Dear God, she must have thought she would die in here. It has only been a few days and already I feel like carving my name on the stone walls. The rooms face down over the long gardens, I can see the sunlight on the pale grass. This was an abbey and the nuns who lived here were the pride of England for the strictness of their order and the beauty of their singing. Or so Lady Baynton says. But the king drove the nuns away and took the building into his own keeping so now it is like trying to live in a church, and I swear the place is haunted with their sadness. It is not a fit place for me, at all. After all I am Queen of England, and if not Queen of England then I am Katherine Howard, and a member of one of the greatest families in the kingdom. To be a Howard is to be one of the first, after all.

Now, let me see, I must cheer myself somehow. So, what do I have? But, oh, it’s not very cheering. Really, not very cheering at all. Six gowns, which is not much, and in very dull colours, old lady colours. Two rooms for my own use and a small household to serve me. So to see the best of it, I am really in a better case than when I was little Mistress Katherine Howard at Lambeth. I have a man who loves me and who I love with my whole heart, and a very good chance of being released to marry him, I should think. I have a faithful friend in Lady Rochford who will give evidence in my favour, Tom would die to save me so all I have to do when the archbishop comes again is go on confessing to Francis Dereham and Henry Manox and never say a word about Tom. I can do that. Even a fool like me can do that. And then everything will come out right and when I next count I shall have many lovely things again. I don’t doubt it. I don’t doubt it at all.

But all the while I am reassuring myself of this, the tears are just pouring out of my eyes and I am sobbing and sobbing. I can’t seem to stop crying though I know I am in a most hopeful state. Really, things are quite all right for me, I have always been lucky; I just can’t seem to stop crying.

JANE BOLEYN, THE TOWER OF LONDON,

NOVEMBER 1541

I am in such terror I think I shall go mad in truth. They keep asking me about Katherine and that fool Dereham, and I thought at first that I could deny everything. I was not there at Lambeth when they were lovers, and for sure they were never lovers after that. I could tell them all I know and with a clear conscience. But when that great wooden gate banged shut behind me, and the shadow of the Tower fell cold on me, I felt a terror that I had never known before.