* * *

In August I go to Grafton to see my children, and I try to explain to the older ones, Anne, Anthony, and Mary, that the king is well, but sleeping, that the queen has done nothing wrong but is confined with him, that their father’s commander Edmeaufort, Duke of Somerset, is in the Tower, accused but not on trial, and that their father – and it is at this point that I have to grit my teeth and try to appear calm – their father is commanding the castle of Calais but is imprisoned by his own soldiers, the Captain of Calais is now Richard, Duke of York, and sooner or later their father will have to answer to him.

‘Surely, the Duke of York will hold Calais, just as the Duke of Somerset would have done?’ Anthony suggests. ‘Father won’t like a new commander being put over him, but nobody can doubt that the Duke of York will send money to pay the soldiers and arms for the castle, won’t he?’

I don’t know. I think of the terrible year when I saw Richard wear himself out trying to hold soldiers to a cause when they had neither weapons nor wages. ‘He should do,’ I say carefully. ‘But we none of us can be sure what the duke will do, even what he can do. He has to govern as if he is king; but he is not king. He is only a lord among many lords, and some of them don’t even like him. I just hope he does not blame your father for holding Calais for England, I just hope he lets him come home.’

I go into my confinement in Grafton, sending a message to Richard when the baby is safely born. She is a girl, a beautiful girl, and I call her Margaret, for the queen who is beating against the times we live in, like a bird against a window. I come out of confinement and see my little girl in the arms of my wet nurse and then kiss my other children. ‘I have to go back to court,’ I say. ‘The queen needs me.’

* * *

The autumn is long and quiet for us in Windsor. Slowly the trees start to grow yellow and then golden. The king gets no better, he does not change at all. The baby prince starts to pull himself to his feet, so that he can stand, and tries to take his first steps. This is the most interesting thing that happens in the whole year. Our world shrinks to the castle, and our lives to watching over a small baby and a sick man. The queen is a doting mother, she comes to the little prince’s nursery morning and night, she visits her husband every afternoon. It is like living under a spell, and we watch the baby grow as if we feared he might do nothing but sleep. Half a dozen of us always go to the nursery in the morning as if we have to see for sure that the little prince has woken after another night. Apart from this we go through the motions of a court, attending on the king. But all we can do is sit with him as he sleeps. Every afternoon we sit with him and watch the slow rise and fall of his chest.