Lamentation

Epilogue

The crowds stood six deep outside Whitehall Palace. They lined both sides of the roadway, up past Charing Cross and along Cockspur Street. Some said people were standing all the way to Windsor. Everyone was huddled in their warmest clothes; the sky was blue but there was an iron-hard frost in the air, the puddles grey and frozen, a bitter wind from the east. Some from the poorer classes, in leather jerkins or threadbare coats, were shivering and hunched in the cold. But they stayed, determined to see the spectacle.

I wore my heavily furred winter robe, but no gold chain. That had been returned to the goldsmith back at the end of August. For on this royal occasion there was no great central figure to impress. King Henry VIII was dead, and his funeral procession about to begin.

The King, it was known, had fallen gravely ill again during the short royal Progress to Guildford in September, and never fully recovered. He worsened again in December and at the end of January he had died. The gossips at the Inns of Court had had much to chew over in recent months. It was, as ever, hard to distinguish truth from rumour, but most agreed that during the autumn the religious radicals had utterly triumphed; Bishop Gardiner had been publicly struck in the face by Lord Lisle in the Privy Council, and the King had refused to see him in the weeks before he died. It made sense to me: the conservative faction had bet everything on the Queen being found guilty of heresy, and on the success of Bertano’s mission. Both gambits had failed and the King, knowing he was dying, had turned to those who would ensure that the Royal Supremacy over the Church was preserved for his son.

In December the Duke of Norfolk and his son the Earl of Surrey had been suddenly arrested, the Earl accused of illegally quartering the royal arms with his own. Parliament had passed an Act of Attainder convicting both of treason; the young Earl had been executed in January, and Norfolk, the arch-conservative, would have followed him to the block had not the King died the night before the execution. It sounded to me like a put-up job — the King had used such methods before, to rid himself of Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. For now the old Duke remained alive, in the Tower.

It was said that as he lay dying at Whitehall the King had called for Archbishop Cranmer, but by the time he arrived Henry was past speech. And when the prelate asked him to give a sign that he died in the faith of Christ, he had been able only to clutch Cranmer’s hand. No confession then for Henry, no last rites. His death — perhaps by accident — had been one which Protestants could approve. And yet, extraordinarily, the King in his Will had ordered traditional requiem Masses to be said over his body. Henry, in death, was as inconstant as he had been in life.

‘Vive Le Roi Edward the Sixth!’ So the heralds proclaimed the new King, that thin, straight-backed little boy. The new Council which the old King had appointed by his Will made shortly before his death, to govern England during Edward’s minority, was dominated by those identified with the Protestant cause. Lord Lisle and the Earl of Essex, Catherine Parr’s brother, had places. So, too, did those in the middle, who would bend with the wind: Paget remained Master Secretary, Wriothesley was still in place on the Council, and Rich. All had bent to the King’s final change of path. But not Bishop Gardiner; he was left seething impotently on the sidelines. It was said that radical religious reform would soon be coming.

Within the reforming camp, the Seymours had won out over the Parrs. There was to be no Regency for Catherine Parr, despite her hopes. She was now merely Queen Dowager, while the council had immediately appointed Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, as Protector of the young King. He it was who sat now at the head of the Council table, to which he had also appointed his brother Thomas.

All sorts of stories were flying around that the King’s Will had been doctored after his death, Hertford conspiring with the careerists to insert a clause concerning ‘unfulfilled gifts’ from the King which allowed the new council to award them titles, setting their loyalty in stone. Certainly there was a great crop of new peers: Richard Rich, for instance, was now Lord Rich of Lees in Essex. But exactly what had happened in the days just after the King died, nobody knew for sure; perhaps no one ever would.

Attendance at the funeral procession was officially encouraged, but not compulsory. Most of the great crowd, like me, had come, I think, to witness the passing of an epoch. The younger people present would have known no other ruler, and I could only dimly recall, when I was seven, my dear mother telling me that King Henry VII was dead and a second Tudor had ascended the throne.

I shook myself and rubbed my gloved hands together. Opposite, Whitehall Palace was silent and empty; the procession was to begin at the chapel of Westminster Palace, further south. Next to me, Philip Coleswyn said, ‘Ay, a chill day, but perhaps there now begin the days of true religion.’

