She is in good looks. We now see that the plainness in her face and the pallor in her cheeks when she was queen were caused by the draining anxiety of being the fourth wife. Now that the fifth has taken her place we can see the young woman bloom, freed of the danger of privilege. She has used the time of her exile to improve herself. Her command of the language is much greater and her voice, now she is not struggling with the words, is mellow and clear. She is merrier, now that she can understand a witty remark, and now that she is lighter of heart. She has learned to play cards and to dance. She has outgrown her Cleves Lutheran strictness both in behaviour and appearance. Her dress is beyond recognition! When I think how she came to this country dressed like a German peasant girl in layer after layer of heavy cloth, with a hood squashing her head and her body wrapped like a barrel of gunpowder, and now I see this fashionable beauty, I see a woman who has taken the freedom to re-make herself. She rides with the king and talks seriously and interestingly with him about the courts of Europe and what the future holds for England, and she laughs with Katherine like another silly girl. She plays cards with the courtiers and dances with the queen. She is Princess Mary’s only true friend at court and they read and pray together for a private hour every morning. She is the Lady Elizabeth’s only advocate and she keeps a touching correspondence with her former step-daughter and has been promised the role of guardian and beloved aunt. She is a regular visitor to Prince Edward’s nursery and his little face lights up to see her. In short, Anne of Cleves behaves in every way as a beautiful and highly regarded royal sister should do, and everyone has to say that she is fit for the part. Indeed, many people say that she is most fit to be queen—but that is so much empty regret. At any rate, we are all now very glad that our evidence did not send her to the scaffold; though everyone praising her now would have sworn king’s evidence against her just as eagerly, had they been asked, as I was asked.

The duke summons me to his rooms on New Year’s Eve as if we should toast the past and make new resolutions together. He talks firstly of Queen Anne and how pleasantly she behaves herself at court. He asks me how Catherine Carey, my niece, Mary’s child, is serving as a maid in waiting to her cousin.

‘She does her duty,’ I say shortly. ‘Her mother has taught her well, I have very little to do with her.’

He allows himself a smirk. ‘And you and Mary Boleyn were never the best of friends.’

‘We know each other well enough,’ I say of my self-regarding sister-in-law.

‘Of course she has the Boleyn inheritance,’ he says as if to remind me, as if I ever forget. ‘We could not save everything.’