She was advised by her Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, and by the Spanish ambassador that she should move to the Tower and put the country on a war footing, or move right away from London and prepare Windsor Castle for a siege. But the grit I had seen in her in the days when she and I had ridden cross-country with only a stable groom to guide us came to her again, and she swore that she would not run from her palace in the very first Christmas of her reign. She had been England’s anointed queen for less than three months, was she to be another queen as Jane? Should she too lock herself and her dwindling court into the Tower, as another more popular princess gathered her army about her and prepared to march on London? Mary swore she would stay in Whitehall from Christmas until Easter and defy the rumours of her own defeat.

‘But it’s not very merry, is it, Hannah?’ she asked me sadly. ‘I have waited for this Christmas all my life, and now it seems that people have forgotten how to be happy.’

We were all but alone in her rooms. Jane Dormer was seated in the bay window to catch the last of the grey unhelpful afternoon light on her sewing. One lady was playing at a lute, a mournful wail of a song, and another was laying out embroidery threads and winding them off the skein. It was anything but merry. You would have thought that this was the court of a queen on the brink of death, not one about to marry.

‘Next year it will be better,’ I said. ‘When you are married and Prince Philip is here.’

At the very mention of his name the colour rose up in her pale cheeks. ‘Hush,’ she said, gleaming. ‘I would be wrong to expect it of him. He will have to be often in his other kingdoms. There is no greater empire in the world than the one he will inherit, you know.’

‘Yes,’ I said, thinking of the fires of the auto-da-fé. ‘I know how powerful the Spanish empire is.’

‘Of course you do,’ she said, recalling my nationality. ‘And we must speak Spanish all the time to improve my accent. We’ll speak Spanish now.’

Jane Dormer looked up and laughed. ‘Ah, we must all speak Spanish soon.’

‘He won’t impose it,’ the queen said quickly, always conscious of spies even here, in her private rooms. ‘He wants nothing but what is best for Englishmen.’

‘I know that,’ Jane said soothingly. ‘I was only joking, Your Grace.’

The queen nodded, but the frown did not leave her face. ‘I have written to Lady Elizabeth to tell her to return to court,’ she said. ‘She must come back for the Christmas feast, I should not have allowed her to leave.’

‘Well, it’s not as if she adds much to the merriment,’ Jane remarked comfortably.

‘I do not require her presence for the merriment she brings me,’ the queen said sharply, ‘but for the greater pleasure of knowing where she is.’