All of Henry’s many houses are places of wonder. This palace he took from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who built it in deep rosy-red brick, with high ornamental chimneys, broad courtyards, and exquisitely planned gardens. They have completed the changes that Henry promised me, and now there is a new queen’s side overlooking the gardens and away from the kitchens. These will be my rooms; no ghosts will walk the newly waxed floorboards. There is a broad stone quay that runs along the riverbank, and as our barge and all the accompanying ships come into sight, all the standards are unfurled at all the flagpoles, and there is a great roar of cannon fire to welcome the king home.

I jump at the noise and Nan laughs. “You should have heard it the day that we brought Anne of Cleves to London,” she says. “They had barges on the river shooting off guns, and the sky was lit like a thunderstorm with the fireworks.”

The barge comes smoothly in to the stone pier and the rowers ship their oars. There is another bellow of ordnance and the gangplank is run ashore. The yeomen of the guard, in their green and white livery, hammer down the shallow stone stairs to line the quay. The trumpeters blast out a shout of sound, and all the royal servants come out before the doors of the palace and stand, stiffly, heads uncovered in the wintry air. The king, who was resting his leg on an embroidered footstool under an awning in the stern, hauls himself to his feet and goes first, as he needs a man on either side to support him on the gently rocking deck. I follow him, and when he is steady on the white marble paving stone of the quay, he turns and takes my hand. The trumpeters are playing a processional anthem, the servants are bowing low, and the people held back from the quay are cheering Henry’s name—and my own. I realize that our marriage is popular not just in our court and the foreign courts, but here, in the countryside too. Who could believe that the king could marry again? Yet again? Who could believe that he would take a beautiful widow and restore her to wealth and happiness? Who could believe that he would take an Englishwoman, a countrywoman, a woman from the despised and feared North of England, and put her in the very heart of the smart southern court, and that she would outshine everyone? They cheer and shout my name, wave documents that they want me to see, requests that they want me to grant, and I smile and wave back. The steward of my household goes among them and gathers up their letters for me to read later.