‘Is it the French?’ he asks me wonderingly. ‘Are we going to take Bordeaux?’

‘There is no war yet,’ I reassure him. ‘Perhaps we can avoid war.’

Old James Touchet, Lord Audley, is to command the army, and Lord Thomas Stanley is to support him. Lord Audley comes to the queen with the news that the York lords are assembling their forces in England and mustering their men. They are planning to meet at York’s castle at Ludlow; and so the Earl of Salisbury will have to march south from his castle of Middleham, in the North of England, to Ludlow, on the borders of Wales. Lord Audley swears that we will catch him as he marches nearby, and take him by surprise as he hurries to join the other treasonous lords. Our forces will be about ten thousand men; thousands more will come with Lord Stanley. Salisbury has a force of less than half that number – he is marching to his death, hopelessly undermanned, and he does not know it.

I find it a grim process, watching the men arm, check their weapons and their equipment, and form up in ranks. Elizabeth’s husband, Sir John Grey, on his beautiful horse, leads an armed band of his tenants on the two-day march from his home. He tells me that Elizabeth cried unstoppably as he left and seemed filled with foreboding. She asked him not to go, and his mother ordered her to her room, like a naughty child.

‘Should I have stayed with her?’ he asks me. ‘I thought it my duty to come.’

‘You are right to do your duty.’ I repeat the worn phrase which allows wives to release their husbands, and women to send their sons to war. ‘I am sure you are right to do your duty, John.’

The queen appoints him as head of cavalry. Anthony, my heir and most precious son, comes from our home at Grafton and will fight alongside his father. They will ride to the battle and then dismount and fight on foot. The thought of my son in battle makes me so sick that I cannot eat for fear.

‘I am lucky,’ Richard says stoutly to me. ‘You know I am lucky, you have seen me ride out to a dozen battles and I always come safe home to you. I will keep him at my side, he will be lucky too.’

‘Don’t say it! Don’t say it!’ I put my hand over his mouth. ‘It’s to tempt fate. Dear God, do you have to go out this time?’

‘This time, and every time, until the country is at peace,’ my husband says simply.

‘But the king himsehas not commanded it!’

‘Jacquetta, are you asking me to turn traitor? Do you want me to wear a white rose for York?’

‘Of course not! Of course not. It’s just . . .’

Gently, he takes me in his arms. ‘It’s just what? Just that you cannot bear to see Anthony in danger?’