The king and his minions do not put themselves at risk—the viewing stage is well out of range of Boulogne’s guns. Of course, there is the hazard of illness in the army; but at the first sign of disease Henry will run away and his court will leave with him. While he is strong enough to ride and walk and dine as he is doing I don’t fear for his health or safety. And every single man in his train knows that he must lay down his life rather than let the king be in danger while his son and heir is a boy of only six in the nursery. The last boy king to take the throne lost our lands in France and his own throne in England. The kingdom cannot be abandoned to a boy with a woman regent.

So I don’t fear for Henry, nor do I fear for my brother, who is safely at the king’s side. The only one of them, the only man in the whole army who makes me drop my head in desperate prayer, is Thomas Seymour. Now the king has appointed him to the navy and he is commanding the ships that supply the army, constantly at sea in the treacherous Narrow Seas while the French ships mount a blockade, and the Scottish ships harry our fleet, and pirates of every nation cruise under black flags, hopeful of easy pickings. Thomas is on these stormy waters, in these dangerous seas, with the ships of two nations against him, and nobody thinks to tell me—for why would they?—if he is safe, if he is in harbor, or if his ship is at sea. Once a week I insist that the Privy Council are shown on the great map exactly where our army is in France, where the king is camped, where Howard is established, and where our ships are. It’s the only way I can learn if he is safe. But the map is muddled, the king’s army never moves anywhere, nobody is very interested in the ships and the news is old. I have to pretend that I am interested in Boulogne when I am so fearful of the sea.

The king commands me to consult the royal astronomer as to when the stars are best aligned for his march on Paris. Nicholas Kratzer attends me in my new privy chamber with only my stepdaughter Margaret and Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth at my side. He bows low to the three of us, and I wonder what he thinks when he sees me, little Kateryn Parr as Regent General of England flanked by two royal princesses.

“You have the best date for an advance on Paris?” I ask him.