When he kisses my hand to leave my rooms he does not touch my fingers with his lips, he breathes on them. It is the most extraordinary sensation, the most overwhelming feeling. All I can feel is the warmth of his breath. In his gentle grasp he must feel my fingers stir like a sweet meadow beneath a breeze, under that slightest touch.

And what is this secret, that wakes me at dawn and keeps me quivering like a hare until darkness when my fingers tremble at the warmth of his breath? It is such a secret that I never even name it to myself. It is a secret. It is a secret. I hug it to myself in the darkness of the night when King Henry is at last asleep and I can find a little patch of the bed that is not heated by his bulk nor stinking of his wound, then I form the words in my head but I do not even whisper them to myself: ‘I have a secret.’

I pull my pillow down towards me, I stroke back a lock of hair from my face, I smooth my cheek against the pillow, I am ready for sleep, I close my eyes: ‘I have a secret.’

ANNE, RICHMOND PALACE,

MAY 1541

My ambassador Dr Harst brings me the most shocking, the most pitiful news that I think I shall ever hear. As he told me I started to shake at the very words. How could the king do such a thing? How could any man do such a thing? The king has executed Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. The king has ordered the death of an innocent, nearly seventy-year-old woman, for no reason in the world. Or at the very least, if he has a reason it is the one that governs so many of his actions: nothing but his own insane spite.

Good God, he is becoming a terrifying man. In my little court here at Richmond I hug my cloak around me, tell my ladies that they need not come, and that the ambassador and I are going to walk in the garden. I want to make sure that no-one can see the fear in my face. Now I know for sure how lucky I have been to escape so lightly, to escape so well. Thank God in his mercy that I was spared. There was every reason to fear the king as a murderous madman. They all warned me and although I was afraid, I did not know how vicious he could be. This wickedness, this mad malice against a woman old enough to be his own mother, the ward of his grandmother, the dearest friend of his wife, the godmother of his own daughter, a saintly woman, innocent of any crime—this proves to me once and for all that he is a most dangerous man.

That he should have a woman of nearly seventy years old dragged from her bed and beheaded—and for no reason! No reason at all except to break the heart of her son, her family, and those that love them. This king is a monster, for all that he smiles so sweetly on his little bride, for all that he is now so kind and generous to me, let me remember this: Henry of England is a monster and a tyrant, and no-one is safe in his realm. There can be no safety in the country when there is a man like this on the throne. He must be mad to behave so. That can be the only answer. He must be mad and I am living in a country ruled by a mad king and dependent on his favour for my safety.