JANE BOLEYN, ROCHESTER,

DECEMBER 1539

‘Advise her about her dress!’ Lady Browne hisses at me, as if it is my fault that the new Queen of England looks so outlandish. ‘Jane Boleyn, tell me! Could she not have changed her dress in Calais?’

‘Who could have advised her?’ I ask reasonably. ‘All her ladies dress the same, after all.’

‘Lord Lisle could have advised her. He could have warned her that she couldn’t come to England looking like a friar in fustian. How can I be expected to keep her maids in order when they are laughing their heads off at her? I nearly had to smack Katherine Howard. That child has been one day in royal service and already she is mimicking the queen’s walk and, what is worse, she has her to the life.’

‘Maids are always naughty. You will command them.’

‘There is no time for dressmakers until she gets to London. She will have to go on as she has begun, even if she looks like a parcel. What is she doing now?’

‘She is resting,’ I say guardedly. ‘I thought I would leave her in peace for a moment.’

‘She is to be Queen of England,’ her ladyship snaps. ‘That is not a peaceful life for any woman.’

I say nothing.

‘Should we say anything to the king? Shall I speak to my husband?’ Lady Browne asks me, her voice very low. ‘Should we not tell Secretary Cromwell that we have . . . reservations? Will you say anything to the duke?’

I think quickly. I swear that I am not going to be the first to speak against this queen. ‘Perhaps you should speak to Sir Anthony,’ I say. ‘Privately, as his wife.’

‘Shall I tell him that we are agreed? Surely my lord Southampton realises that she is not fit to be queen. She is so graceless! And all but mute!’

‘I have no opinion, myself,’ I say rapidly.

She laughs at once. ‘Oh, Jane Boleyn, you always have an opinion; not much ever escapes you.’

‘Perhaps. But if the king has chosen her because she brings with her the Protestant alliance, if my lord Cromwell has chosen her because it makes us safe against Spain and France, then perhaps the fact that her hood is the size of a house will not matter to him. She can always change her hood. And I would not want to be the one to suggest to the king that the woman he has solemnly and unbreakably betrothed is not fit to be queen.’

That stops her in her tracks. ‘You think I would be mistaken to criticise her?’

I think of the white-faced girl who peeped out of the closet in Calais, too shy and too frightened to sit in a room with her own court, and I find that I want to defend her against this unkindness. ‘Well, I have no criticism to make of her,’ I say. ‘I am her lady in waiting. I may advise her as to her gowns or her hair if she asks me; but I would not have one word to say against her.’