Once again I have proved my loyalty, once again I am the confidante who will tell everything. Once again I can be put into the queen’s chamber, into her most secret heart, I can be put there and trusted to betray. I have been trusted friend to Queen Katherine, Queen Anne, Queen Jane and then Queen Anne; and I have seen all of them fall from favour or die during my service. If I were a superstitious woman I would think of myself as a plague wind that blows death warmly, with affection, like the breath of a whisper.

So I am not superstitious, and I don’t trouble myself to think of the part I have played in these deaths and shames and disgraces. I have done my duty by the king and by my family. I have done my duty even when it cost me everything: my own true love and my honour. Why, my own husband . . . but there is no point in thinking of George tonight. He would be pleased anyway: another Howard girl on the throne of England, a Boleyn in the most favoured place. He was the most ambitious of us all. He would be the first to say that it was worth any lie to get a place at court, to join the king’s most favoured circle. He would be the first to understand that there are times when the truth is a luxury that a courtier cannot afford.

I think he would be surprised how far the king has gone, how easily he steps from power, to great power, into absolute power. George was not a fool; I think if he were here now he would be warning that the king without any bridle on his will is not a great king (as we assure him) but a monster. I think when George died he knew that the king had stretched to the limits of tyranny and would go further.

As seems to be the pattern for the king’s weddings, this one is followed by a round of executions. The king settles his scores with old enemies, and those who favoured the previous wife. The death of the Earl of Hungerford and his foolish soothsayer seems to put away the whisper of witchcraft. He was accused of all sorts of necromancy and wild sexual misdoings. A couple of Papists are to die for their part in the Lisle plot, the Princess Mary’s tutor among them. That will sadden her, and serve as a warning for her too. The friendship of Anne of Cleves has given her no protection; she is friendless again, she is in danger again. All Papists and Papist sympathisers are in danger. She had better be warned. The Howards are back in power and they support the king, who is making a clean sweep of his old enemies to mark his happiness with the new Howard girl. He also kills a handful of Lutherans: a warning to Anne of Cleves and those who thought that she would lead him to reform. When she kneels to pray at her bedside at Richmond Palace tonight she will know that she has been spared by a hair’s breadth. He will want her to live the rest of her life in fear.