Sir Robert knows it too. He hands it over without saying a name, and Henry takes it without comment, turns and looks at me, his gaze absolutely expressionless, his dark eyes as flat and unloving as Welsh slate. Silently, he puts it on the table, beside the seals of the other traitors. Uncle Jasper glares at me, and his mother turns her face away. I meet my sister Cecily’s frightened gaze but I dare not signal to her to say nothing. I keep my face perfectly still; the most important thing is that we none of us confess to anything.

Another seal comes from the bag. I find I am holding my breath as if preparing for something yet more terrible. Henry puts it on the table without saying the name, and the whole of the court cranes forwards as if they would read it, despite him.

“Dorlay,” he says bitterly. There is a low moan from one of my ladies as he names her brother.

Sir Robert passes another seal from the bag, and I hear My Lady gasp in horror. She reels back, grips the chair to steady herself as Henry rises to his feet. His hand is on the seal, I can’t see the inscription, and for a moment, in my terror, I think he will turn to me, I think he will name me as a traitor. I think it is my seal in his hand. The court is breathless, looking from the king’s shocked face to the pallor of his mother. Whatever Henry was planning in this ordeal, it was not that he should find this seal in the bag. His hand shakes as he holds out the seal with the familiar crest.

“Sir William?” he asks, and his voice falters as he looks past his mother to her brother-in-law, the trusted beloved brother of her husband, whose army saved Henry’s life at Bosworth, who handed him the crown of England and was made Lord Chamberlain, the highest position in the kingdom, and given a fortune as a mere part of his reward. “Sir William Stanley?” he repeats, disbelievingly. “This is your seal?”

“It’s not possible,” Thomas, Lord Stanley, says hastily.

Terribly, at that moment, a laugh forces its way out of my mouth. I am so horrified and so shocked and so startled that I laugh like a fool and bury my face in my hands and find I cannot catch my breath for wanting to laugh, laugh out loud at the madness of this moment. I choke and peal after peal of laughter escapes me.

It is because I see, so blindingly clearly, that yet again the Stanleys have put a man on either side, as they always do, as my mother herself warned me they always do. There is always a Stanley on either side of the battle, or one who has sworn he is on his way, or one promising an army but unfortunately failing to deliver. Whenever there is a moment that a family must choose a side, the Stanleys are always to be found on both sides at once.