The Taming of the Queen (4 page)

‘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.’

‘Then you know that I gave the Bible in English to my people and that I am the head of the church in England?’

‘Of course, Your Majesty. I took the oath myself. I called in every one of my household at Snape Castle and made them swear that you are the head of the church and the pope is just the Bishop of Rome, and has no command in England.’

‘There are some who would have the English Church turn to Lutheran ways, changing everything. And there are some who think quite the opposite and would turn everything back to how it was before, restoring the power of the pope. Which do you think?’

I am very sure that I don’t want to express an opinion either way. ‘I think I should be guided by Your Majesty.’

He laughs out loud and so everyone has to laugh with him. He chucks me under the chin. ‘You are very right,’ he says. ‘As a subject and as a sweetheart. I tell you, I am publishing my ruling on this, calling it
The King’s Book
so that people can know what to think. I will tell them. I am finding a middle way between Stephen Gardiner here – who would like all the rituals and the powers of the church to be restored once again – and my friend Thomas Cranmer – who is
not
here – who would like it pared back to the bone of the Bible. Cranmer would have no monasteries, no abbeys, no chantries, no priests even – just preachers and the Word of God.’

‘But why is your friend Thomas Cranmer not here?’ I ask nervously. It is one thing to promise to save a man, but quite another to set about doing it. I don’t know how I am supposed to prompt the king to mercy.

Henry’s little eyes twinkle. ‘I expect he is fearfully awaiting to hear if he is to be charged with heresy and treason.’ He chuckles. ‘I expect he is listening for the tramp of soldiers coming to take him to the Tower.’

‘But if he is your friend?’

‘Then his terror will be tempered by hope of mercy.’

‘But Your Majesty is so gracious – you will forgive him?’ I prompt.

Gardiner steps forward and lifts a gentle hand as if he would silence me.

‘It is for God to forgive,’ the king rules. ‘It is for me to impose justice.’

Henry does not give me a week to come to terms with my great joy. He speaks to me again only two days later, on Sunday evening, after chapel. I am surprised that he combines piety with business, but since his will is God’s will, the Sabbath can be holy and satisfactory, both at once. The court is processing from chapel to the great hall for dinner, the bright sunshine pouring in the great windows, when the king halts everyone and nods to summon me from the middle of the ladies to the head of them all. His velvet cap is pulled low over his thinning hair and the bobbing pearls encrusting the brim wink at me. He smiles as if he is joyful but his eyes are as blank as his jewels.

He takes my hand in greeting and folds it under the great heft of his arm. ‘Do you have an answer ready for me, Lady Latimer?’

‘I have,’ I say. Now that there is no escape for me I find that my voice is clear and my hand, crushed between the bulge of his great belly and the thick padding of his sleeve, is steady. I’m not a girl, afraid of the unknown, I am a woman; I can face fear, I can walk towards it. ‘I have prayed for guidance, and I have my answer.’ I glance around. ‘Shall I speak it here and now?’

He nods; he has no sense of privacy. This is a man who is attended every moment of the day. Even when he strains in constipated agony on the close-stool there are men standing beside him ready to hand him linen to wipe, water to wash, a hand to grip when the pain is too great for him. He sleeps with a page at the foot of his bed; he urinates beside his favourites, when he vomits from over-eating someone holds the bowl. Of course he has no hesitation in speaking of his marriage while everyone tries to hear – there is no risk of humiliation for him: he knows that he cannot be refused.

‘I know I am blessed above all other women.’ I curtsey very low. ‘I shall be deeply honoured to be your wife.’

He takes my hand and brings it to his lips. He never had any doubts, but he is pleased to hear me describe myself as blessed. ‘You shall sit beside me at dinner,’ he promises. ‘And the herald shall announce it.’

He walks with my hand squeezed under his arm, and so we lead everyone through the double doors to the great hall. Lady Mary walks on the other side of him. I cannot see her beyond the spread of his great chest and she does not try to peep round at me. I imagine her face frozen and expressionless, and know that I must look the same. We must look like two pale sisters marched in to dinner by an enormous father.

I see the high table with the throne and a chair on either side, the head of the servery must have ordered the chairs to be set in place. Even he knew that the king would demand my answer as we walked in to dinner, and that I would have to say ‘yes’.

The three of us mount the dais and take our places. The great canopy of state covers the king’s throne but stops short of my chair. Only when I am queen will I dine under cloth of gold. I look down the hall at the hundreds of people staring up at me. They nudge and point as they realise that I am to be their new queen, the trumpets scream and the herald steps forward.

I see Edward Seymour’s carefully composed expression as he notes the arrival of a new wife who will bring her own advisors, a new royal family, new royal friends, new royal servants. He will be measuring the threat that I pose to his position as the king’s brother-in-law, brother to the queen who tragically died in childbirth. I don’t see his brother, Thomas, and I don’t look to see if he is here, watching me. I gaze blindly down the long hall and hope that he is dining somewhere else tonight. I don’t look for him. I must never look for him again as long as I live.

I pray for guidance, for God’s will, not my own, for the bending of my own obstinate desires to His purpose and not mine. I don’t know where God is to be found – in the old church of rituals and saints’ images, miracles and pilgrimages, or in the new ways of prayers in English and Bible readings – but I have to find Him. I have to find Him to crush my passion, to rein in my own ambitions. If I am to stand before His altar and swear myself to yet another loveless marriage He has to bear me up. I cannot – I know I cannot – marry the king without the help of God. I cannot give up Thomas unless I believe it is for a great cause. I cannot give up my first love, my only love, my tender yearning passionate love for him – this unique, irresistible man – unless I have God’s love overwhelming me in its place.

I pray like a novice, ardently. I pray kneeling beside Archbishop Cranmer, who has returned to court without a word said against him, almost as if a charge of heresy was a step in a dance, forwards and backwards and turn around. It is incomprehensible to me but it seems that the king tricked his own council into charging the archbishop, and then turned on them and commanded the archbishop to inquire into those who brought the charges. So Stephen Gardiner’s affinity are now the ones filled with fear and Thomas Cranmer returns confidently to court, secure in the king’s favour, and kneels beside me, his old lined face turned upwards as I silently pray, trying to hammer my desire for Thomas into a love of God. But even now – fool that I am – even in the most fervent prayer, when I think of the crucifixion, it is Thomas’s dark face that I see: eyes closed, exalted in his climax. Then I have to squeeze my eyes shut and pray some more.

I pray kneeling beside Lady Mary, who says not one word about my elevation other than a quiet commendation to me and formal congratulations to her father. There have been too many stepmothers between the martyrdom of her mother and my arrival for her to resent me aspiring to Katherine of Aragon’s place, too many for her to greet me with any hope. The last stepmother lasted less than two years, the one before that, six months. I could swear that Lady Mary kneels beside me in silent prayer and secretly thinks that I will need God’s help to rise to her mother’s position, and God’s help to stay there. The way she bows her head and crosses herself at the end of her prayers and glances at me with brief pity tells me that she does not think God’s help will be enough. She looks at me as if I were a woman walking into darkness with only the light of one small candle against the damp shadows – and then she gives a little shrug and turns away.