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in Chelsea.”
          “And they’re still there?”
          “Who knows?  With Northumberland anything can happen.”
          We then travel down another path in our conversation and start to discuss the mentor of Jane Grey, Katherine Parr, and her strange life, her marriage to Henry VIII and how close she came to execution for her strong evangelical views and for disagreeing strongly with Henry over this.  We talk about her friend, Anne Askew, who was tortured in the Tower in a failed attempt to make her implicate Katherine in holding treasonous views (that is to say, views contrary to Henry’s views) on religious reform. 
          And then we recall in fascinated horror the story of how Anne’s broken body was finally tied to a chair and fastened to the stake where she was burned for her refusal to inform on Katherine Parr and the rest of her friends.
          Of course we cannot remember all this.  We were small children at the time.  But the people remembered and the story of Ann e Askew passed into the realm of folk lore.  Never before or since has a woman been tortured on the rack.  It brought shame to Henry in the eyes of the people.
          But it terrified Katherine Parr who apologised to her husband for her wayward views and was ultimately saved by Henry’s very timely death.  She then shocked everyone by marrying her old love, Thomas Seymour – the same Thomas Seymour, later to be Earl of Sudeley, who had indulged in scandalously inappropriate behaviour with the young Elizabeth while Katherine was pregnant with his child. 
          Elizabeth left the house in disgrace but another person, loyal to Katherine Parr, stayed and this was their other ward, a very young girl - named Jane, the same Lady Jane Grey who is now Amy’s sister-in-law.  It’s a small world! 
          Jane had been Katherine Parr’s most trusted companion, even though she was just twelve at the time, and had taken in Katherine’s very advanced views on religious reform.  Fortunately the new King Edward shared their views so they no longer had any need to fear the bonfire or the executioner’s axe.  Edward’s introduction of a new English Prayer Book had fulfilled all Katherine’s dreams.
          But, after the Elizabeth scandal, tragedy struck.  Jane had travelled with the pregnant Katherine to Sudeley House in Gloucestershire and remained with her during her confinement.  Jane had loved the huge library there and the birth of the child was eagerly anticipated.  But her role was not to be that of older ‘sister’ to the baby; instead she became chief mourner at Katherine’s funeral when the poor woman died of fever soon after giving birth. 
          Jane had been in her twelfth year at the time of the funeral but she had learned many valuable lessons from the time spent in the care of the generous and kindly Katherine.  She became her own person, strong in her views to the point of rudeness to those who disagreed with them.  She grew into a mature woman and was old beyond her years by the time she married the much loved and doted upon Guildford, younger brother of Robert Dudley.
          Oh yes, Amy and I agree, Jane has seen life in all its perverse vagaries and is no fool; she will not allow Northumberland to dominate her.  She had been fortunate to have a very good teacher in Katherine Parr whose circle of intelligent and free thinking women friends had refused to be dominated by their husbands, even if poor Anne Askew had paid a terrible price for her courageous belief in the rights of women to hold an educated opinion.
          “If a woman can’t hold a view without fear of her husband calling her a heretic,” I say, “I think I’d rather not be married.  Just imagine!  You’re voicing your thoughts based on your studies of the new learning and the next thing your husband, whose probably got his eye on someone younger anyway, is turning you in to the