Nicholas, on my other side, murmured, ‘Days of snow, from the feel of that wind.’ His Lincolnshire accent lengthened the vowels of his words.

‘Ay,’ I agreed, ‘I think you are right.’

The boy had been a rock to me these last months. In chambers he had worked with a new energy and intelligence, taking over much that Barak had formerly done. Though he needed supervising, and could be too haughty in manner for some of Barak’s more lowly friends among the clerks and solicitors, he was learning fast. He still made mistakes and, as those promoted rapidly often will, had taken on a certain insolence that needed gentle correction. But I had come to see that under his bravado and flippancy there was a core of steel in Nicholas Overton. I did not know how long he would stay with me, or even why he was so loyal: perhaps he needed to root himself somewhere after the quarrel with his family. Whatever the reason, I was grateful, and had invited him to accompany me to the funeral procession today.

When the two of us reached Whitehall I saw a large crowd of lawyers, their status ensuring them places at the front of the crowd, just north of the great Holbein Gate. They were all in their black robes and most had their hoods up against the cold; for a moment they reminded me of a crowd of monks. Heads turned as we approached; as I had anticipated, news of my arrest and appearance before the council had got out and was soon an item of gossip, as was the fact that Barak, known round Lincoln’s Inn for his wit and disrespectfulness, was gone. I nodded to people I knew with formal politeness. Treasurer Rowland, his long nose red with cold, looked at me disapprovingly. Vincent Dyrick, a woman and three children at his side, gave me a quick glance before turning away. And right at the front, William Cecil raised a hand in greeting, and gave me a nod. I returned it, thinking how well Cecil had done; Secretary now to the Earl of Hertford, already this young man was becoming a power in the land.

A familiar figure shouldered his way through the lawyers and called a greeting. I had not seen Philip Coleswyn since the summer, but took his hand gladly as he led Nicholas and me to stand beside him in the front row. I asked after his family and he said all were well. He looked relaxed and content, his terrible anxieties over the summer long gone. When he asked after my health I said merely that I was well. Even though I wore my coif, and had the hood of my robe up against the cold like everyone else, Philip glanced at my head. Perhaps someone had told him that after that night in August my hair had turned completely white; first just at the roots, giving me the aspect of a badger, but growing out until only white was left. I had got used to it.

‘They’re late,’ Nicholas observed, stamping his feet.

‘There is much to organize at Westminster,’ Philip said. ‘There are near two thousand men going to Windsor, on horse and foot. Everyone will have to be in their correct place.’

‘And it is nothing to them if common folk are kept waiting,’ I snapped. Philip looked at me, struck by my bitter tone. I thought, I must be careful, people will be taking me for an Anabaptist soon, and that creed of equality would have no more of a place under the new regime than it had under the old, however radical the religious changes which might come. I looked up at the windows above the wide arches of the Holbein Gate. There was the King’s study, to which he had called me on that dreadful night. He would never watch his people from his window again. All at once, I felt free.

Philip asked, ‘I do not suppose you have heard how Mistress Slanning fares?’

‘I have, in fact.’ Guy had kept me informed. He had been furious with me that night in August, and rightly so, but in the weeks that followed, when I was subject to blacker moods than ever in my life, he helped take care of me, counselled me. His compassion won out over his anger, for which I was eternally grateful. I looked at Philip, wondering how he would take what I had to say: ‘She is gone to France, as people may since the peace. She has returned to the Catholic faith and entered a nunnery, somewhere out in the French countryside.’

‘A nunnery?’ He sounded shocked.

‘I do not know if she has taken any vows yet. There is a long preparation.’ I wondered if Isabel had, at last, made her confession. ‘I think it is best for her, she would find it hard now to face the world. She has given her worldly goods to the nuns. Edward’s share of that house will pass to his family, for she had none left living.’

Philip inclined his head disapprovingly. ‘However comfortable a refuge the papists may provide, she has lost any chance of salvation.’

Nicholas looked at him narrowly. ‘Then you believe that when she dies she will burn, sir, as Mistress Anne Askew did, but in her case for all eternity?’

‘God’s laws are beyond human understanding, boy,’ Philip answered firmly.

I spoke quietly, ‘If such are his laws, then indeed they are.’ I thought of Hugh Curteys, my ward. As the persecution of Protestants had intensified in Antwerp the previous autumn, Hugh had moved to Hamburg, and worked now with the German Hanse merchants. This great struggle between Protestants and Catholics all across Europe could now make anyone a refugee, a prisoner, or worse.

