‘You are to go to Windsor Castle and care for your husband,’ he says. The poor fool thinks he is answering her question. He realises swiftly that he would have done better to keep his mouth shut.

She goes from fire to ice. She freezes and turns to him, her eyes blazing with rage. ‘I did not hear you exactly. What did you say? What did you dare to say to me?’

He gulps. ‘Your Grace, I was trying to tell you that the lord protector . . .’

‘The what?’

‘The lord protector commands . . .’

‘What?’

‘Commands . . .’

She crosses the floor in two swift paces and stands before him, her tall headdress overtopping him, her eyes boring into his face. ‘Commands me?’ she asks.

He shakes his head, he drops to his knees. ‘Commands that your household go to Windsor Castle,’ he says to the rushes beneath his knees. ‘And that you stay there, with your husband and your baby, and play no part in the ruling of the country which will be done by him as lord protector, and the lords and the parliament.’

WINDSOR CASTLE,

SUMMER 1454

She goes to Windsor. There is a tantrum like a thunderstorm up and down the royal apartments, in and out of the chambers; but she goes. Really, she can do nothing but go. The Duke of York, whose own wife Cecily once came to the queen to eat humble pie and request a place on the council for him, rises high on the wheel of fortune. The council believes he is the only man who can restore order to the kingdom, who can prevent the dozens of small battles breaking out at every county quarrel, thinks that he is the only man who can save Calais, trusts that he will take the kingdom and hold it until our king, our sleeping king, comes back to us. It is as if they think the country is cursed and the Duke of York is the only man who can unsheathe his sword and stand in the doorway against an invisible enemy, and hold the post until the king awakes.

The queen – who had thought to be king herself – is cut down to wife, is pushed aside to be a mother. She goes as she is bidden, and they pay her the expenses of her household, reduce the numbers of horses in the stable, and ban her from returning to London without invitation. They treat her as if she is an ordinary woman, a woman of no importance, they reduce her to the care of her husband and the guardian of her son.

Edmund Beaufort is still in the Tower; he cannot help her. Indeed, she cannot defend him, her protection means nothing, who can doubt that he will be tried and beheaded? Those lords who have loved her as a queen dare not imagine her as a regent. Though their own wives may run their lands when they are away, their own wives are given no title and draw no feThey don’t like to think of women in power, women as leaders. The ability of women is not acknowledged; indeed, it is concealed. Wise women pretend that all they are doing is running a household when they command a great estate; they write for their husband’s advice while he is away and they hand back the keys on his return. The queen’s mistake is to claim the power and the title. The lords cannot bear the thought of a woman’s rule, they cannot bear to even think that a woman can rule. It is as if they want to put her back into the confinement chamber. It is as if the king her husband, by falling asleep, has set her free, free to command the kingdom; and that the duty of all the other great men is to return her to him. If they could put her to sleep like him, I think they would.