I have my own rooms here at Hampton Court and these are the queen’s rooms! Unbelievable! The very rooms where I used to be a maid in waiting are now my rooms and now there are people waiting on me. The very bed where I used to put the queen to sleep and wake her in the morning is now my big bed. And when the court is jousting, the very same curtains that were her curtains around the royal box are now mine and now they are embroidered with H and K, just as they were once embroidered for her with H and A. Anyway, I have ordered new. It feels like dead men’s shoes to me and I don’t see why I should put up with it. Henry says I am an extravagant little kitten and that these curtains have been used in the queen’s box since his first wife, and I say that is exactly why I might want a change. So, voilà! I will have new curtains too.

I have a court of ladies of my choosing; well, some of them I choose. At any rate, I have a court of ladies of my family. My greatest lady is the king’s ward, Lady Margaret Douglas, practically a princess, to wait on me! Not that she does much waiting, I must say. Anybody would think I wasn’t queen the way she looks down her nose. Then I have a handful of duchesses, my stepmother and my two sisters are my ladies in waiting, as well as dozens of other Howard women that my uncle has placed about me. I never knew I had so many cousins. The rest are my old room-mates and girlfriends from Norfolk House days who have popped up to sup from my bowl now that my portion is very rich, and who have to mind me now, though they did not mind me then. But I tell them that they can be my friends but they have to remember I am queen and I have to be on my dignity.

I have two lapdogs which I have called, for a private joke, Henry and Francis—by which I mean my two lapdog lovers from the old days, Henry Manox and Francis Dereham. When I named them, Agnes and Joan screamed with laughter, they were with me at Norfolk House and they knew exactly who I was thinking of. Even now, every time I call the two dogs to my side, the three of us laugh out loud to think of those two lads chasing me and now I am queen of England. What those men must think, when they remember they had their hands up my skirt and down my stomacher! It is too scandalous to dare to remember. I should think they laugh and laugh; I do at the very memory.

I have a stable full of my own horses and my own favourite mare who is called Bessy. She is very sweet and steady and the most adorable boy in the stable keeps her exercised for me so that she doesn’t get fat or naughty. He is called Johnny and he flushes like a little poppy when he sees me, and when I let him help me down from riding I rest my hands on his shoulders and watch his face burn.