Still the procession did not come, though officials had begun scurrying to and fro around the Holbein Gate, under which the procession would pass, one of them shivering in a clerical cassock. I remembered how the vicar had been late at the infinitely smaller ceremony a month before, when Josephine married Edward Brown. The wedding had been celebrated in the little parish church Edward attended; his family and friends from the Inn had come, together with Edward’s master. Josephine had no family and I had given her away; I had been proud to do so, though I would miss her greatly. They had moved to Norwich last week. I had hired an old fellow called Blaby, a grumbling creature, to look after my house until I found a new steward; apart from him, the household now consisted only of Timothy and myself. Gently, very gently, I was nudging the boy towards an apprenticeship with the Lincoln’s Inn farrier when he turned fourteen, which I would finance to give him a chance in life.

Then I saw them, for the first time in six months, near the front of the crowd a little way off. Barak and Tamasin. Tamasin wore a thick coat with a hood, but looked pale; I knew from Guy that, a fortnight before, on the night the King died, she had given birth to a healthy daughter. She should not be out in this cold so soon, but I imagined she had insisted.

Barak, beside her, still looked sick. There was a heavy puffiness to his features now, and he had put on weight. I saw, with a clutch of sorrow at my heart, how the right sleeve of his coat trailed empty. He glanced up and his eyes met mine. Tamasin looked up too; when she saw me her face stiffened.

‘They’re coming!’ Murmurs and an excited shuffling in the crowd, heads craning to look towards the Holbein Gate. From beyond, the sound of sung prayers in the clear cold air. But then, for another minute, nothing happened. People shuffled and stamped their feet, some beginning to mutter and grumble a little in the bitter cold.

A movement nearby. I turned to see Barak sidling through the crowd towards us. Tamasin stayed behind, glaring at me, fierce as ever.

Barak took Nicholas by the arm with his remaining hand. ‘How are you, Nick boy? I haven’t seen you since that night. Are you all right?’

‘Yes — yes. And you?’ Nicholas sounded surprised, as indeed he might, for when he had gone to visit Barak one night in October, Tamasin had slammed the door in his face. Money which I had sent to her via Guy had been returned without a word.

‘How’s he treating you?’ Barak asked, inclining his head towards me. ‘Keeping you busy?’

‘Yes — yes. We miss you at chambers.’

Barak turned to me. ‘How goes it with you?’ His eyes, like his puffy face, were still full of pain and shock.

‘Well enough. But I have wished for news of you —’

‘Listen,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll have to be quick. Tammy doesn’t want me talking to you. I just wanted to say, I’m all right. When I’m a bit better I’ve an offer from a group of solicitors to work with them; interviewing clients, finding witnesses, that sort of thing. Work where you don’t need two hands. So don’t worry.’

‘I am desperately sorry, Jack, desperately,’ I said. ‘Tamasin is right to think it was all my fault.’

‘Balls!’ Barak answered with something of his old vigour. ‘It was me decided to get involved with all that, me that told her lies about what I was doing. Am I not still a man with responsibility for my own decisions?’ A spasm of anger crossed his face and I realized that, in his own eyes, he was not fully a man any more. I did not reply.

‘How does the new baby fare?’ Nicholas asked. ‘We heard you have a daughter.’

Barak spoke with a touch of his old humour. ‘Can’t keep anything quiet within a mile of Lincoln’s Inn, can you? Yes, she’s lusty and healthy, lungs on her like her mother. We’re going to call her Matilda.’

‘Congratulations, Jack,’ I said quietly.

He glanced over his shoulder at Tamasin. ‘I’d better get back. Listen, I’ll be in touch when I’m working again. And this —’ he gestured to his empty sleeve — ‘Guy’s making me some sort of attachment now the stump’s healed. It won’t be anything like a hand but I suppose it’ll be better than nothing. As for Tammy, give her time. I’m working on her. Easier for her to blame you than me, I suppose.’

There was some truth in that. Yet she had every reason to blame me for Barak’s maiming, as I blamed myself. He gave me a nod, then walked back to his wife. Tamasin had seen him speaking to me; the look she gave me now had in it something despairing, defeated, that cut me to the heart. I turned away.

