In the event, our remove was short-lived. The King developed a fever during that winter and was often struggling for breath. He rallied but then he would fail again. He started to cough up blood and bile. The doctors, at first hopeful of a recovery, started to despair as gradually Edward grew wasted and weak. In the end he wanted to die. I could see it in his face. He wanted the peace of it. Yet with each step closer, the Duke too came closer to disaster. I knew that he and Robert and other members of the Privy Chamber plotted like thieves through the spring and Robert grew ever more distant and did not confide in me. Perhaps I should have been glad of it for had I known what was to come I do not know how I would have borne it. It is not good to know the future.

I should perhaps have guessed at the wedding in May. It was a ridiculously ornate affair, a triple union of powerful families, with Robert’s younger brother Guildford marrying Jane Grey, the King’s cousin, whilst two other cousins were also parcelled off to tie the bonds of alliance tighter. The King presided over it looking sick in heart and spirit, and despite the celebrations there was about it an air of conspiracy and hurry that felt ill-wished. Two months later Edward was dead and Jane, as bookish and quiet as he, was the new Queen.

“You are crazed,” I said to Robert when I discovered it. Even though a part of me had not wanted to know the treason they plotted, I was still furious he had not told me his father’s plan. I could not hold my tongue. “The people will never accept Jane over Mary. You live in a fool’s paradise.” I had not been there when Jane was proclaimed Queen but I had heard that the news was received by Londoners in silence but for one poor man who shouted out for Mary and was fiercely punished for it.

Robert and I were in the old solar and there were servants all around, their ears out on stalks, but I was too fearful and too angry to care. Robert, who had an equally hot temper, caught me by the arm in a grip that made me wince and hustled me behind an arras. In the enclosed space of the alcove behind I was suddenly overwhelmed by his physical presence and the sheer force of his anger.

“Hold your tongue, Amy,” he said bitingly. He gave my arm a little shake before he let me go. “Why do you think I did not trust you with the truth ahead of time?” His eyes were narrowed, his face set hard. “I do not wish to hear your gloomy counsel. Jane was the choice of the King himself. We do but enact his will.”

“You may dress it up however you please,” I said, “but this is your father’s work.”