I would not choose to live anywhere but on my own lands, I would not eat anything that we have not grown. I would not be served by anyone but my own people. I am a Plantagenet born and bred in the heart of my country. I would never willingly leave. So why does the king, whose father spent his life trying to get to England and risked his life to win it, not feel this deep, loving connection to his kingdom?

BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, EASTER 1518

The cardinal is trusted with all the business of the realm, as no one can see the king; he will not even receive documents. Everything goes to Wolsey and his ever-expanding household. His clerks write the royal letters, his surveyors know the price of everything, his advisors judge how things should be, and his favorite, Thomas More, who has risen to be the trusted go-between for king and cardinal, is now given the huge responsibility of the health of the court. He commands that any household in the kingdom with a sick member has to show a bundle of hay at the door so that anyone can see the sign and keep away.

People complain that the lawyer More is persecuting the poor by marking them out, but I write to the young lawyer to thank him for his care of the king, and when I hear that he is ill himself, I send him a bottle of oils of my own distilling which are said to reduce fever.

“You’re very generous,” my son Montague observes as he sees the carrier take a basket of precious medicines directed to Thomas More at Abingdon, near Oxford. “I didn’t know that More was a friend of ours.”

“If he’s the favorite of the cardinal, then he’ll be close to the king,” I say simply. “And if he’s close to the king, then I would want him to think kindly of us.”

My son laughs. “We’re safe now, you know,” he points out to me. “Perhaps everyone had to buy the friendship of the court in the old days, when the old king was on the throne, but Henry’s advisors are no threat to us. No one would turn him against us now.”

“It’s a habit,” I admit. “All my life I have lived on the favor of the court. I know no other way to survive.”

Since none of us is invited to the tiny court that is allowed to live with the king, my kinsmen the Nevilles and the Staffords come to stay for a sennight to celebrate the end of Lent and the festival of Easter. The Duke of Buckingham, Edward Stafford, my second cousin, brings with him his son, Henry, sixteen years old and a bright, charming boy. My boy Geoffrey is only three years his junior, and the two cousins take a liking to each other and disappear for a whole day at a time, riding at the ring in the jousting arena, hawking, even fishing in the cold water of the Thames and bringing home a fat salmon which they insist on cooking themselves in the kitchen, to the outrage of the cook.

We indulge their pride, and have trumpeters announce the arrival of the dish in the dining room, where it is carried shoulder-high in triumph, and the three hundred people of our combined households who sit down to dinner in my great hall rise to their feet and applaud the noble salmon and the grinning young fishermen.

“Have you heard when the court will return?” George Neville asks Edward Stafford when dinner is over and we cousins and our boys are seated in my private chamber and at ease with wine and sweetmeats before the fire.

His face darkens. “If the cardinal has his way, he will keep the king apart from his court forever,” he says shortly. “I am ordered not to come to him. Banned from court? Why would such a thing be? I am well, my household is well. It’s nothing to do with illness; it is that the cardinal fears the king will listen to me—that’s why I am barred from attending on him.”

“My lords,” I say carefully. “Cousins. We must watch our words.”

George smiles at me and puts his hand over mine. “You’re always cautious,” he says. To the duke he nods. “Can’t you just go to the king, even without permission, and tell him that the cardinal is not serving his interests? Surely, he’d listen to you. We’re a great family of the realm, we have nothing to gain by causing trouble, he can trust our advice.”

“He doesn’t listen to me,” Edward Stafford says irritably. “He doesn’t listen to anyone. Not to the queen, not to me, not to any of the great men of the realm who carry blood as good or better than his, and who know as well as he does, or better, how the kingdom should be ruled. And I cannot just go to him. He won’t admit anyone to his court unless he is assured that they are not carrying disease. And who do you think is judge of that? Not even a doctor—the cardinal’s new assistant, Thomas More!”

I nod to my sons, Montague and Arthur, to leave the room. It may be safe to speak against the cardinal; there are very few lords of the land who do not speak against him. But I would rather my sons didn’t hear it. If anyone ever asks them, they can truthfully say that they heard nothing.

They both hesitate to go. “Nobody could doubt our loyalty to the king,” Montague says for both of them.

The Duke of Buckingham gives a reluctant laugh, more like a growl. “Nobody had better doubt mine,” he says. “I have breeding as good as the king himself, better in fact. Who believes in loyalty to the throne more than a royal? I don’t challenge the king. I never would. But I do question the motives and the advancement of that damned butcher’s son.”

“I think, Lord Uncle, that the cardinal’s father was a merchant?” Montague queries.

“What difference does that make to me?” Buckingham demands. “Tinker or tailor or beggar? Since my father was a duke and his grandfather was a duke, and my great-great-great-great-grandfather was King of England?”

BISHAM MANOR, BERKSHIRE, SUMMER 1518

“Good day,” I say, stepping out of the great door in my riding gown, a plain hood on my head, the very picture of a working landlord with great lands in her stewardship.