‘And I will have a grand coronation,’ I specify, thinking of the crown and the jewels and the gown and the feasting and the thousands of people who will come out to cheer me, the new Queen of England.

‘You will have the greatest coronation that England has ever seen, for you are the greatest queen,’ he promises me. ‘And as soon as we get back to London I shall declare a day of national celebration for you.’

‘Oh?’ This sounds rather wonderful, a day to celebrate my existence! Kitty Howard: voilà indeed! ‘A whole day for me?’

‘A day when everyone will go to church and say prayers of thanksgiving that God has given you to me.’

Just church, after all. I give a faint, disappointed smile.

‘And the master of the revels will prepare a great feast and celebration at court,’ he says. ‘And everyone will give you presents.’

I beam. ‘That sounds lovely,’ I say with satisfaction.

‘You are my sweetest rose,’ he says. ‘My rose without a thorn. Come to bed with me now, Katherine.’

‘Yes.’ I make sure I do not think of my Thomas as I go to the bloated figure in the big bed. I have a wide, happy smile on my face and I close my eyes so I need not look at him. I cannot avoid the smell of him or the feel of him, but I can make sure that I do not think of him at all while I do what I have to do, and then lie beside him and wait for the little snuffles of satisfaction to turn to wheezy snores as he goes to sleep.

JANE BOLEYN, AMPTHILL,

OCTOBER 1541

Her course started something like a week late; but I was not too disheartened. The mere thought of it had been enough to make the king more in love with her than ever, and she had at least agreed that though the sun rises and shines only on Thomas Culpepper, he does not have to be privy to every little secret.

She has behaved very prettily with the people that she has met on this progress, even when she has been bored and inattentive she has kept a pleasant smile on her face, and she has learned to follow a little behind the king and to maintain an appearance of demure obedience. She serves him in bed like a paid whore, and she sits next to him at dinner and never shows by a flicker of expression that he has broken wind. She is a selfish, stupid girl but she might, given time, make quite a good queen. If she conceives a child and gives England a son she might live long enough to learn to be a queen that is admired.

The king, at any rate, is mad about her. His indulgence makes our task of getting Culpepper in and out of her bedchamber so much easier. We had a bad night in Pontefract when he sent Sir Anthony Denny to her room without announcement, and she was locked in with Culpepper. Denny tried the door and went away without saying anything. There was another night when the king stirred in her bed while they were at their business only on the other side of the door, and she had to go flying back in to the old man, still damp with sweat and kisses. If the air had not been heavy with the stink of his wind he would have smelled the scent of lust for certain. At Grafton Regis the lovers coupled in the jakes—Culpepper crept up the stairs to the stone-walled chamber which overhangs the moat, and she told her ladies that she was sick as a dog and spent the afternoon with him in there, frantically humping while the rest of us made possets. If it were not so dangerous it would be funny. As it is, it still makes me breathless with a mixture of fear and lust when I hear them together.