“It is a privilege to paint a beautiful woman,” he said quietly, and he showed me how he wanted me to sit, perched on the edge of a chair, my gold gown a pool around my feet.

Now I smile at Princess Mary. “I am gripped with vanity,” I say. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“Me too,” she says. She takes Elizabeth’s hand and I lead the way, with Edward Seymour at my side and the women of my chamber following behind. We get to the great hall, and the men of the court, even some of the Privy Council, are already there, curious to see this great picture that has cost so much to commission and taken so long to produce. No one has seen it assembled. We all posed individually, the painter mostly working from earlier portraits of the king, so this will be a surprise for us all. I see Nicholas de Vent, the artist, looking anxious, as well he might.

“Is His Majesty not coming?” he asks as he bows to me.

I am about to say no, when the great doors to the king’s presence chamber open and his wheeled chair comes out, with the king half sitting, half lying in it, his great leg sticking out before him, his face red and swollen stiff in a grimace of pain.

The artist gives a little exclamation of surprise. He has not seen the king since we first discussed the portrait and then de Vent copied the king’s likeness from the great portraits by Hans Holbein, which the king prefers above any other. I imagine that the painting behind the screens will show a handsome man of about forty years with his wife and young family around him. He will have two well-shaped legs in ivory hose with the usual blue garter tied under the knee to show off the strong calf. He will not be sprawled like a ship wrecked in dry dock, sweating with the effort of raising his enormous head.

I go to him, curtsey, and kiss his hot cheek. “What a pleasure to see Your Majesty,” I say. “And you’re looking so well.”

“I wanted to see what he had made of us,” he says shortly. He nods at de Vent. “Unveil it.”

It is a huge picture, nearly five feet high and more than ten feet long, and the cover gets caught on the top right-hand corner so we see it revealed inch by inch from the left, while a page runs to fetch a stool so that he can reach to the corner where the gold cloth is snagged, hiding the full picture.