Now, she publicly swears that she will marry the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand as soon as he comes to England—she promises that she will make a Spanish alliance to keep England safe—but it is obvious to everyone that she is lying, and that any husband of hers would be cuckolded before his ship had even docked at Greenwich.

The Spanish have learned this now. The new ambassador is offended, his household sulky. William Cecil is quite distracted, trying to maintain our friendship with the great power of Spain to balance the great threat from France. The Spanish ambassador, Álvaro de la Quadra, finds himself beside me as we walk by the river towards a lighted arbor where we are going to listen to some poetry one evening, and he mentions that the archduke has heard of my beauty and would far rather marry me than go through the long-drawn-out and discredited process of courting Elizabeth. One day I might be a great Queen of England with the archduke at my side and Spanish power behind me. In the meantime I could be a treasured archduchess with an envied place at the English court, the center of papist ambitions.

“Oh, I couldn’t say,” I whisper. I am horrified that he should dare to say this so clearly to me. Thank God no one is in hearing and no one has seen us but one of William Cecil’s men, who happens to pass by. “Your Excellency, you do me too much honor. I cannot hear such things without the permission of my cousin the queen.”

“No need to mention it to her,” he replies swiftly. “I spoke to you in confidence, so you understand what might be. If you wished it.”

“Really, I don’t wish for anything,” I assure him.

It’s true. I don’t wish for the throne anymore. I want to be a wife, not a furiously bad-tempered spinster queen. I want a husband, and none but Ned. I could not bear the touch of another man’s hand. If I live until I am ancient, if I live until I am as old as fifty, I will never want anyone but him. We pass each other in the gallery, at dinner, on the way to chapel, in miserable silence. I know that he loves me still. I see him look across at me when he is at chapel and I have my face covered in my hands so he cannot see me peeping through my fingers at him. He looks as if he is ill with longing, and I am not allowed to comfort him.