“Oatlands first,” she says with satisfaction. “I think it is one of the best palaces, on the river, newly built, as beautiful as any of them. You’ll love it there, and the bedrooms aren’t haunted!”

OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY,

SUMMER 1543

Nan is completely right: the court breaks itself up and re-forms with practiced ease, and I love my rooms in Oatlands Palace. It was built on the river near Weybridge to be a honeymoon palace for Anne of Cleves, so Nan cannot truly claim that it is not haunted. Anne of Cleves’s sorrow and disappointment are in every courtyard. Her maid-in-waiting Katherine Howard was triumphantly married to the king, here in the chapel; I imagine he chased her, panting endearments, limping as fast as he could go through the beautiful gardens.

The palace was built with the stone of the abbey at Chertsey, every beautiful sandstone block pulled down from where it was dedicated to God to stand forever. The tears of the faithful must have fallen in the mortar; but nobody thinks of that now. It is a huge sunny palace, near to the river, designed like a castle with a tower at each corner and a huge courtyard inside. My rooms look towards the south and they are sunny and light. The king’s rooms adjoin them, and he warns me that he can walk in at any time to see what I am doing.

Over the next few days Nan and I draw up the list of posts in my household and start to fill them with the king’s choices, with our friends and family and then, when we have satisfied everyone who has a claim on me, with those whose careers we want to advance. I look at the list prepared by Nan and her friends who support the religious reforms. Giving them a place as my household officials at court and in my rooms as my companions strengthens their numbers at the very moment that they are losing the king’s support.

He has approved the publication of a statement of doctrine called The King’s Book, which tells people that they have to make confession and believe in the miracle of the Mass. The wine becomes blood, the bread becomes flesh—the king says it is so, and everyone must believe. He has taken away the great English Bible from every church in every parish and only the rich and the noble are allowed to read the Bible in English, and they can only do so at home. The poor and the uneducated are as far from the Word of God as if they were in Ethiop.

“I want some scholarly ladies,” I say to Nan, almost shyly. “I always felt that I should have read more and studied more. I want to improve my French and Latin. I want to have companions who will study with me.”