Silently, I hold out my hand for the letter he carries for me. Silently he gives it to me. This is the end of my girlhood. This is the end of my ambitions. This is the end of my dream. This is the end of my reign. Perhaps it is the end of my life.

JANE BOLEYN, RICHMOND PALACE,

8 JULY 1540

Who would have thought she would take it so hard? She has been crying like a broken-hearted girl, her useless ambassador patting her hands, and muttering to her in German like some old dark-feathered hen, that ninny Richard Beard standing on his dignity but looking like a schoolboy, agonisingly embarrassed. They start on the terrace where Richard Beard gives her the letter, then they bring her into her room when her legs give way beneath her, and they send for me as she cries herself into a screaming fit.

I bathe her face with rosewater, and then give her a glass of brandy to sip. That steadies her for a moment and she looks up at me, her eyes as red-rimmed as those of a little white rabbit.

‘He denies the marriage,’ she says brokenly. ‘Oh, Jane, he denies me. He had me painted by Master Holbein himself, he chose me, he asked for me to come, he sent his councillors for me, he brought me to his court. He excused the dowry, he married me, he bedded me, now he denies me.’

‘What does he want you to do?’ I ask urgently. I want to know if Richard Beard has a guard of soldiers coming behind him, if they are going to take her away tonight.

‘He wants me to agree to the verdict,’ she says. ‘He promises me a . . .’ She breaks into tears on the word ‘settlement’. These are hard words for a young wife to hear. ‘He promises fair terms if I cause no trouble.’

I look at the ambassador, who is puffed up like a cockerel at the insult, and then I look at Richard Beard.

‘What would you advise the queen?’ Beard asks me. He is no fool, he knows who pays my hire. I will sing to Henry’s tune, in four-part harmony if need be, he can be sure of that.

‘Your Grace,’ I say gently. ‘There is nothing that can be done except to accept the will of the king and the ruling of his council.’

She looks at me trustingly. ‘How can I?’ she asks. ‘He wants me to say that I was married before I married him, so we were not married. These are lies.’

‘Your Grace.’ I bend very low to her and I whisper, so that only she can hear. ‘The evidence about Queen Anne Boleyn went from an inquiry, just like this one, to the court room and then to the scaffold. The evidence about Queen Katherine of Aragon went from an inquiry just like this one, took six years to hear, and in the end she was alone and penniless and died in exile from her friends and from her daughter. The king is a hard enemy. If he offers you any terms, any terms at all, you should take them.’