The Taming of the Queen

The king comes to Lady Mary’s rooms every day, leaning heavily on the arm of one of his friends, trying to hide that his bad leg is rotting away beneath him. Edward Seymour his brother-in-law supports him, talking pleasantly, charming as any Seymour. Often Thomas Howard, the old Duke of Norfolk, is holding up the other arm, his face locked in a wary courtier’s smile, and broad-faced, broad-shouldered Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, trails behind them, quick to step forward and intervene. They all laugh loudly at the king’s jokes and praise the insight of his statements; nobody ever contradicts him. I doubt anyone has argued with him since Anne Boleyn.

‘Gardiner again,’ Nan remarks, and Catherine Brandon leans towards her and whispers urgently. I see Nan go pale as Catherine nods her pretty head.

‘What’s the matter?’ I ask her. ‘Why shouldn’t Stephen Gardiner attend the king?’

‘The papists are hoping to entrap Thomas Cranmer, the finest, most Christian archbishop the court has ever had,’ Nan mutters in a rapid gabble. ‘Catherine’s husband has told her that they plan to accuse Cranmer of heresy today, this afternoon. They think they have enough on him to send him to the stake.’

I am so shocked I can hardly respond. ‘You can’t kill a bishop!’ I exclaim.

‘You can,’ Catherine says sharply. ‘This king did: Bishop Fisher.’

‘That was years ago! What has Thomas Cranmer done?’

‘He has offended against the king’s Six Articles of faith,’ Catherine Brandon explains rapidly. ‘The king has named six things that every Christian must believe, or face a charge of heresy.’

‘But how can he offend? He can’t be against the teaching of the church; he’s the archbishop: he is the church!’

The king is coming towards us.

‘Beg for the archbishop’s pardon!’ Nan says to me urgently. ‘Save him, Kat.’

‘How can I?’ I demand and then break off to smile as the king limps towards me, merely nodding to his daughter.

I catch Lady Mary’s quizzical glance; but if she thinks my behaviour is unsuitable for a thirty-year-old widow there is nothing she can say. Lady Mary is only three years younger than me but she learned caution in a cruelly painful childhood. She saw her friends, her tutor, even her lady governess, disappear from her service into the Tower of London and from there to the scaffold. They warned her that her father would have her beheaded for her stubborn faith. Sometimes when she is praying in silence her eyes fill with tears and I think she is sick with grief for those she lost and could not save. I imagine that she wakes every day to guilt, knowing that she denied her faith to save her life; and her friends did not.

Now she stands as the king lowers himself into his chair placed beside mine, and sits only when he waves his hand. She does not speak until he addresses her, but remains silent, her head obediently bowed. She is never going to complain that he flirts with her ladies-in-waiting. She will swallow her sorrow until it poisons her.

The king gestures that we may all sit down, leans towards me, and in an intimate whisper asks what I am reading. I show him the title page at once. It is a book of French stories, nothing that might be forbidden.

‘You read French?’

‘I speak it too. Not as fluently as Your Majesty, of course.’

‘Do you read other languages?’

‘A little Latin, and I plan to study, now that I have more time,’ I say. ‘Now that I live at a learned court.’

He smiles. ‘I have been a scholar all my life; I’m afraid you’ll never catch up, but you should learn enough to read to me.’

‘Your Majesty’s poetry in English is equal to anything in Latin,’ one of the courtiers says enthusiastically.

‘All poetry is better in Latin,’ Stephen Gardiner contradicts him. ‘English is the language of the market. Latin is the language of the Bible.’

Henry smiles and waves a fat hand, the great rings sparkling as he dismisses the argument. ‘I shall write a poem for you in Latin and you shall translate it,’ he promises me. ‘You can judge which is the best language for words of love. A woman’s mind can be her greatest ornament. You shall show me the beauty of your intelligence as well as the beauty of your face.’

His little eyes drift down from my face to the neck of my gown and rest on the curves of my breasts pressed against the tight stomacher. He licks his pursed lips. ‘Isn’t she the fairest lady at court?’ he asks the Duke of Norfolk.

The old man produces a thin smile, his dark eyes weighing me up as if I were sirloin. ‘She is indeed the fairest of many blooms,’ he says, glancing around for his daughter, Mary.

I see Nan looking urgently at me, and I remark: ‘You seem a little weary. Is there anything that troubles Your Majesty?’

He shakes his head as the Duke of Norfolk leans in to listen. ‘Nothing that need trouble you.’ He takes my hand and draws me a little closer. ‘You’re a good Christian, aren’t you, my dear?’

‘Of course,’ I say.

‘Read your Bible, pray to the saints and so on?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty, every day.’