I need not have worried about being included among them. The concubine took with her almost every female in her household and added a sprinkling of noble ladies-in-waiting to augment her consequence. En route to Dover, we spent one night at Stone Manor in Kent, another at Shurland on the Isle of Sheppey, and the third in Canterbury. On the eleventh of the month, we set sail for Calais. The king and Lady Anne were aboard the Swallow and her maids of honor accompanied them. Had I still been a chamberer, I’d have been relegated to less glittering company on a smaller ship. I had never been at sea before. I did not enjoy the experience, even though it was pleasant weather with a fine wind and we reached Calais in less than five hours. Dressed all in blue and purple, the lady marquess’s colors, we made a grand procession along cobbled streets lined with tall, narrow houses, stopping first at St. Nicholas to hear Mass and then, having given thanks for our safe passage, going on to the Exchequer, the grandest mansion in the English Pale, where the lady marquess was installed in a suite of seven rooms.
