And as for the king – he rests on the duke, as if Edmund is his only comfort and his peace of mind. Ever since the rise of Jack Cade when the king fled from London, he cannot feel safe in his own capital city, nor in any of the counties of the south. He may go through them every summer dispensing his spiteful justice with the gallows; but he knows he is not beloved. He only feels safe in the middle lands of England, at Leicester, Kenilworth and Coventry. He relies on Edmund Beaufort to assure him that – despite all appearances – everything is well. Edmund reports that he is beloved, the people faithful, the court and the men of the household honest, Calais secure and Bordeaux certain to be restored. It is a comforting list and Beaufort is persuasive. His warm honeyed tongue seduces the king and the queen together. The king praises Edmund to the skies as his only reliable advisor, he lauds him as the man whose military skill and courage will save us from rebels great and small. He thinks that Edmund can manage the parliament, that Edmund understands the commons, and all the time the queen smiles and says that Edmund is a very great friend to them both, and she will go riding with him the next morning, while the king prays in his chapel.

She has learned to be cautious – she knows well enough that she is watched all the time and that people judge her harshly. But her pleasure in his company and his hidden desire for her is apparent to me; and this is enough to make me glad to leave a court with this dangerous secret at the very heart of it.

Richard is to come home to me at last, and sends to tell me he is on his way. We are to celebrate the marriage of Elizabeth. She is fifteen, she is ready for marriage, and the boy that I had picked out in my mind and whose name I whispered to the new moon has found the courage to speak to his mother about her.

Lady Grey herself wrote to me with the proposal that her son John might marry our daughter. I knew that if Elizabeth stayed in their house for any length of time John Grey would fall in love with her, and his parents would see the benefit of the match. And she picked the apple blossom and gave him the fruit to eat. She is more than pretty, she has real beauty; and Lady Grey cannot bear to refuse her beloved son anything. Besides, as I foresaw, Lady Grey is a woman of her own mind, a commander of her own acres, a queen in her county, and once she had the training of my daughter she soon believed that no better-mannered girl could exist. She taught her how to keep the still room, she taught her how the linen room should be. She preached to her the value of well-trained maids, she took her into the dairy to watch as they churned the famous Groby butter and skimmed the fat cream. She taught her how to keep the account books and to write a civil letter to the Grey kinsmen all around the country. Together they climbed the little hill that they call Tower Hill, and looked over the Ferrers acres, and Lady Grey remarked that all this had come to her on the death of her father, she had brought it to Sir Edward on their marriage, and now her beloved son John will inherit it all.