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      PROLOGUE

      The End of an Era

      January 28, 1547

      Whitehall Palace

      Wonderful, dangerous, cruel, and wise, after thirty-eight years of ruling England, King Henry VIII lay dying. It was the end of an era. Many of his subjects had known no other king and feared the uncertainty that lay ahead when his nine-year-old son inherited the throne.

      A cantankerous mountain of rotting flesh, already stinking of the grave, and looking far older than his fifty-five years, it was hard to believe the portrait on the wall, always praised as one of Master Holbein’s finest and a magnificent, vivid and vibrant likeness, that this reeking wreck had once been the handsomest prince in Christendom, standing with hands on hips and legs apart as if he meant to straddle the world.

      The great gold-embroidered bed, reinforced to support his weight, creaked like a ship being tossed on angry waves, as if the royal bed itself would also protest the coming of Death and God’s divine judgment.

      The faded blue eyes started in a panic from amidst the fat pink folds of bloodshot flesh. As his head tossed upon the embroidered silken pillows a stream of muted, incoherent gibberish flowed along with a silvery ribbon of drool into his ginger-white beard, and a shaking hand rose and made a feeble attempt to point, jabbing adamantly, insistently, here and there at the empty spaces around the carved and gilded posts, as thick and sturdy as sentries standing at attention, supporting the gold-fringed crimson canopy.

      There was a rustle of clothing and muted whispers as those who watched discreetly from the shadows—the courtiers, servants, statesmen, and clergy—shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, knowing they could do nothing but watch and wonder if it were angels or demons that tormented their dying sovereign.

      The Grim Reaper’s approach had rendered Henry mute, so he could tell no one about the phantoms that clustered around his bed, which only he, on the threshold of death, could see.

      Six wronged women, four dead and two living: a saintly Spaniard, a dark-eyed witch—or “bitch” as some would think it more apt to call her—a shy plain Jane, a plump rosy-cheeked

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