Thomas, late to the division of the spoils, will have to wrest from his brother whatever he can. He will have to hurry. The court is like a pack of hounds, tearing a fallen stag to gory pieces. There are more than eighty outstanding claims that the courtiers swear were promised them, besides the division of the king’s estates. He leaves a good dowry to both his daughters, he leaves a fortune to me. But he excludes me from the Privy Council to govern Edward; his last act is to silence me.

Though he was my husband he is to be buried beside Jane Seymour in Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor, and he leaves a fortune for people to sing Masses for him and he establishes a chantry chapel with two priests to save him from the purgatory that he did not believe in. When they tell me this, I have to grip the wooden arm of my chair to prevent myself from laughing out loud.

They tell me that he made his confession. He sent for Thomas Cranmer right at the end, and the archbishop gave him extreme unction, so he died a faithful son of the Catholic church. Apparently he told Cranmer that he had little to confess, for everything that he had done had been for the best. I smile as I think of him dying, without fear of the darkness, secure as ever in his own good opinion, dabbled with holy oil. But what was the purpose of his life if not to save his country from these rituals and superstitions? What, at the end, was he thinking?

I have lost my husband and I have survived my jailer. I will mourn a man who loved me, in his way, and celebrate my escape from a man who would have killed me. When I undertook this marriage, against my will, I knew that it would end only in death: his or mine. There were times when I thought that he would have me killed, that I would never be able to survive him. There were times when I thought that his passion to be the one to say the last word would persuade him to silence me forever. But I have survived his abuse, and I have survived his threats. This marriage cost me my happiness, my love, and my pride. The worst price was betraying Anne and letting her go to her death. But this, too, I shall endure; this, too, I shall forgive.

I will publish my translations of the New Testament. I will finish my book of new writing on my faith. I will write my own opionions, without fear, under my own name. Never again will I publish without my name on the frontispiece. I will not send it out into the world without acknowledgment. I will stand up and speak in my own voice and no man will ever silence me again.