Perhaps I am over-anxious. Perhaps the king would indeed forgive her anything; this summer he has been like a young man besottedly in love. He has taken her all round his favourite houses on the summer progress and he has managed to hunt with her every day, up at dawn, dining in tented pavilions in the woods at midday, boating on the river in the afternoon, watching her shooting at the butts, or at a tennis tournament, or betting on the young men tilting at the quintain all the afternoon and then a late dinner and a long night of entertainment. Then he takes her to bed and the poor old man is up at dawn again the next day. He has smiled on her as she has twirled and laughed and been embraced by the most handsome young men at his court. He has staggered after her, always beaming, always delighted with her, limping for pain and stuffing himself at dinner. But tonight he is not coming to dinner and they say he has a slight fever. I should think he is near to collapse from exhaustion. He has lived these last months like a young bridegroom when he is the age of a grandfather. Katherine gives him not a second thought and goes into dinner alone, arm-in-arm with Agnes, Lady Margaret arriving in the nick of time to slip in behind her; but I see my lord duke is absent. He is waiting on the king. He, at least, will be anxious for his health. There is no benefit to us if the king is sick and Katherine is not with child.

KATHERINE, HAMPTON COURT,

OCTOBER 1540

The king won’t see me, and it’s as if I have offended him, which is tremendously unfair because I have been an absolutely charming wife for months and months without stopping, two months at least, and never a cross word from me though God knows I have reason. I know well enough that he has to come to my room at night and I endure it without saying a word, I even smile as if I desire him; but does he really have to stay? All night? And does he really have to smell so very badly? It is not just the stink of his leg but he trumps like a herald at a joust and though it makes me want to giggle, it’s disgusting really. In the morning I throw my windows open to be rid of the stink of him, but it lingers in the bed linen and in the hangings. I can hardly bear it. Some days I think, I really think, I cannot bear another day of it.

But I have never complained of him and he can have no complaint of me. So why will he not see me? They say that he has a fever and he doesn’t want me to see him when he is unmanned. But I can’t help but be afraid that he is tired of me. And if he is tired of me, no doubt he will say that I was married to someone else and my wedding will be put aside. I feel very discouraged by this and though Agnes and Margaret say that he could never tire of me, that he adores me and anyone can see that, they weren’t here when he put Queen Anne aside and that was done so easily and so smoothly that we hardly knew it was happening. Certainly, she didn’t know it was happening. They don’t realise how easy it is for the king to be rid of one his queens.