The butchers’ market at Smithfield has become a place for human grief as well as beasts’, it has become a great centre for burning martyrs, and there is a store of faggots and stakes kept for the men and women that Henry’s churchmen can find to satisfy him. It is not yet called the Inquisition, but it is an Inquisition. Young people, ignorant people, stupid people and the very few with a passionate conviction are questioned and cross-questioned on little points of theology till they contradict themselves in their fear and confusion, and are declared guilty, and then the king, the man who should be father to his people, has them dragged out and burned to death.

People are still talking of Robert Barnes who asked the very sheriff who was tying him to the stake, what was the reason for his death? The sheriff himself did not know and could not name his crime. Nor could the watching crowd. Barnes himself did not know as they lit the flames around his feet. He had done nothing against the law, he had said nothing against the church. He was innocent of any crime. How can such things be? How can a king who was once the handsomest prince in Christendom, the Defender of the Faith, the light of his nation, have become such a—dare I name it?—such a monster?

It makes me shiver as if I were cold, even here in my warm privy chamber at Richmond. Why should the king have grown so spiteful in his happiness? How can he be so cruel to his people? Why is he so whimsical in his sudden rages? How does anyone dare to live at court?

JANE BOLEYN, HAMPTON COURT,

APRIL 1541

We have our candidate for the queen’s favour and I have done next to nothing to hasten the courtship. Without any prompting but a girl’s desire, she has fallen head over heels in love with Thomas Culpepper, and by all I can see, he with her. The king’s leg is giving him less pain and he has come out from his private rooms since Easter and the court is back to normal again; but there are still many chances for the young couple to meet and, indeed, the king throws them together, telling Culpepper to dance with the queen, or advising her on her gambling when Culpepper is dealing. The king loves Culpepper as his favourite groom of the bedchamber, and takes him everywhere he goes, delighting in his charm and his wit and his good looks. Whenever he visits the queen, Culpepper is always in his train and the king likes to see the two young people together. If he were not blinded by his monstrous vanity he would see that he is throwing them into each other’s arms; but instead he sees the three of them as a merry trio, and swears that Culpepper reminds him of his boyhood.

The girl-queen and the boy-courtier are playing pairs together, with the king overlooking both of their cards like an indulgent father with two handsome children, when the Duke of Norfolk makes his way around the room to talk to me.