The murmuring had ceased, the crowd fallen silent again. Beyond the Holbein Gate the singing of prayers was growing louder as it approached. People bared their heads. I lowered my own hood, feeling the icy air against my coif. Two officials on horseback rode under the main arch, looking up the roadway to ensure the way was clear. Then beneath the wide arches walked the choir and priests of the Chapel Royal, still singing. There followed perhaps three hundred men in new black coats, carrying torches. The poor men who, by tradition, headed the funeral processions of the great. Well, there were plenty of poor men in England now, more than ever there had been.

The men who came next, on horseback, dozens of them bearing standards and banners, were certainly not poor: the great ones of the realm, flanked by Yeomen of the Guard. I glimpsed faces I recognized — Cranmer, Wriothesley, Paget. I lowered my head in a pretence of mourning.

Eventually they all passed, and the great hearse approached. A lawyer behind me leaned round Nicholas, saying impatiently, ‘Aside, beanpole, let me see!’

The hearse was drawn by eight great horses draped in black, each ridden by a little boy, the children of honour, carrying banners. It was richly gilded, with a cloth-of-gold canopy covering the huge coffin, on top of which lay a wax effigy of King Henry, startlingly lifelike, though looking not as I had seen him last summer but as he was in the Holbein mural: in his prime, hair and beard red, body solidly powerful. The effigy was fully dressed in jewelled velvet, a black nightcap on its head. The face wore an expression of peace and repose such as I doubted Henry had ever worn in life.

Bells began to toll. People lowered their heads, and I even heard a few groans. I looked at the effigy as it passed and thought, what did he really achieve, what did his extraordinary reign really bring? I remembered all that I had seen these last ten years: ancient monasteries destroyed, monks pensioned off and servants put out on the road; persecutions and burnings — I shuddered at the memory of Anne Askew’s head exploding; a great war that had achieved nothing and impoverished the country — and if that impoverishment continued to deepen, there would be trouble: the common people could only stand so much. And always, always under Henry, the shadow of the axe. I thought of those who had perished by it, and in particular of one I had long ago known well, and still remembered: Thomas Cromwell.

Beside me Philip said softly, ‘And so it ends.’

It was a fortnight later that the horseman brought the note to chambers, riding from Chelsea through the heavy snow that had lain for days. Henry was buried now, and little King Edward crowned. There was a tale that while lying overnight on the way to Windsor, Henry’s body had exploded, that stinking matter had dripped out and attracted the attention of a dog, fulfilling an old friar’s prophecy that the dogs should lick Henry’s blood as they had Ahab’s in the Bible. But that sounded too neat, and I doubted it had happened.

I was working in my room when the messenger arrived, while outside Skelly prepared a case for court and Nicholas laboured, inky-fingered, over a deposition. I recognized the seal at once. That of the Queen; the Queen Dowager, as she was now. I opened the letter, bright light from the snow-covered square outside making the copperplate lettering stand out on the white paper. It was brief, from a secretary, asking me to attend her the following afternoon at Chelsea Palace.

I laid it down. I had not expected to hear from Catherine Parr again; after that confrontation with the King, I had tried, so far as I could, to put her from my mind. But the King’s edict against my coming near had died with him. I had been sorry that Catherine Parr had not, as she had hoped, been appointed Regent, though glad when people said the King had been generous in his Will to her, as well as to the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth; each now had great wealth and status of their own. People said Catherine Parr might marry again, in time, and the name Thomas Seymour was mentioned.

I rode to Chelsea alone. Genesis plodded his way out of London slowly, for the roadway was covered with compacted snow and ice. Chelsea Palace, on the riverbank, was a fine new mansion of red brick, set in wide gardens which would be beautiful when spring came; I estimated it could easily house a staff of two hundred. The guards at the gate still wore the Queen’s livery. I was admitted, a steward taking me to the house. Inside, servants passed quietly to and fro, but there were no guards on the doors as at Whitehall, no sidling politicians. He led me to a door at the rear of the mansion, and knocked. A familiar voice bade him enter.

I followed the steward into a large room. I recognized some of the items displayed there from the Queen’s Gallery: an ornate clock, her box of coins which lay on the table beside a chess set. The Queen Dowager herself stood with her back to a large bay window, her black mourning clothes and gable hood contrasting with the snow-covered lawns outside. I bowed low. She dismissed the steward.

