Someone smiles in sympathy at the little treble voice, and then catches Henry’s furious look and glances away. I see Maggie’s face is white and strained and Anne is shaking and slips her hand into Cecily’s arm.

“Did you take the crown on your head though you knew you had no right to it?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“You took it under a false name. It was put on your head but you knew your lowborn head did not deserve it.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“The boy whose name you took, Edward of Warwick, is loyal to me, recognizing me as his king. As does everyone in England.”

The child has lost his voice; only I am close enough to hear a little sob.

“What d’you say?” Henry shouts at him.

“Yes, Sire,” the child quavers.

“So it meant nothing. You are not a crowned king?”

Obviously, the child is not a crowned king. He is a lost little boy in a dangerous world. I nip my lower lip to stop myself from crying. I step forwards and I gently put my hand in Henry’s arm. But nothing will restrain him.

“You took the holy oil on your breast but you are not a king, nor did you have any right to the oil, the sacred oil.”

“Sorry,” comes a little gulp from the child.

“And then you marched into my country, at the head of an army of paid men and wicked rebels, and were completely, utterly defeated by the power of my army and the will of God!”

At the mention of God, My Lady the King’s Mother steps forwards a little, as if she too wants to scold the child. But he stays kneeling, his head sinks lower, he almost has his forehead on the rushes on the floor. He has nothing to say to either power or God.

“What shall I do with you?” Henry asks rhetorically. At the startled look on the faces of the court, I realize that they have suddenly understood, like me, that this is a hanging matter. It is a matter for hanging, drawing, and quartering. If Henry hands this child over to the judge, then he will be hanged by his neck until he is faint with pain, then the executioner will cut him down, slide a knife from his little genitals to his breastbone, pull out his heart, his lungs, and his belly, set light to them before his goggling eyes, and then cut off his legs and his arms, one by one.

I press Henry’s arm. “Please,” I whisper. “Mercy.”

I meet Maggie’s aghast gaze and see that she too has realized that Henry may take this tableau through to a deathly conclusion. Unless we play another scene altogether. Maggie knows that I can perform one great piece of theater and that I may have to do this. As the wife of the king, I can kneel to him publicly and ask for clemency for a criminal. Maggie will come forwards and take off my hood, and my hair will tumble down around my shoulders, and then she will kneel, all my ladies will kneel behind me.