The Taming of the Queen

‘Very good. So go to dinner and come back to me when you are in a quieter frame of mind. Come back when you have dined.’

I curtsey and go to the doorway. Anthony Denny, now Sir Anthony Denny since his knighthood at Boulogne, steps out with me.

‘Are many men lost?’ I ask him quietly.

‘They set out and got scattered, and then they had to run before a storm, but more than that we don’t know,’ he says. ‘It’s in God’s hands.’

‘The admiral’s ship?’

‘We don’t know. Pray God that we get news soon and that the king is not further distressed.’

Of course, that is the most important thing to Sir Anthony. The lives of the sailors, the bright courage of Thomas, matter little – to him, to all of us – compared to the king’s temper. I bow my head. ‘Amen.’

I pray for him; it is all I can do. I pray for his safety and I listen to the king complain of his failure, of his stupidity, of his recklessness, while I pray that he is alive, that he has survived the storm, that somewhere out on the Narrow Seas he is scanning the horizon for a break in the dark clouds and watching the reefed-in sails for the slackening of the gale.

Then we get news from Portsmouth that the fleet has limped into port, one at a time, sails ripped and masts torn down, and that some vessels are still missing. The admiral’s ship comes in with its mainmast broken but Thomas is standing, wrapped in his sea cape, in the stern. Thomas has returned, Thomas is safe. There is joy at court that he is alive – his brother, Edward, runs to the chapel to fall on his knees to thank God for sparing his most brilliant kinsman – but the king does not share it, and nobody dares to voice it before him. On the contrary, he repeats his complaints that Thomas is a fool, a fearless fool, and that he has destroyed the king’s trust and been false to his appointment. The king mutters that it is probably treason, that it is a matter for a trial, a man so reckless with the king’s fortune and forces is as bad as a traitor, worse than a traitor. That since God did not drown him it falls to the king to behead him.

I pray in silence. There can be no thanksgiving Mass from me for the survival of the admiral. I don’t say one word in his defence. Only once do I think, madly, of asking his sister-in-law Anne to write in her own name, never mentioning me, and warn him to come to court at once, before the king argues himself into a greater rage, and arrests Thomas for the crime of bad weather. But I dare not. She may share my interest in the new religion, she may be sworn to my service, but she is no great friend of mine; her devotion to the Seymour family comes before everything else. She has never been a friend to Thomas for his own sake. Foolishly, her passionate devotion to her husband makes her jealous of everyone else in his life. She eyes Thomas with suspicion for his charm and his ease at court. She is afraid that people prefer him to her husband – and she is right. Her only praise for any single member of her husband’s family is reserved for his dead sister Jane, Queen Jane, the mother of Prince Edward, and she mentions her before the king whenever she can: ‘my sister Jane’, ‘sainted Jane’, conveniently dead Jane.

So I dare say and do nothing, not even when the king limps painfully into my rooms to sit with me to watch my ladies dancing, or to listen to me read. Not even when he comes in with a chart of the south coast and the endangered ports under his arm as I am pouring water into a shallow dish for my favourite pair of canaries to take a bath, warmed by the sunshine that streams in the window.

‘Take care! Will they fly away?’

‘They come to my hand.’

‘Won’t they drown themselves?’ he asks irritably.

They duck their bright heads in the water and flutter their wings, I step back laughing as they splash. ‘No, they like to take a bath.’

‘They’re not ducks,’ he observes.

‘No, lord husband. But they seem to enjoy water.’

He watches for a moment. ‘I suppose they are pretty things.’

‘I love them dearly, they are so bright and quick, you would almost think that they understand.’

‘Just like courtiers,’ he says grimly.

I laugh. ‘Do you have a map there, my lord?’

He gestures with it. ‘I am on my way to meet with the Privy Council,’ he says. ‘We have to repair every castle at every Southern port. We will have to build new ones. The French are coming, and Thomas Seymour has failed to stop them.’

He snaps his fingers for his page who is waiting in the doorway. The youth comes forward and takes the king’s weight on his shoulder. ‘I will leave you to your amusements. You did not have sunny mornings and little birds when you were married to old Latimer.’

‘Indeed, I did not.’ I am thinking desperately how to ask him about Thomas. ‘Are we in danger, lord husband?’

‘Of course we are, and it’s all his fault. I shall command the Privy Council to try Tom Seymour for treason for the reckless loss of my fleet.’