He went very white. ‘You cannot leave me,’ he said. ‘We are married in the sight of God, our God. You cannot break an oath to God. You cannot break your pledge to me.’

I rose to it as if it were a challenge. ‘I care nothing for your God, nor for you. I shall leave you tomorrow.’

* * *

We spent a sleepless night. There was nowhere to go but home and we had to lie side by side, stiff as bodkins in the darkness of the bedroom with his mother alert behind one wall, and his sisters agog on the other side. In the morning I took my father out of the house and told him that my mind was made up and that I would not live with Daniel as his wife.

He responded to me as if I had grown a head from beneath my shoulders, become a monstrous strange being from a faraway island. ‘Hannah, what will you do with your life?’ he said anxiously. ‘I cannot be always with you, who will protect you when I am gone?’

‘I shall go back to royal service, I shall go to the princess or to my lord,’ I said.

‘Your lord is a known traitor and the princess will be married to one of the Spanish princes within the month.’

‘Not her! She’s not a fool. She would not marry a man and trust him! She knows better than to put her heart into a man’s keeping.’

‘She cannot live alone any more than you can live alone.’

‘Father, my husband has betrayed me and shamed me. I cannot take him back as if nothing had happened. I cannot live with his sisters and his mother all whispering behind their hands every time he comes home late. I cannot live as if I belonged here.’

‘My child, where do you belong if not here? If not with me? If not with your husband?’

I had my answer: ‘I belong nowhere.’

My father shook his head. A young woman always had to be placed somewhere, she could not live unless she was bolted down in one service or another.

‘Father, please let us set up a little business on our own, as we did in London. Let me help you in the printing shop. Let me live with you and we can be at peace and make our living here.’

He hesitated for a long moment, and suddenly I saw him as a stranger might see him. He was an old man and I was taking him from a home where he had become comfortable.

‘What will you wear?’ he asked finally.

I could have laughed out loud, it mattered so little to me. But I realised that it signified to him whether he had a daughter who could appear to fit into this world or whether I would be, eternally, out of step with it.

‘I will wear a gown if you wish,’ I said to please him. ‘But I will wear boots underneath it. I will wear a jerkin and a jacket on top.’