But Henry does not send for the Tournai barber and his wife. He sends yet another spy to Tournai, who cannot find them. I have a brief amusing picture in my mind of Tournai filled with men wrapped in their cloaks with their hoods pulled forwards to hide their faces, looking for someone—anyone—who will say that they had a boy who disappeared from home and who took it upon himself to pretend to be King of England, and who is now married into the royal family of Scotland and personal friend and well beloved of most of the rulers of Christendom.

It is such a ludicrous proposal that when Henry goes on looking for a bereft mother, for a missing boy, for anything—a name if nothing else—that I see it as the measure not of his determination to unravel a mystery, but of his increasing desperation to create an identity for the boy and pin a name on him. When I suggest that really anyone would do, it does not have to be a Tournai barber—he might as well seek anyone who is prepared to say that the boy was born and raised by them, and then went missing—Henry scowls at me and says: “Exactly, exactly. I could have half a dozen parents and still no one would believe that I have found the right ones.”

One evening in autumn I am invited into the queen’s rooms—they are still called the queen’s rooms—by My Lady the King’s Mother, who tells me that she needs to talk with me before dinner. I go with Cecily my sister, as Anne is in her confinement, expecting her first child; but when the great double doors are thrown open I see that My Lady’s presence chamber is empty, and I leave Cecily to wait for me there, beside the economical fire of small off-cut timbers, and I go into My Lady’s privy chamber alone.

She is kneeling before a prie-dieu; but when I come in, she glances over her shoulder, whispers “Amen,” and then rises to her feet. We both curtsey, she to me as I am queen, I to her as she is my mother-in-law; we press cool cheeks against each other as if we were exchanging a kiss, but our lips never touch the other’s face.

She gestures towards a chair that is the same height as hers, on the other side of the fireplace, and we sit simultaneously, neither one of us taking precedence. I am beginning to wonder what all this is about.

“I wish to speak to you in confidence,” she begins. “In absolute confidence. What you tell me will not go beyond the walls of this room. You can trust me with anything. I give you my sacred word of honor.”

I wait. I very much doubt that I am going to tell her anything, so she need not assure me that she will not repeat it. Besides, anything that might be of use to her son, she would repeat to him in the next moment. Her sacred word of honor would not even cause a second’s delay. Her sacred word of honor is worth nothing against her devotion to her son.