How such a poor ignorant boy from a common home should fool the greatest kings of Christendom, the Duchess of Burgundy, the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of France, the King of Scotland, should delight the court of Portugal and tempt the monarchs of Spain, Henry does not say. It is part of the magic of the fairy tale, like a goose-girl who is really a princess, or a girl who cannot sleep on a pea even when it is covered by twenty feather mattresses. Amazingly, this common, vulgar, ill-educated boy, the son of a drunkard and a fool, engages the richest, most cultured men in Christendom, so that they put their wealth and their armies at his disposal. How he learns to speak four languages and Latin, how he learns to read and write with an elegant hand, how he learns to hunt and joust, hawk and dance so that people admire him as a courageous graceful prince, though he was raised in the backstreets of Tournai, Henry doesn’t say. How he learns the royal smile, the casual warm acknowledgment of homage, Henry does not even consider in his long account, though of all the men in the world he would have been the most struck by this. This is a story of magic: a common boy puts on a silk shirt, and everyone falls for the illusion that he has royal blood.

As my half brother wrote to me that one time: So be it.

I receive only one private letter from Henry during this busy time as he writes and rewrites explanations of how the boy, John Perkin, Piers Osbeque, Peter Warboys—for Henry offers several different names—made his transformation to prince and back again.

I am sending his wife to join you at court, Henry writes, knowing that there is no need for him to say whose wife is joining me. You will be surprised at her beauty and elegance. You will oblige me by making her welcome and comforting her in the cruel deceit that has been played on her.

I hand his letter to his mother, who stands with her hand out, waiting impatiently to read it. Of course, the boy’s wife has been cruelly, amazingly deceived. Her husband wore a silk shirt and she was blinded by beautiful tailoring. She could not see that beneath it he was a common little boy from Flanders. Easily deluded, amazingly deluded, she saw the shirt and thought he was a prince, and married him.

PALACE OF SHEEN, RICHMOND, AUTUMN, 1497

I sit in my rooms waiting for the woman that we are to call Lady Katherine Huntly. She is not to be known by her married name; I suspect that no one is yet quite sure of her married name, whether it is Perkin or Osbeque or Warboys.

“She is to be considered as a single woman,” My Lady the King’s Mother announces to my ladies. “I expect the marriage will be annulled.”