He has the baby in his arms and is singing him a little poem of his own making. The baby is cooing with pleasure, as if he understood the rhyming words, his dark blue eyes fixed on his father’s loving face.

“Not till we have news from court,” he says, glancing up at me. “There are great changes happening and they will affect us. The queen was trying to make an alliance with the Queen of Scots, but in France there has been a terrible attack on the reformers. The Protestants are in open rebellion against the ruling Guise family, and they are appealing to Elizabeth for her help. She was planning to meet with Queen Mary, but now I think she cannot. Not even Elizabeth has the gall to publicly befriend a woman whose family are executing her Protestants. When Elizabeth comes back to London in the autumn, the preachers and parliament will force her to agree that she cannot ally with France when they are stained with the blood of our faith. It is Mary of Scotland’s own kinsmen, the Guise family, who have put men and women of our Church to the sword in a merciless killing. Elizabeth cannot take England into an alliance with a daughter of Guise. Nobody would ever accept it.”

“If she gives up her alliance with Mary, then there is no one to be her heir but Margaret or me,” I observe.

“And his little lordship here,” his father says. “If you will be so good as to pass your right to him. Lord Beauchamp is the next man in line. See how sternly he looks at me? He’s going to make a great king.”

“She has named him as a bastard,” I say with steady resentment.

“Everyone knows it is a lie,” his father, my husband, says. “I don’t even consider it.”

THE TOWER, LONDON,

SUMMER 1562

The court returns to the palace at Hampton Court in the late summer and decides, reluctantly, that England must defend the reformers of France. Elizabeth despairs of an alliance with Mary Queen of Scots and screws up her courage to order the reinforcement of Le Havre to protect the Huguenot Protestants from the Guise army. Everyone expects Robert Dudley to command the English force, and there is much muttering of favoritism when the queen insists he stay at home and sends his brother Ambrose in his place. Robert Dudley is too precious for her to risk, even in the sacred cause of a war to defend the country’s religion.

This war could be the saving of us. Elizabeth is almost certain to release Ned to command a troop.

“The Earl of Lennox would be very glad to be released too,” Sir Edward, my jailer, confides in me. “Poor gentleman, he does not have the temperament to tolerate confinement.”

“I should think nobody enjoys it,” I say irritably.