Elizabeth’s sister Anne is her little shadow; at just twelve she copies every gesture of Elizabeth’s and follows her around like a devoted puppy. Richard laughs at me for my adoration of my children and my favourite of them all is Elizabeth’s brother: Anthony. He is nine and a brighter scholar never lost count of the hours in a library. But he is not just a boy for his books, he plays with the village lads and can run as fast and fight as hard as they, with fists or in wrestling. His father is teaching him to joust and he sits on a horse as if he were born in the saddle. You never see him shift to the leap of the horse: they are as one. He plays tennis with his sisters and is kind enough to let them win, he plays chess with me and makes me pause and puzzle over his moves, and sweetest, warmest of all, he goes down on one knee for his mother’s blessing night and morning, and when I have put my hand on his head, he jumps up for a hug and will stand at my side, leaning lightly against me, like a foal at foot. Mary is eight this year, growing out of her dresses every season, and devoted to her father. She follows him everywhere, riding all day on her fat little pony so that she can be at his side, learning the names of the fields and the tracks to the villages so she can go out to meet him. He calls her his princess and swears he will make a marriage for her to a king who will have no kingdom but will come and live with us so no-one will ever take her away. Our next child, just a year younger, Jacquetta, is named for me but she could not be less like me. She is Richard’s daughter through and through, she has his quiet humour and his calmness. She keeps a distance from her brothers’ and sisters’ tumblings and quarrels, and she laughs when they appeal to her to serve as judge and jury from the pinnacle of the wisdom of a seven-year-old. In the nursery, unruly as puppies, are my two boys John and Richard, six and five years old, and in the well-polished cradle is the new baby, the sweetest best-tempered baby of them all: Martha.

As Richard assembles the men he will take to Calais and starts to teach them how to use the lances, how to stand against a charge, how to march in an attack, I have to keep telling myself that this is the right thing to do – to send him off with the blessings of all his children; but there is something about gathering them together to say goodbye that fills me with dread.

‘Jacquetta, are you fearful for me?’ he asks me one evening.

I nod, almost ashamed to say yes.

‘Have you seen anything?’ he asks.