The Taming of the Queen

She smiles at me. ‘No, I am a simple woman,’ she corrects me. ‘When I understand something true, it goes to my heart. I have understood this: that we have to read and know the Word of God. This, and nothing else, will bring us to heaven. All the rest of it: the threat of purgatory, the promise of forgiveness in return for payment, the statues that bleed and the pictures that leak milk, all these things are the invention of a church that has gone far from the Word of God. It is for me, and for those who care about truth, to cling to the Word of God and turn our face from the masquing. The church does not put on mystery plays once a year any more, it plays them every day all the year. It is all costume and show and pretence. But the Bible is the truth and there is nothing but the Bible.’

I nod. She speaks simply, but she is absolutely right.

‘So I came in the end to London, and spoke before the great men of this city. My brother helped me, and my sister is Mrs Jane St Paul, whose husband serves the duchess.’ She curtseys to Catherine Brandon, who nods her head in reply. ‘I found a safe house with honest kinsmen who think as I do, and I listened to preachers and spoke with many learned men, far more learned than me. And a good man, a preacher that you know, I think, Your Majesty, John Lascelles, took me to meet other good men and speak with them.’

An almost imperceptible breath from Nan tells me that she knows the name. I glance at her.

‘He bore witness against Queen Katherine,’ she says.

‘I have met a few people of your court,’ Anne goes on, looking around and smiling. ‘Lady Denny and Lady Hertford. And others listen to gospellers and believe in the reform of the church.’ She takes a breath. ‘And then I went to the church for a divorce,’ she says.

Nan gives a little scream of shock. ‘How? How could you?’

‘I went to the church and I said that since my husband was a believer in the old ways and I am for the new, we never made vows that meant the same thing. We did not join hands in the same church, the true God can have nothing to do with the vows that they made me swear, in a language that I didn’t understand, and so our marriage should be dissolved.’

‘Mistress Anne, a woman can’t get her marriage dissolved at will,’ Catherine protests.

Nan and I exchange glances. Our own brother’s wife ran away from him and he was awarded a divorce as a gift from the king. The king is head of the church, marriage and divorce are in his gift, they are not for a woman to take.

‘Why should not a woman leave a marriage? If she can make it, surely she can unmake it,’ Anne Askew replies. ‘What was sworn can be unsworn. The king himself—’

‘We don’t speak of the king,’ Nan says swiftly.

‘The law does not recognise a woman except when she is alone in the world,’ Anne Askew says authoritatively. ‘Only a woman without father or husband has any legal rights in this world. That, in itself, is unjust. But think of this: I am a woman alone, a feme sole. My father is dead and I deny my husband. The law must deal with me as an adult equal person as I am before God. I will go to heaven because I have read and accepted the Word of God. I demand justice because I have read and accepted the word of the law.’

Nan exchanges a quick worried look with me. ‘I don’t know the rights and the wrongs of this,’ she says. ‘But I know it is not a fit discourse for a queen’s household.’ She glances at Princess Elizabeth, who is listening carefully. ‘Not for young ears.’

I shake my head. I am married to a man who declares his own annulments. He is divorced when he says it is so. Anne Askew suggests that a woman might claim as much power as the king.

‘You had better speak of your faith,’ I command her. ‘I have translated Psalm 145: All things be under Thy dominion and rule. Speak of that to us.’

She bows her head as if to gather her thoughts for a moment, and then she speaks simply and eloquently, and in her voice I hear the ring of complete conviction, and in her face I see the shine of innocence.

She stays all the morning and I send her home with a purse of coins and an invitation to come again. I am fascinated by her, inspired by this woman who says that she can choose where she lives, choose or reject a husband, this woman who knows that God forgives her sins, because she confesses them to Him – not to a priest – she speaks to Him directly. I think this is the first woman I have ever met who strikes me as being one who makes her own life, who walks her own path, who is responsible for herself. This is a woman who has not been tamed to be as others want; she has not been cut down to fit her circumstances.