I have looked sideways under my eyelashes at the king, and smiled at him, curtseyed bending forwards so that he can see my breasts, and worn my hood back so he can see my face. Now everything has gone faster than I could have imagined, everything is happening too fast. Everything is happening whether I want it or not.

I am to be married to King Henry of England. Queen Anne has been put aside. Nothing can save her, nothing can stop the king, nothing can save me—oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I should have said: nothing can prevent my happiness. That is what I meant to say. Nothing can prevent my happiness. He calls me his rose. He calls me his rose without a thorn. Whenever he says it, I think it is just the sort of pet-name that a man might give to his daughter. Not a lover’s name. Not a lover’s name at all.

ANNE, RICHMOND PALACE,

13 JULY 1540

And so it is over. Unbelievably, it is over. I have put my name to the agreement that says I was pre-contracted and not free to marry. I have agreed that my marriage should be annulled and suddenly it is no more. Just like that. This is what it is to be married to the voice of God when He speaks against you. God warns Henry that I am pre-contracted. Henry warns his council. Then the marriage is no more, though he swore to be my husband and came to my bed and tried—how hard did he try!—to consummate the marriage. But it turns out it was God preventing his success (not witchcraft but the hand of God), and so Henry says it will not be.

I write to my brother at the king’s command and tell him that I am no longer married and that I have consented to my change of state. Then, the king is not satisfied by my letter and I am ordered to write it again. If he wants, I will write it a dozen times. If my brother had protected me as he should have done, as my father would have wanted him to do, this could never have happened. But he is a spiteful man and a poor kinsman, he is a bad brother to me; and I have been unprotected since the death of my father. My brother’s ambition made him use me, his spite let me fall. He would not have let his horse go to such a buyer as Henry of England, and be broken so.

The king has commanded me to return his wedding ring to him. I obey him in this as I do in all things. I write a letter to go with it. I tell him that here is the ring he gave to me and that I hope he will have it broken into pieces for it is a thing which has no force or value. He will not hear my anger and my disappointment in these words for he does not know me nor think of me. But I am both angry and disappointed and he can have his wedding ring, and his wedding vows, and he can have his belief that God speaks to him, for they are all part of the same thing: a chimera, a thing which has no force or value.