If anyone is to save me, it will have to be me, myself. But how can a woman save herself against the charge of witchcraft? If Henry tells the world that he is impotent because I have unmanned him, how can I prove differently? If he tells the world that he can lie with Katherine Howard but not with me, then his case is proved and my denial is just another instance of satanic cunning. A woman cannot prove her innocence when a man bears witness against her. If Henry wants me strangled as a witch then nothing can save me. He claimed that Lady Anne Boleyn was a witch and she died for it. He never said goodbye to her, and he had loved her with a passion. They just came for her one day and took her away.

I am waiting now, for them to come for me.

JANE BOLEYN, WESTMINSTER PALACE,

JUNE 1540

A note, dropped into my lap by one of the servers at dinner as he leans over to clear the meat platter, bids me go to my lord at once, and as soon as dinner is over, I do as I am told. These days, the queen goes into her bedroom straight after dinner, she will not miss me from the nervous huddle of those of us that are left in her depleted rooms. Katherine Howard is missing from court, gone back to her grandmother’s house at Lambeth. Lady Lisle is under house arrest for her husband’s grave crimes, they say she is quite frantic with distress and fear. She knows he will die. Lady Rutland is quiet and goes to her own rooms at night, she must be fearful too; but I don’t know what accusation she might face. Anne Bassett has gone to stay with her cousin under the pretence of illness, Catherine Carey has been sent for by her mother, Mary. She asks permission for Catherine to come home as she is unwell. I could laugh at the transparent excuse. Mary Boleyn was always skilled at keeping herself and hers far from trouble. A pity she never exerted herself for her brother. Mary Norris has to help her mother in the country with some special tasks. Henry Norris’s widow saw the scaffold last time the king plotted against his wife. She won’t want to see her daughter climb the steps that her husband trod.

We are all of us guarded in our speech and retiring in our behaviour. The bad times have come to King Henry’s court once more, and everyone is afraid, everyone is under suspicion. It is like living in a nightmare, every man, every woman knows that every word they say, every gesture they make, might be used in evidence against them. An enemy might work up an indiscretion into a crime, a friend might trade a confidence for a guarantee of safety. We are a court of cowards and tale bearers. Nobody walks any more, we all tiptoe, nobody even breathes, we are all holding our breath. The king has turned suspicious of his friends and nobody can be sure that they are safe.