‘Matthew,’ she said. ‘It has been many months.’

‘Yes, your majesty.’

Her pale face was as attractive and composed as ever. In her stance I discerned a new relaxation, a new authority. Gently, she said, ‘I am sorry that your efforts to help me ended — badly. I know now who had the Lamentation. And what happened to you — and your poor servant.’

I wondered, did she know that I had lied to the King for her? I could not tell from looking at her, and I must not ask. ‘The book has been returned to you?’

‘Yes. By the Protector.’ I discerned a little bite in her voice at mention of the man who had taken the position she had hoped for. She added, ‘I plan to publish it later this year.’

I looked at her, surprised. ‘Is that — safe, your majesty?’

‘Quite safe, now. Master Cecil has offered to write a preface. He thinks, like me, that the Lamentation of a Sinner may help some suffering souls to salvation. He remains a good friend.’

‘I am glad. He is a young man of great talent.’

‘And you shall have a copy, signed by me.’

‘I — thank you.’

She came a step closer. ‘But I say again, I know what the search for it cost you.’ Her hazel eyes looked into mine and I thought suddenly, yes, she knows I told the King a lie: that I had been responsible for the decision to search for the book rather than telling him it was missing. Along with her uncle, whom I remembered Paget was to question the next day, and who must also have taken a share of the responsibility.

She said, ‘I will be grateful to you, unto death.’

‘Thank you, your majesty.’ There was an awkward pause, then I asked, ‘How fares Lord Parr?’

‘He has gone back to the country,’ she answered sadly. ‘To die, I fear. His great service to me last year was too much for him, ill as he is.’

‘I am sorry to hear it.’

She looked at me earnestly. ‘If he was ever rough with you, it was only through love for me.’

I smiled. ‘I always understood that.’

She moved over to the chess set. The pieces were laid out for a new game, and I wondered for a moment whether she might ask me to play. But she only picked up a pawn and set it down again. ‘It is because I owe you so much that I have sent for you.’ She smiled. ‘To offer you some employment, if you wish to take it.’

I did not reply. Not politics — I would say no to that, even to her.

The Queen Dowager pressed her palms together. ‘My circumstances are much changed now. I am a widow, free to remarry. In a little time, I may.’ She coloured then, and looked quickly down, as though knowing that I and many others would disapprove. I thought, so the rumours are true, it is Thomas Seymour. My heart sank and I thought: what a waste.

I think the expression on my face gave me away, for she took a deep breath, and said, ‘If and when that time comes, I am afraid I should not be able to employ you, or see you again.’ Yes, I thought, it is Seymour, who detests me as I do him. But then, what had she meant by employment?

She continued, ‘You will know about the — promotions — that have taken place since the late King’s death.’

‘Only the gossip,’ I answered cautiously.

She smiled sadly. ‘Do not worry, Matthew. I am going to tell you something which should be kept confidential for now, but only because it is in your interest to know.’

I spoke quietly, ‘Forgive me, your majesty, but I wish to know no more secrets. Ever.’

‘It concerns Richard Rich,’ she said, her eyes on mine. ‘Baron Rich, as we must now call him.’

I bit my lip, did not answer. The Queen Dowager looked down at the chessboard. ‘Rich shifted his allegiances just in time. He has been promoted, and I fear he is about to be promoted further.’ She looked at me intently. ‘Thomas Wriothesley is a peer now, too, but strangely he of all people has had an attack of conscience, and is raising difficulties regarding some of the powers Lord Hertford is taking to himself. Wriothesley will not long remain Lord Chancellor. That is the word I have, and I trust my source.’ Thomas Seymour, I thought, the Protector’s brother. ‘His successor will be Rich.’

I took a deep breath. ‘It is what he has lusted after for years.’

‘Anne Askew’s book has already been smuggled in from the Continent. Its revelations regarding Rich will soon be public. The Protector already knows them.’ She frowned, then bent to the chessboard and moved a knight forward. ‘But he wants Rich for Lord Chancellor — he is a clever and experienced lawyer, he knows the ways of politics intimately, and —’ she sighed — ‘people fear him.’

