‘Is she mad? If she wants to stay married it all depends on her getting a son from him.’

I hesitate. ‘I believe that she has been cautioned against appearing light or wanton.’ I can hear a little gurgle of laughter in the back of my voice. ‘Her mother and her brother are very strict, I think. She has been severely brought up. Her great concern seems to be not to give the king cause to complain that she is amorous or hot-blooded.’

He lets out a crack of laughter. ‘What are they thinking of? Would you send a king like this a block of ice, and expect him to thank you?’ Then he sobers again. ‘So do you believe that she is a virgin still? He has managed nothing?’

‘Yes, sir, I think she is.’

‘She will be anxious about these matters, I suppose?’

I take a sip of wine. ‘She has taken no-one into her confidence, as far as I know. Of course she may speak to her own countrywomen in their language but they are not intimate, there is no whispering in corners. Perhaps she is ashamed. Perhaps she is discreet. I think she is keeping the king’s failure as a secret between the two of them.’

‘Commendable,’ he says dryly. ‘Unusual in a woman. D’you think she would talk to you?’

‘She might. What do you want her to say?’

He pauses. ‘The alliance with Cleves may no longer be so important,’ he says. ‘The friendship between France and Spain is weakening. Who knows? it may be falling apart even as we speak. So if they are not allies, then we no longer need the friendship of the Lutherans of Germany against the united Papists of France and Spain.’ He pauses. ‘I am going to France myself, on the king’s command, to the court of King Francis to find how friendly he is with Spain. If King Francis tells me that he has no love of Spain, that he is weary of them and their perfidy, then he might choose to join with England against them. In such a case we wouldn’t need the friendship of Cleves, we wouldn’t need a Cleves queen on the throne.’ He pauses for emphasis. ‘In such a case we would be better with an empty throne. We would do better if our king was free to marry a French princess.’

My head is spinning, as it often does when I talk with the duke. ‘My lord, are you saying that the king could make an alliance with France now, and so he does not need the Queen Anne’s brother as his friend any more?’

‘Exactly so. Not only does he not need him, the friendship of Cleves could become an embarrassment. If France and Spain are not arming against us, we don’t need Cleves, we don’t want to be tied up with Protestants. We might ally with either France or Spain. We might want to join the great players again. We might even reconcile with the Pope. If God were with us then we might get the king forgiven, restore the old religion and bring the church in England back under the rule of the Pope. Anything, as always with King Henry, is possible. In all of the Privy Council there was only one man who thought that Duke William would prove to be a great asset, and that man may be about to fall.’