Jane shook her head. ‘No-one could want it more than her,’ she said, nodding towards the kneeling queen, ‘for she has prayed for this moment for nearly a year. Truth be told, she has prayed to carry a son for England since she was old enough to pray.’

AUTUMN 1554

The queen said nothing to the king nor to the court, but Jane watched her with the devotion of a mother and next month, in September, when the queen did not bleed, she gave me a small triumphant nod and I grinned back. The queen told the king in secret, but anyone seeing his redoubled tenderness towards her must have guessed that she was carrying his child, and that it was a great hidden joy to them both.

Their happiness illuminated the palace and for the first time I lived at a royal court that was alive with joy and delight in itself. The king’s train remained as proud and as glamorous as when they had first entered England, the phrase ‘as proud as a Don’ became an every day saying. No-one could see the richness of their velvets and the weight of their gold chains and not admire them. When they rode out to hunt they had the very best horses, when they gambled they threw down a small fortune, when they laughed together they made the walls shake and when they danced they showed us the beautiful formal dances of Spain.

The ladies of England flooded to the queen’s service and were all lovesick for the Spanish. They all read Spanish poetry, sang Spanish songs, and learned the new Spanish card games. The court was alive with flirtation and music and dancing and parties and in the heart of it all was the queen, serene and smiling, with her young husband always lovingly at her side. We were the most intellectual, the most elegant, the richest court in the whole of Christendom, and we knew it. With Queen Mary glowing at the head of this radiant court we danced at a very pinnacle of self-satisfied pleasure.

In October the queen was informed that Elizabeth was sick again. She asked me to read Sir Henry Bedingfield’s report to her as she rested on a day bed. Woodstock, and Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s many ploys for attention seemed far away as the queen gazed dreamily out of the window at the garden where the trees were turning yellow and golden and bronze. ‘She can see my doctors if she insists,’ she said absently. ‘Would you go with them, Hannah? And see if she is as bad as she claims? I don’t want to be unkind to her. If she would just admit her part in the plot I would release her, I don’t want to be troubled with this, not now.’

It was as if her own happiness was too great not to be shared.

‘But if she was to admit a fault, surely the council or the king would want her to face trial?’ I suggested.