‘Rich, Chancellor, head of the legal profession. He will be able to destroy my career.’ I shook my head. Well, I thought, perhaps now was the time to retire. I had been thinking of it last summer, before the trouble began. But then I thought, stubbornly, I do not want to be forced out. I like my work, and I have responsibilities: Timothy, Nicholas and, yes, Barak. And I thought, too, where would I go? What would I do?

‘I am sorry, Matthew.’ The Queen Dowager raised an arm as though to take mine, then dropped it. ‘I fear your position as serjeant at the Court of Requests may soon be given to another.’

‘Yes. Rich would do that to me, and worse. Perhaps another accusation of misconduct; which this time will not be dropped. I am sure Treasurer Rowland would not be sorry to cooperate with him.’

She nodded sadly. ‘That is possible.’ Then she continued, her voice serious. ‘But not if you also have a secure position with someone of high enough status.’

I looked at her, puzzled. ‘But your majesty, you just said that you —’

‘I do not mean me.’

‘Then who?’

She smiled. ‘You will not know yet, but I have been given the guardianship of the Lady Elizabeth. She is to reside with me here, along with her tutor and her staff. She has been left numerous properties by her father. She is a young lady of great wealth now. As is the Lady Mary, who if she accommodates herself to the religious changes that are coming, may marry. As for our young King —’ her smile widened — ‘he is a fine boy, healthy and clever. If he lives even so long as his father he could reign near half a century.’ I saw her happiness that her side had won, even if her own family had not reached the pinnacle.

‘The Lady Elizabeth is far from the throne. In due time no doubt she will marry into the senior nobility. For now, she is but thirteen, and under my guidance. A council must be appointed to deal with her estates, and in the nature of things there will be much legal business to be done. To begin with, her new properties must be conveyed into her name.’ She took a deep breath, smiled again. ‘I would like you to take on all the legal work connected with her properties. It will be regular employment. You would report not to me but to her Treasurer, Sir Thomas Parry. He will instruct you when legal advice is needed. He will be based near the law courts rather than here.’ She added, ‘I have spoken to the Lady Elizabeth. She remembers her meetings with you, and readily agreed to my suggestion.’

I stood, thinking hard. Elizabeth might be the least important of the King’s children, but an assured place working for her household would provide ample protection against unwarranted persecution by Rich. And my official appointment to the Court of Requests was indeed all too likely to go. This new appointment would bring a steady flow of legal work, in the field of property law too, my specialist area.

The Queen Dowager said, ‘A new start, Matthew, for us both.’ She gave a hesitant smile, with something of apology in it.

I looked at her and thought again, how could this sophisticated, beautiful and profoundly moral woman marry a creature like Thomas Seymour? But perhaps Catherine Parr, after so many years of duty, felt the right to her own choice. And Seymour had good looks, if nothing else.

‘You will take the post?’ she asked.

I looked at her, and nodded. ‘I will.’

‘The Lady Elizabeth is not here at present, she is down at Richmond Palace. I would like you to go there now, take your oath to her. I sent a message you might come today. My barge is ready.’

I said, smiling, ‘You knew I would accept.’

‘I knew you would let me do this for you.’

I nodded, slowly, in acknowledgement. ‘Thank you.’

She regarded me seriously. ‘Elizabeth is not yet fourteen, yet already she has the will and intelligence of an adult. There is one thing she asked me to say to all those appointed to work for her. From another girl her age it might be childish boasting, but not Elizabeth.’

‘What is that?’

The Queen Dowager smiled ruefully. ‘My dogs will wear my collars.’

‘Yes,’ I answered quietly. ‘I can imagine her saying that, and meaning it.’

She stepped forward, and now she did take my hand and pressed it tightly. ‘Goodbye, Matthew. I shall never forget all you have done. Or the true regard in which you hold me. Believe me, I understand that, and value it.’

She looked me in the eyes, then stepped away. I was too choked with emotion to reply, as I think she saw, for she rang a bell for the steward to come and take me down to her barge. There were tears in my eyes, which I tried to hide with the depth of my bow.

Outside the steward said, respectfully, that he would ensure Genesis was taken safely back to Chancery Lane for me. He led me outdoors, and I huddled into my coat as we walked down the path between the snow-covered lawns to the river. He helped me into the barge waiting at the landing stage, where two liveried oarsmen sat. They pulled slowly out into the slate-grey Thames. I glanced back once at Chelsea Palace, then turned to face the oarsmen. They carried me downriver, to Elizabeth.