The Taming of the Queen

Anne nods, avid at this disaster falling on her rivals. ‘They were planning to alter the royal will, seize the prince and take the throne.’ I look at her incredulously. ‘No, that’s impossible. Take the throne? The Norfolks are creatures of the throne. They have spent their lives jumping like fleas in any direction that any king might take. They never hesitate to obey him, whatever he asks. Their own daughters . . .’ I break off but we all know that Mary Boleyn, her sister, Anne, her cousin Madge Shelton, their cousin Katherine Howard, were all Howard girls paraded before the king by their family and given to him as wives or whores.

Anne Seymour bristles at the mention of the Howard young women. Her own lamented sister-in-law Jane Seymour took a swift and dishonourable path from lady-in-waiting to queen. ‘Well, at least Mary Howard refused.’

‘Refused what?’

‘To be dishonoured. With her own father-in-law!’

I don’t follow her. ‘Anne, be clear with me. Who wanted Mary Howard dishonoured? And what do you mean by her father-in-law? You don’t mean the king?’

She draws closer to me, her face bright with scandalised excitement. ‘You know that they proposed to marry Mary Howard to my brother-in-law, our Thomas?’

‘Yes,’I say steadily. ‘Everyone knows that the king gave his assent.’

‘But they had no intention of an honourable match. Never! They were planning to marry him and cuckold him. What d’you think of that?’

The thought of someone planning unhappiness for Thomas is like a physical blow. I know what shame is. I would never want Thomas to feel it. ‘I don’t think much of it at all. But what did they mean to do?’

‘They were going to marry him, and make him ask you if she could be one of your ladies-in-waiting. He was to bring her to court. And what do you think she was to do then?’

Slowly, a plot is unfolding. I think: how vile these people are, these sneakbills. ‘I would have granted her a place with me, of course. A Howard girl, a Seymour wife could not have been refused.’ And, I think, I would have done anything to bring Thomas to court so that I could see him. Even if it meant spending every day with his wife. Even that. They would have drawn me in to hurt him. They would have used me to hurt him.

‘They were planning to put Mary Howard in the king’s path.’ She draws back and looks at me. ‘They planned that she should supplant you.’

‘How would she supplant me?’ I ask coldly.

‘She was to flirt with the king, to lead him on, to seduce him. She was to lie with him or do whatever he can still do. She was to be his maîtresse en titre, as grand as a French mistress, a whore above all others. They said they could secure that, for certain. You would be all but cast aside and she would be preferred. You would go and live somewhere else, she would rule the court. But they said that if she was clever, there would be more for her than that, something better than that.’

‘What could be better than that?’ I ask, as if I don’t know.

‘They said that if she were clever and desirable and spoke to him sweetly and did as they taught her, that he would get rid of you and marry her. And then she would guide him back to the old religion and her court would be a centre of theology. Like yours, but better, they said: they meant papist. And that when he died she would be stepmother to Prince Edward, and the Duke of Norfolk would be lord protector and rule the kingdom until the prince came of age, and then rule him by force of habit. She would bring the king back to the Church of Rome, he would restore the church and the monasteries in England, and she would be dowager queen over a papist kingdom.’

Anne breaks off, her face bright, looking at me with a mixture of horror and scandalised delight.

‘But the king is her father-in-law,’ I object quietly. ‘She was married to his son. How could they think she might marry him?’

‘They wouldn’t care about that!’ Anne exclaims. ‘Don’t you think that the pope would give them a dispensation? If the bride was bringing England back to Rome? They’re devils, they care for nothing but stealing the king back to their side.’

‘Indeed, I think they must be,’ I say quietly. ‘If this is true. And did they think what would happen to me when pretty Mary Howard was in the king’s bed?’

She shrugs. Her gesture says: what d’you think happens to unwanted queens in this England? ‘I suppose they thought that you might accept a divorce, or they might charge you with heresy and treason.’

‘I would die?’ I ask. Even now, even after being queen for nearly three and a half years, walking through danger for all that time, I find it impossible to realise that anyone who knows me, who sees me at dinner every day, who has kissed my hand and promised loyalty, could coolly plot my death, and conspire to have me killed.