The Taming of the Queen

I curtsey very low, leaning forward so that he can see down the top of my gown. I feel his eyes on my breasts and I say: ‘I could never teach you, Your Majesty. You are so much wiser than I.’

‘All of this I have heard before,’ he says irritably. ‘I have had wives before, who thought they knew better than me.’

I flush. ‘I am sure not one that ever loved you as much as I do,’ I whisper, and I bend and kiss his cheek.

I hesitate at the smell of him: the stink of his rotting leg, like decaying meat, the sweet sickly smell of old sweat on old skin, the bad breath from his mouth, his constipated flatulence. I hold my breath and I lay my cool cheek against his hot damp face. ‘God bless Your Majesty, my lord husband,’ I say gently. ‘And give you good night.’

‘Goodnight, Kateryn Parr,’ he says, biting off his words. ‘Don’t you think it odd that every one of your predecessors called herself by her name: Queen Katherine or Queen Anne or – God bless her – Queen Jane? But you call yourself Kateryn Parr. You sign yourself Kateryn the Queen KP. P for Parr.’

I am so surprised at this ridiculous challenge that I reply before I can think. ‘I am myself!’ I say. ‘I am Kateryn Parr. I am my father’s daughter, educated by my mother. What else should I call myself but by my name?’

He looks across at Stephen Gardiner – who uses his name and his title without question – and they nod at each other as if I have revealed something that they long suspected.

‘What can be wrong with this?’ I demand.

He does not even answer me, he waves me away.

When I wake in the morning the privy chamber outside my bedroom is oddly quiet. Usually there is the low reassuring buzz of my ladies arriving for the day and then the tap on the door by the maid-in-waiting for that day bringing in the hot water. As I get up and wash my face and hands in a golden bowl of warm water, the ladies bring my gowns drawn from the queen’s wardrobe for me to choose what I will wear, and the sleeves and the bodice and the hood and the jewels. They will offer something to eat; but I will not taste anything or drink until we have been to Mass, for I am uncertain, as everyone is now uncertain, as to whether we are to fast before Mass or not. It may be well known as a meaningless ritual, or Gardiner may have restored it to the court as a holy tradition. I am not sure. It is a sign of how ridiculous the times have become that I – a queen in my own rooms – do not know if I may eat a bread roll or not. It is ludicrous.

Ludicrous, and yet this morning I cannot hear the noise of the baker’s boy bringing bread from the kitchen. It is so eerily quiet outside my private chamber that I don’t wait for the arrival of my maids-in-waiting; I get up, pull my robe over my nakedness and open the door to look out. There are half a dozen women outside, three of them holding gowns from the royal wardrobe. They are oddly silent, and when I open my door and stand wordlessly, looking at them, they don’t exclaim good morning and smile. They drop into silent curtseys and when they rise up they keep their eyes on the floor. They will not look at me.

‘What’s the matter?’ I demand. I scan the half-dozen of them, and then I ask, more impatiently, ‘Where is Nan? Where is my sister?’

Nobody answers, but Anne Seymour steps reluctantly forward. ‘Please allow me to speak with you alone, Your Majesty,’ she says.

‘What is it?’ I say, stepping back into my bedroom and beckoning her in. ‘What’s the matter?’

She closes the door behind her. In the silence I can hear the ticking of my new clock.

‘Where is Nan?’

‘I have some bad news.’

‘Is it Anne Askew?’

At once I think that they are going to execute her. That they have done the thing that we were sure they would not do. That they have taken her to trial, and rushed through a guilty verdict, and they are going to burn her. ‘Tell me it’s not Anne? Has Nan gone to the Tower to pray with her?’

Anne shakes her head. ‘No, it’s your ladies,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s your own sister. In the night, after you had left the king, the Privy Council sat in judgement, and they have arrested your sister Nan Herbert, your kinswoman Lady Elizabeth Tyrwhit, and your cousin Lady Maud Lane.’

I cannot even hear her. ‘What did you say? Who is arrested?’

‘The ladies-in-waiting who are your kinswomen. Your sister, and your cousins.’

‘For what?’ I ask stupidly. ‘On what charge?’

‘They have not been charged yet. They were questioned all through the night; they are still being interrogated now. And the yeomen of the guard have entered their rooms, their private family rooms that they share with their husbands, and into their chambers here, in your quarters, and taken their papers away: all their boxes, all their books.’

‘They are looking at papers?’

‘They are looking for papers and books,’ Anne confirms. ‘It is an inquiry about heresy.’

‘The Privy Council is accusing my ladies, my cousins, my own sister, Nan, of heresy?’

Anne nods, her face impassive.