Except—and this is such a tragedy that I really don’t know how to bear it—although I am of an age to go to court, and as a Howard girl my natural place should be in the queen’s chambers, there is no queen! It is a disaster for me. There is no queen at all, Queen Jane died after having her baby, which seems to me to be just laziness really, and so there are no places at court for maids in waiting. This is so terribly unlucky for me, I think no girl has ever been as unlucky as I have been: to have my fourteenth birthday in London, just as the queen has to go and die, and the whole court droop into mourning for years. Sometimes I feel that the whole world conspires against me, as if people want me to live and die an old lady spinster.

What is the point of being pretty if no nobleman is ever going to know me? How will anyone ever see how charming I can be if nobody ever sees me at all? If it were not for my love, my sweetest handsome love, Francis, Francis, Francis, I should utterly despair, and throw myself into the Thames before I am a day older.

But thank God, at least I do have Francis to hope for, and the world to play for. And God, if He truly does know everything, can only have made me so exquisite for a great future. He must have a plan for me? Fourteen and perfect? Surely He in His wisdom won’t let me waste away in Lambeth?

JANE BOLEYN, BLICKLING HALL, NORFOLK,

NOVEMBER 1539

It comes at last, as the days grow dark and I am starting to dread another winter in the country: the letter I have wanted. I feel as if I have waited for it for a lifetime. My life can begin again. I can return to the light of good candles, to the heat of sea-coal braziers, to a circle of friends and rivals, to music and good food and dancing. I am summoned to court, thank God, I am summoned back to court and I shall serve the new queen. The duke, my patron and my mentor, has found me a place in the queen’s chamber once again. I shall serve the new Queen of England. I shall serve Queen Anne of England.

The name rings like a warning tocsin: Queen Anne, Queen Anne again. Surely, the councillors who advised the marriage must have had a moment when they heard the words Queen Anne and felt a shiver of horror? They must have remembered how unlucky the first Anne was for us all? The disgrace she brought to the king, and the ruin of her family, and my own loss? My unbearable loss? But no, I see a dead queen is quickly forgotten. By the time this new Queen Anne arrives, the other Queen Anne, my Queen Anne, my sister, my adored friend, my tormentor, will be nothing more than a rare memory—my memory. Sometimes I feel as if I am the only one in the whole country who remembers. Sometimes I feel as if I am the only one in the world who watches and wonders, the only one cursed with memory.