Then we hear that the winds blew the boy off course and he has landed in the south of England and there is nobody there to defend the coast but the archbishop and some local bands. What shall prevent the boy from marching on London? There is no one to block the road, there is no one who will deny him.

Henry’s guard rides into the stable yard without warning, and the grooms brush down the exhausted horses and the men stained with mud from the road take the back stairs to their rooms in silence. They don’t shout for ale or boast of their journey, they return to the court like men silent with grim determination, afraid of defeat. Henry dines with the court for two nights, hard-faced, as if he has forgotten all his lessons about being a smiling king. He comes to my rooms to lead me in to dinner and greets me curtly.

“He landed.” He spits out the words as he leads me to the top table. “He got a few men onshore. But he saw the defense and sheered off like a coward. My men killed a few hundred of them, but like fools they let his ship get away. He fled like a boy and they let him go.”

I don’t remind my husband that once he too came to the coast and saw that there was a trap and sailed away without landing. We called him a coward then, too. “So where is he now?”

He looks at me coldly, as if measuring whether it is safe to tell me. “Who knows? Perhaps he’s gone to Ireland? The winds were blowing west, so I doubt he’ll have landed in Wales. Wales at least should be faithful to a Tudor. He’ll know that.”

I say nothing. We both know that he can trust nowhere to be faithful to a Tudor. I hold out my hands and the groom of the ewery pours warm water on my fingers and holds out a scented towel.

Henry rubs his hands and throws the towel at a page boy. “I captured some of his men,” he says with sudden energy. “I have about a hundred and sixty of them, Englishmen and foreigners, all traitors and rebels.”

I don’t need to ask what will happen to the men who sailed with the boy for England. We take our seats and face our court.

“I shall send them round the country and have them hanged in groups in every market town,” Henry says with sudden cold energy. “I shall show people what happens to anyone who turns against me. And I shall try them for piracy—not treason. If I name them as pirates I can kill the foreigners as well. Frenchman and Englishman can hang side by side and everyone will look at their rotting bodies and know that they dare not question my rule no matter where they were born.”

“You won’t forgive them?” I ask, as they pour a glass of wine. “Not any of them? You won’t show mercy? You always say that it is politic to show mercy.”