The old palace at Hatfield had been the royal nursery for generations, chosen for its clean air and proximity to London. It was an old building, small-windowed and dark-beamed, and the men led the way to the front door so that Danny and I might dismount and go inside while they took the horses away to the ramshackle stable block at a little distance from the house.

There was no-one in the hall to greet us but a boy bringing in logs for the fire which was kept going, even in midsummer. ‘They’re all in the garden,’ he said. ‘Acting a play.’

His gesture directed me to a door at the rear of the hall and with Danny in my arms I opened it, followed the stone corridor to another door and then stepped out into the sunshine.

What play-acting there had been was clearly over, and what was left was a romp. Veils of cloth of gold and silver and overturned chairs were scattered around the orchard, and Elizabeth’s ladies were running in all directions from a man in the centre of the circle with a dark scarf over his face to blindfold him. As I watched he caught a flying skirt and drew a girl to him but she wriggled free and ran away laughing. They gathered around him and with much giggling and cooing they turned him round and round until he was dizzy and then they retreated. Again he dashed and lunged, while they ran this way and that, giggling with that heady mixture of girlish playfulness and female arousal. Among them, her red hair flying loose, her hood cast away, her face flushed and laughing, was the princess. She was not the Elizabeth I had seen white-faced with terror. She was not the princess I had seen bloated on her bed, sick to her very bones with fear. She was a princess coming into the midsummer of her life, coming into her womanhood, coming to the throne. She was a fairytale princess, beautiful, powerful, wilful, infallible.

‘Well, glory be,’ I whispered to myself, as sceptical as any fool.

As I watched she tapped the blindfolded man on the shoulder and made to run back again. This time he was too quick for her. His hand flashed out, she sprang back just too slowly, he snatched her at the waist and though she struggled he held her close. He must have felt her panting against him. He must have smelled the perfume in her hair. He must have known her at once.

‘I have caught you!’ he called out. ‘Who is it?’

‘You have to guess! You have to guess!’ the ladies cried.

He ran his hand over her forehead, her hair, her nose, her lips. ‘A beauty,’ he said certainly. He was rewarded by a gale of shocked laughter.

Impertinently, he let his hand stray down over her chin, down her neck, he took her throat in his hand. I saw the colour flame into Elizabeth’s cheeks and I realised she was on fire with desire at his touch. She did not step back from him, she did not move to check him. She was ready to stand before him and let him finger her all over, watched by all her court.