When I am with my father – as he receives his councillors or the ambassadors from foreign courts – I hold my tongue. I contrive to look intelligent. They flick their eyes to me, they look for something – anything – to interpret. But I say not a word. My face is framed for obedience. They cannot know my thoughts. And, on the eve of my fourteenth birthday, before Bishop Fox and a handful of other councillors in a stuffy chamber at Richmond Palace, I make a formal declaration that I protest vehemently against my marriage to Catherine and am utterly opposed to it. I state that the marriage was not binding because it was made when I was a minor. In coming to this decision, I say, I have been in no way forced. It is not true, of course – but while my father is king I have no option. I must simply bide my time. It’s only with the boys and men who joust that I can relax. There is something clean and honest about physical combat. With them, I am good-tempered.
