“I do,” I said vehemently.

Simonette also tried to comfort me. “Sometimes it is more chic to have a little imperfection…more human…more exciting…more fascinating. You will see.”

Then came that summer's day when we were all in the gardens. I remember so well that feeling of impending doom. I knew that something fearful was going to happen. The household was subdued. Even George and Thomas Wyatt were quiet. Mary was trying to fight off the evil as she always would by pretending that it did not exist.

But we knew that all was not well, for they had sent to my father, bringing him home from the Court, and that would be something no one would dare do unless it was very important.

My mother was dying. This was not just another of those yearly illnesses which beset her. This was not what they called “another disappointment.” This went beyond that. The doctors were there with the midwife.

I thought of her. She was tender and loving to us children, but we had seen little of her. When she was well she accompanied our father to Court and it was only when he was on embassies abroad that she returned to her family. When she grew heavy with child she would be with us. Then would come the confinement and the brief rest before she joined our father. It was a pattern which seemed to go on forever.

Neither George nor Thomas Wyatt could talk as usual on that day. We had been silent, glancing every now and then at the house, waiting.

It was Simonette who came to tell us. I knew as soon as I saw her walking across the grass as though reluctant to reach us.

To lose one's mother when one is not quite six years old is not only a tragic but an illuminating experience. It teaches one that life is not as pleasantly predictable as one had thought it to be. There comes a terrible sense of aloneness and the alarming knowledge that nothing will ever be the same as it was before.

Our father went away on a mission to the Netherlands and was absent for a whole year, and when he came back there was more change in our household. He was clearly rather pleased with himself. George told us that he had had to conclude a treaty with Margaret of Savoy, Archduchess of Austria, by which the Emperor Maximilian, Pope Julius and Ferdinand of Spain should, with England, make war on France. This was the treaty which was soon to founder; but at that time my father believed that its conclusion was a great success for him. There was something else which was equally pleasing to him. My sister Mary was to go to the Court in Brussels over which Margaret reigned as Regent of the Netherlands.

George said: “This is what our father always wanted—to get his children into royal circles.”

So I lost Mary and as George was soon to go to Cambridge—and Thomas Wyatt with him—our little group was much diminished and Mary Wyatt and I did our best to console each other.

I remember well the long summer day at Hever or riding over to Allington, feeding the pigeons with Mary Wyatt. I was fascinated by the pigeons; they had light brown feathers, different from the ordinary gray ones. I thought the reason why they were there was so romantic. I had first heard it from Thomas, who told it so beautifully—as he did everything.

His father, Sir Henry, had been the prisoner of Richard III because he had not supported his accession to the throne, and on account of this had been thrown into the Tower. There he was severely tortured and when he had fainted with the agony, mustard and vinegar had been forced down his throat to revive him. When he refused to give way, he was put into a cell and left to starve.

Sir Henry had thought his end was near but one day he saw a cat on the windowsill. He staggered to the window, delighted to have contact with some living thing; he put his hand through the bars to stroke the cat's fur. Instead of repulsing him the cat had purred. He felt the better for it. The cat went away but shortly afterward came back with a pigeon it had caught and killed. The pigeon was for Sir Henry. It was food and he was almost dead of starvation. He ate the pigeon.

The next day, the cat appeared again with another pigeon, and thus did that cat keep Sir Henry alive all through the time of his captivity. So he lived to see the defeat of Richard at Bosworth Field and the arrival of Henry Tudor, who, wishing to reward him for his fidelity to the House of Lancaster, immediately freed him and restored his estate to him.

Sir Henry never forgot. Whenever I saw him at Allington it was with a cat… not the same one which had kept him alive, but a descendant of that cat; his cat was like a faithful hound; it followed him wherever he went, slept on his bed and was constantly in his company; and to remind himself of how he had been saved, he had pigeons brought to Allington and he said they would be there as long as there were Wyatts in the castle. And the strange thing was that the cat and the pigeons of Allington were friends. They lived together amicably in the castle—symbols of Sir Henry's survival to serve with loyalty the Tudor Kings.

