The king’s other favourite is Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, and Margaret is dazzled by the dashing penniless duke who calls her cousin and kisses her on the mouth in greeting. He is the most handsome man at court, always beautifully dressed in velvet studded with jewels, always riding a big black horse, though they say he has not a penny in the world and is sworn up and down from his handsome dark head to his best leather soles to the moneylenders of London and Antwerp. He brings the queen little gifts, fairings that he picks up in the market, and they delight her, as he pins a little brooch to the hem of her dress, or offers her a piece of candied peel, popping it in her mouth as if she were a child. He speaks to her in rapid intimate French, and tucks a blossom behind her ear. He teases her as if she were a pretty maid and not a queen, he brings musicians in, and dancers; the court is always merry when Edmund Beaufort is in attendance and the king and queen command him to stay at court all the time.

Perhaps it would have been better if they had not done so. But the handsome young duke is ambitious and he asks and gets the command of the English forces in Normandy, as if they were toy soldiers for his amusement. The young king and queen can refuse him nothing. They load all their favourites with offices and money, and the court becomes a hen-house of strutting jealousy.

We all do well out of this. They are prodigal with titles and posts, they give away their own lands, the places at court for free, the opportunities for trade and bribery, licences to import, licences to export. Crown lands, which are supposed to pay for the king’s living throughout his reign, get thrust into greedy hands, in a helter-skelter of generosity. William de la Pole finds himself ennobled beyond his dreams, made into a duke, the first man without royal blood ever to take such a title. Edmund Beaufort gets a dukedom too, it is a hiring fair of honours. The king and queen take it into their heads that Edmund Beaufort should be given a fortune to match his title, he should be given a fortune to match the famously wealthy Richard Duke of York, a royal kinsman. No – better still – he should overmatch the great Duke of York, and the young king and queen say they will give him whatever it takes to do so.

Even Richard and I are swept along on this torrent of gifts. They give us a great London house, and then my husband comes to me and says, smiling, ‘Tell me, my darling, what name d’you think I should have?’

‘Name?’ I ask, and then I realise what he is saying. ‘Oh! Richard! Is the king to give you a title as well?’

‘I think it is more the favour of the queen to you,’ he says. ‘But at any rate I am to be a baron. I am to be awarded an order of nobility for great service to my country – or at least, because the queen likes my wife. What d’you think of that?’