The queen makes the Duke of Buckingham the commander of the king’s armies and the king is taken out of his monastic retreat to fly the royal standard, which flaps miserably in the wet weather. But this time, nobody deserts before a blow is struck because they cannot bear to attack the king’s personal flag. No powerful troop abandons the cause of the York lords. Everyone is becoming hardened. The king sits quietly in his tent below his standard and the peacemakers – among them the Bishop of Salisbury – go to and fro all morning, hoping to broker a settlement. It cannot be done. The York lords send personal messages to the king but the Duke of Buckingham intercepts them. They will settle for nothing less than the queen and her advisors banned from their influential place beside the king, they will trust nothing else. And the queen will not compromise. She wants to see them dead: it is as simple as that. There are really no grounds for parley at all.

The royal army is before Delapre Abbey at Northampton, dug in before the River Nene with sharp staves set in the ground in front of them. No cavalry charge can take them here, no head-on attack can possibly succeed. The queen, the prince and I are waiting at Eccleshall Castle again.

‘I almost want to ride out and watch,’ she says to me.

I try to laugh. ‘Not again.’

It is raining now, and it has been raining for the last two days. We stand together at the window looking out at the lowering grey skies with the dark clouds on the horizon. Below us, in the courtyard, we can see the bustle of messengers arriving from the battlefield. ‘Let’s go down,’ says Margaret, suddenly nervous.

We meet them in the great hall as they are coming in, dripping wet.

‘It’s over,’ the man says to the queen. ‘You told me to come the moment that I could see which way it was going and so I waited for a while and then I came.’

‘Have we won?’ she asks urgently.

He makes a grimace. ‘We are destroyed,’ he says bluntly. ‘Betrayed.’

She hisses like a cat. ‘Who betrayed us? Who was it? Stanley?’

‘Grey of Ruthin.’

She rounds on me. ‘Your daughter’s kinsman! Your daughter’s family are unfaithful?’

‘A distant relation,’ I say at once. ‘What did he do?’

‘He waited till York’s son, the young Edward of March, charged him. Our line was well protected, we had the river behind us and a ditch before us fortified with sharp staves, but when the York boy came up at the head of his men, Lord Grey put down his sword and just helped him over the barricades with all his troop, and then they fought their way down our own lines. They were inside our lines, our men couldn’t get away from them. We were perfectly placed when we started, then we found we were perfectly trapped.’