So Mary Wyatt and I were often together at Allington or Hever until I heard that I was to go to France in the service of the King's sister.

So here I was about to embark on this great adventure.


* * *

When we arrived at Dover Castle a gale was sweeping in from the sea and white horses were flinging themselves against the white cliffs in an abandon of fury that sent a shiver of alarm through me.

Lady Guildford, who was in charge of us, came to the apartment to which we had been taken and told us that we should not be embarking yet but that we must be prepared to leave as soon as the sea grew calm, which, she stressed, could be at any time.

Seeing us settled in our apartment, she went back to the Princess and I was left with the other ladies who were inclined to look down their aristocratic noses at me. I was considered to be the outsider by my companions, Anne and Elizabeth Grey, the two sisters of the Marquis of Dorset, the sister of Lord Grey and the daughter of Lord Dacre. Who are these Boleyns? they were saying. True, I was the granddaughter of the Duke of Norfolk—he who considered himself more royal than the Tudors—and he had actually been in the cavalcade with his son, the Earl of Surrey, but they had pointedly ignored my father as though to disclaim the family connection; and I supposed these ladies took their cue from the Duke. I had always known that he deplored my mother's marriage into a family which had its roots in trade. So I was of little account—and not only because of my youth.

They talked over my head as though they were quite unaware of my existence. This infuriated me. Who were they? I asked myself. The Greys were descended from Elizabeth Woodville, and who was she before the King married her? I had always liked the story of how he came across her in the forest and had fallen in love with her and secretly married her, and when it was a fait accompli he had confronted his ministers with what he had done. This was the glorious Edward IV, grandfather to our present King, and, as some said, the two were very much alike.

Edward had triumphed in the Wars of the Roses but he was known to be the most profligate man in England, and his mistresses were legion. Our King had not had the same success in battle and he was, I had heard Tom Wyatt say, moderately faithful to his Queen. So perhaps it was only in appearance that they were similar.

I listened avidly to the talk around me.

“I am sorry for the Princess. She is so angry,” said Anne Grey.

“Who would not be, buffeted about like a shuttlecock…fi rst betrothed to one, then to another. And the Princess of all people. We know her temper.”

“I thought the King might relent right at the last moment. He is very indulgent with her.”

“But this is politics. It has to be. I think she is a little glad to escape from Charles. By all accounts he would not have been the bridegroom for her.”

There was laughter. “And you think poor old Louis is?”

“Hush. Lèse majesté. You are speaking of the King of France.”

“Well, even so, everyone knows he is all of fifty-two. Just think of our beautiful Mary with that old man.”

“She will make him dance to her tune.”

“Of course she will. But how angry she is…and how she longs for Suffolk!”

“I was sure at one time the King would give way to her.”

“Oh no… not even to his beloved sister. It is all part of the treaty. That is what royal marriages are about.”

“I long to know what she will do when she sees him.”

“You will. She will let us know. She will let everyone know.”

“When her temper flares out…”

“As it will.”

“But the King loves her well. That is why he is waiting here to say goodbye to her.”

“Perhaps,” said Elizabeth Grey, “he fears that if he does not see her off she will come back to Court … or run off with Suffolk.”

“How she would like to do that!”

“And knowing her, do you think she might attempt it?”

“And so they continued to talk while we were in our beds but I was so tired that I was soon fast asleep.

The next day I came face to face with the Princess herself. She took my chin in her hands and studied me. She was in one of her good moods apparently. “Little Boleyn, is it?” she asked. She added, “Fine eyes you have, child.” And she gave me a little tap on the cheek.

That, said the ladies, was indeed a mark of approval.

I said I was amazed that she should have noticed me.

“Oh, it is only because you are so young,” I was told by Anne Grey. “Lady Guildford is really very put out because you are here. She said did they expect her to look after children.”