Next to me, on my right hand, sits Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, a steady and patient advisor and a calm voice, while Lord Thomas Wriothesley tends to be more dramatic and loud. He has good reason for worry. It was Wriothesley who was ordered by the king to declare what funds would be needed for an invasion of France and a march on Paris. After much calculation and many sheets of close-written estimates, he thought it would be about a quarter of a million pounds: a fortune. We have raised that through loans and taxes and by scraping every last gold coin from the royal treasuries, but now we are burning through these funds and it is clear that Wriothesley has underestimated.

William Petre is a newly made man, risen on his abilities, the sort that old families like the Howards hate, the son of Devon cattle farmers. His quiet good sense keeps the meeting steady when some of the other councillors argue for their own causes, or for taxes to be lifted from their home towns. It is Petre who suggests that we make up the shortfall of funds by stripping the lead from all the roofs of the monasteries and selling it. This will make them leak when it rains, and it will complete the ruination of the Roman Catholic church in England. I see that this is good for reform as well as for raising money for the king, but a part of me mourns the loss of the beautiful buildings and the charity and the scholarship that they extended to their communities.

Often Princess Mary attends a meeting with me, and sometimes I think that it is well that she does, for one day—who knows?—she might have a kingdom of her own to rule. Princess Elizabeth never misses one. She sits a little behind me, her sharp chin on her clenched fists, her dark eyes going from one man to another, observing everything, her cousin Jane Grey beside her.

We have finished the business for the morning and the councillors have bowed to me and are gathering up their papers and leaving the room, each with a task to perform, when Elizabeth touches my sleeve and looks up at me.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I want to know how you learned to do this,” she says shyly.

“How I learned to do what?”

“How you learned what you should do. You were not born a princess, and yet you know when you should listen, and when you should command, how to make sure that they understand you, how to make sure that they do as they are told. I didn’t know that a woman could do it. I didn’t know that a woman could rule.”