The Taming of the Queen

Nan’s smile contrasts with her red eyes. It is the old smile of gritty courage that all women show who have gone through hard nights and come out without betrayal. ‘No. She can’t have done. For see? They released us. We were there when the constable came from London and said what they were doing. They took him in to the king but the door between the council chamber and the privy chamber was open a crack and we could hear His Majesty bellow at them. Then they came out and questioned us some more. They must have hoped that she would betray us or we would betray her – that at least one of us would name you. But she stayed silent, and we said nothing and then they released us. They have dismembered her, God be with her. They have torn her apart like a boned chicken, but she has not said your name.’

I give one sob, like a cough, and then I am quiet. ‘We have to send her a doctor,’ I say. ‘And food and drink and some comfort.

We have to get her released.’

‘We can’t,’ Nan says with a long shuddering sigh. ‘I thought of this. But she has gone through all this to deny her sisterhood with us. We can’t incriminate ourselves. We have to leave her alone.’

‘She will be in agony!’

‘Let it be worthwhile.’

‘For God’s sake, Nan! Is the Privy Council going to release her?’

‘I don’t know. I think—’

There is a gentle tap on the bedroom door. Catherine Brandon exclaims in irritation and opens it a crack. We hear her say, ‘Yes, what is it?’ and then reluctantly hold it wider. ‘It’s Doctor Wendy,’ she says. ‘He insists.’

The plump form of the doctor appears in the doorway. ‘What now?’ I demand. ‘Is the king ill?’

He waits till Catherine closes the door, then he bows over my hand. ‘I have to speak to you in confidence,’ he says.

‘Doctor Wendy, this is not the time. I am distressed . . .’

‘It’s urgent.’

I nod to Catherine and Nan to step back to the doorway. ‘You can speak.’

He draws a paper from the inside of his jacket. ‘There is worse than you know,’ he says. ‘Worse than these ladies know. The king told me himself, just now. I am so sorry. So sorry to have to tell you. He has issued a warrant for your arrest. This is a copy.’

Now that it has happened, now that the worse thing possible has happened, I do not scream and cry. I am completely still. ‘The king has ordered my arrest?’

‘I regret to say so,’ he says formally.

I hold out my hand and he gives me the paper. We move slowly, as if we are in a dream. I think of Anne Askew, stretched on the rack. I think of Anne Boleyn taking off her pearl necklace for the French swordsman. I think of Kitty Howard asking them to bring the block to her room so that she could practise laying her head down. I think that I too will have to find the courage to die with dignity. I don’t know that I am going to be able to do it. I think I am too passionate for life, I think I am too young, I think I want too much to live. I think I want Thomas Seymour. I want a life with him. I want tomorrow.

Blindly, I unfold the paper. I can see Henry’s scrawled signature as I have seen it a dozen times. Without doubt it is my husband’s hand. Above it in a clerk’s script is the warrant for my arrest. It is so. It is here. It is here at last. My own husband has ordered my arrest on a charge of heresy. My own husband has signed it.

The enormity of this almost overcomes me. He does not want to send me back to widowed obscurity – though he could do that, he has the power to do that. Or he could exile me from court and I could do nothing but obey. He could treat me as he did Anne of Cleves and order me to live elsewhere and I would have to go. He could do that, he is head of the church, he can rule which marriages are valid and which should be dissolved. He did that to Katherine of Aragon though she was a princess of Spain and the pope himself said it could not be done; but Henry did it.

But he does not want me out of his sight or out of his palaces, he does not want me to hand back the jewels and return the gowns of the other queens, he does not want me to leave his children and be forgotten by them. It is not enough for me to surrender the regency and lose my power. That is not enough for him. He wants me dead. The only reason to charge me with a crime that carries a sentence of death is to kill me. Henry, who has executed two wives and waited for news of the deaths of two others, now wants me dead like them.

I can’t understand it, I can’t think why. I can’t see why he should not send me into exile if he has come to hate me, after loving me so much. But it is not so. He wants me dead.

I turn to Nan, standing white-faced with Catherine at the door. ‘See this,’ I say wonderingly. ‘Nan, see what he has done now. See what he wants to do to me.’ I hand it to her.

Silently she reads it, she tries to speak but her mouth opens and closes and she says nothing. Catherine takes it out of her powerless hands and reads it in silence, and then raises her eyes and looks at me.

‘This is Gardiner’s work,’ Catherine says after a long while.