The Lady Mary was silent for a moment. I saw her check a rapid movement forward to raise up her half-sister. Instead she kept her distance and the cool tone of her voice. ‘And so?’ she asked.

‘I can think of no means where I have displeased you, unless it is that you suspect my religion,’ Lady Elizabeth said, her head still penitently bowed.

‘You don’t come to Mass,’ the Lady Mary observed stiffly.

The copper head nodded. ‘I know. Is it that which offends you?’

‘Of course!’ Lady Mary replied. ‘How can I love you as my sister if you refuse the church?’

‘Oh!’ Elizabeth gave a little gasp. ‘I feared it was that. But sister, you don’t understand me. I want to come to Mass. But I have been afraid. I didn’t want to show my ignorance. It’s so foolish . . . but you see . . . I don’t know how to do it.’ Elizabeth raised a tearstained face to her sister. ‘Nobody ever taught me what I should do. I was not brought up in the way of the Faith as you were. No-one ever taught me. You remember, I was brought up at Hatfield and then I lived with Katherine Parr and she was a most determined Protestant. How could I ever be taught the things you learned at your mother’s knee? Please, sister, please don’t blame me for an ignorance which I could not help. When I was a little girl and we lived together, you did not teach me your faith then.’

‘I was forbidden to practise it myself!’ the Lady Mary exclaimed.

‘So you know what it was like for me,’ Elizabeth said persuasively. ‘Don’t blame me for the faults of my upbringing, sister.’

‘You can choose now,’ the Lady Mary said firmly. ‘You live in a free court now. You can choose.’

Elizabeth hesitated. ‘Can I have instruction?’ she asked. ‘Can you recommend things that I should read, perhaps I could talk with your confessor? I am conscious of so many things that I don’t understand. Your Grace will help me? Your Grace will guide me in the right ways?’

It was impossible not to believe her. The tears on her cheeks were real enough, the colour had flushed into her face. Gently Lady Mary went forward, gently she outstretched her hand and put it on Elizabeth’s bowed head. The young woman trembled under her touch. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, sister,’ I heard her breathe. ‘I am all alone in the world now; but for you.’

Mary put her hands on her sister’s shoulders and raised her up. Elizabeth was normally half a head higher than the Lady Mary but she drooped in her sadness so that she had to look up at her older sister.

‘Oh, Elizabeth,’ Mary whispered. ‘If you would confess your sins and turn to the true church I would be so very happy. All I want, all I have ever wanted, is to see this country in the true faith. And if I never marry, and if you come after me as another virgin queen, as another Catholic princess, what a kingdom we could build here together. I shall bring the country back to the true faith and you shall come after me and keep it under the rule of God.’