When I think of Thomas dying for my sake I can hardly bear it. When I think he is no longer here, he is just gone, I cannot understand it. I never thought of death before, I never realised that it is so very, very final. I cannot believe that I will never see him again in this world. It quite makes me believe in heaven and I hope I will meet him there, and we will be in love again; only this time I won’t be married.

I am sure that when they release me everyone will see that I am a better person now. I have not been tried as poor Thomas was tried, nor tortured as they tortured him. But I have still suffered, in my own foolish way. I have suffered thinking about him, and about the love we had, which has cost him his life. I have suffered thinking of him trying to keep our secret and fearing for me. And I miss him. I am still in love with him even though he is not in the world and cannot be in love with me. I am still in love with him even if he is dead, and I miss him like any young woman would miss her lover in the first few months of their love affair. I keep hoping to see him and then remembering that I will never see him again. This is more painful than I had thought possible.

Anyway, the only good thing to come out of this is that now there is no-one to give evidence against me since Thomas and Francis are both dead. They were the only ones who knew what took place and they cannot bear witness against me. This must mean that the king intends to release me. Perhaps in the New Year he will release me and I shall have to go and live somewhere terribly dreary. Or perhaps the king will forgive me now that Thomas is dead and he will let me be his sister like Queen Anne, and then at least I could come to court for the summer and for the Christmas feast. Maybe next Christmas I shall be happy again. Maybe I shall have wonderful presents next year and I shall look back on this sorrowful Christmas and laugh at myself for being so silly as to think my life was over.

The days are terribly long, even though it gets light so late and dark so early. I am glad that I am being ennobled by suffering because otherwise it would seem such a waste of time. I am throwing away my youth in this dull place. I will be seventeen next birthday, practically an old woman. It is shocking that I should have to wait for week after week in this place, as my youth drags away. I have kept a little counter of the days on the wall by the window and when I look at the scratched marks they seem to march onwards forever. Some days I miss a day and don’t put it on, so that the time does not seem so long. But that makes the count wrong, which is a nuisance. It is so stupid not to be able even to keep count of the days. But I’m not sure that I really want to know. What if he keeps me here for years? No, that can’t happen. I expect the king will spend Christmas at Whitehall and after Twelfth Night he will order them to release me. But I won’t even know when that is, because I have muddled up my own counting. Sometimes I think my grandmother was right and I am a fool and that is very dispiriting.