for a royal greeting yet.

‘Is that right?’ I ask Lady Rochford.

She looks a little uncertain. ‘Ambassadors usually have a special reception to introduce them to the court and all the king’s council,’ she says. She spreads her hands as if to say she does not know why the ambassador from Cleves is to be treated differently. ‘It is Lent,’ she suggests. ‘He should not have come during Lent but at Easter.’

I turn to the window so she cannot see the irritation in my face. He should have travelled with me, and come to England when I did. Then I would have had a representative with the king from the moment that I set foot in England, and one who would have stayed with me. Counts Overstein and Olisleger were my escorts but they knew they would leave me and go home, and they were not experienced in foreign courts. I should have had an ambassador at my side from the first day. If he had been with me at Rochester when I insulted the king at our first meeting . . . But this is pointless to regret. Perhaps now that he is here, he will find a way to help me.