I go to the barge saying nothing more; there is nothing I can say. He guided me once before and perhaps I should have listened to my husband, George, and not to his uncle. If George were here with me now perhaps he would advise me to go quietly to the queen and tell her to run away. Perhaps he would say that love and loyalty are more important than making one’s way at court. Perhaps he would say that it is more important to keep faith with those that one loves than please the king. But George is not with me now. He will never now tell me that he believes in love. I have to live without him; for the rest of my life I will have to live without him.

We go back to Richmond. The tide is with us and I wish the barge would go more slowly and not rush us home to the palace where she will be watching for the barge and looking so very pale.

‘What have we done?’ asks Catherine Edgecombe dolefully. She is looking towards the beautiful towers of Richmond Palace, knowing that we will have to face Queen Anne, that her honest gaze will go from one of us to the other, and that she will know that we have been gone all day on our jaunt to London to give evidence against her.

‘We have done what we had to do. We may have saved her life,’ I say stubbornly.

‘Like you saved your sister-in-law? Like you saved your husband?’ she asks me, sharp with malice.

I turn my head away from her. ‘I never speak of it,’ I say. ‘I never even think of it.’

ANNE, RICHMOND PALACE,

8 JULY 1540

It is the second day of the inquiry to conclude whether my marriage to the king is legal or not. If I were not so low in my spirits I would laugh at them sitting down in solemn convocation to sift the evidence they have themselves fabricated. We must all know what the result will be. The king has not called the churchmen, who take his pay and serve in his own church, who are all that is left now the faithful are hanging on scaffolds all around the walls of York, for them to tell him that he is inspired by nothing but lust for a pretty face, and that he should go down on his knees for forgiveness of his sins and acknowledge his marriage to me. They will oblige their master and deliver a verdict that I was pre-contracted, that I was never free to marry, that our marriage is therefore annulled. I have to remember that this is an escape for me, it could have been so much worse. If he had decided to put me aside for misconduct, they would still have heard evidence, they would still have found against me.

I see an unmarked barge coming up to the great pier and I see the king’s messenger, Richard Beard, leap ashore before the ropes are even tied. Lightly he comes up the pier, looks towards the palace and sees me. He raises his hand and comes briskly over the lawns towards me. He is a busy man, he has to hurry. Slowly, I go to meet him. I know that this is the end for my hopes of being a good queen for this country, a good stepmother to my children, a good wife to a bad husband.