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more anxious to please him. We were all thinking of him not so much as a prince but as a future king and the fact that I had a very special place in his affections had made me feel quite important.
    So I said to Kat: “I insist on your telling me what makes you go about as though you are somewhere else.”
    “Well,” said Kat, “I will tell you. You know Mr Ashley?”
    “Know Mr Ashley!” I cried. “That gentleman comes up again and again in your conversation. It is not possible to be much in the company of Mistress Katharine Champernowne without knowing something of Mr Ashley.”
    “Then you will readily understand,” retorted Kat. “He has asked me to marry him and I see no reason why I should not.”
    “Marry! You!” I must confess the first thought which came to me was, But what of me?
    She knew my nature well and she immediately fell to her knees and buried her head in my skirts. “My lady, my dearest Princess, never will I leave you.”
    “Not for Mr Ashley?”
    “I think Mr Ashley could become a member of your household. I am sure no objection would be raised against that.”
    I was dubious. Kat! Married! No longer entirely mine!
    People did marry, of course, and Kat was young and comely. But I felt shaken. There was so much change in the air, and I did not want change though I knew it must come. There was too much tension in the air… throughout the Court, throughout the country. I felt it in the streets on those occasions I rode out for I was very sensitive to the mood of the people.
    And now Kat was to be married.
    Lovingly she assured me that nothing could ever make any difference in her devotion to me. I was her special charge, her Princess, close to her heart, never to be dislodged. She made me feel that she would even abandon Mr Ashley if marrying him meant losing me.
    Fortunately she did not have to make such a choice. My good stepmother said that there was a simple solution. Let Mr Ashley join my household. “I feel Thomas Parry is not as efficient as he might be,” she said, “and John Ashley is a very clever young man.”
    So our problem was solved and Kat became Kat Ashley. Parry stayed of course but John Ashley became a member of the household; I was very pleased because not only was he Kat's husband but there was a family connection between him and the Boleyns.
    We were at Hatfield and I was delighted to be there because Edward was with me. We used to converse in Latin—a language we both loved. I had a secret with which I intended to surprise him. There was a woman in my household, Blanche Parry, a Welshwoman, who was very proud of the fact that she had rocked me in my cradle. She was very fluent in her native language and I suggested she should teach it to me. With my aptitude I wassoon able to speak in Welsh with Blanche and I thought it would be rather amusing to let Edward know that I had acquired the Welsh language of which he and the erudite little Jane Grey were ignorant. After all we Tudors had Welsh blood in our veins and royal as we were, we had inherited through our ancestor Owen Tudor.
    But before I did this there was disturbing news that my relatives Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, and Henry Howard, his son, Earl of Surrey, had been thrown into the Tower.
    Kat, as usual, knew all about it.
    “How could Surrey be so stupid?” she demanded. “Do you know what he has done? He has assumed the right to wear the arms of Edward the Confessor. He says the concession was granted to his family by Richard II. Of course the College of Arms forbade this, but what does my Lord Surrey do but ignore them.”
    “And do you mean to say that for such an offense Surrey and his father are in the Tower?”
    Kat came closer to me and whispered: “It's the Seymours. You wouldn't expect them to miss a chance like this, would you? He has played right into the Seymours' hands. Silly Surrey!”
    “Kat,” I said severely, “you forget yourself.”
    “So I do,” she replied.
    “You should