The Taming of the Queen

He sends me away at midnight – he wants to be alone – but instead of going to my bed I go to the beautiful chapel, kneel before the altar and whisper to myself: ‘Thomas, Thomas, God bless you, God keep you, my love, my only love. God keep you from the sea, God keep you from the plague, God keep you from sin and sorrow and send you safe home. I don’t even pray that you come home to me. I love you so dearly that I would have you safe, anywhere.’

The king’s leg swells up again and the wound opens up further. He cannot bear to put weight on it at all and instead has wheels put under his strengthened chair and has himself wheeled around the palace. Unusually, his spirits stay high and he continues to be the dog-master, as he boasted to me. He is going to send Stephen Gardiner to meet the emperor at Bruges to negotiate a treaty with the French that will bring an end to war between the three great kings of Europe; but at the same time, and in complete contradiction, he invites delegates from the German Lutheran princes to mediate between England and France for a secret peace to betray the Spanish emperor. At this rate, we will end up with two peace treaties, one brokered by papists and one brokered by Lutherans, and unable to sign either.

‘No, this is a great chance for our faith,’ Catherine Brandon disagrees, as we sit down behind my long table, assemble our pens and papers and prepare to listen to the sermon of the day. ‘If the Lutheran lords from Saxony can bring peace to Christendom then the reformed faith will be seen as the moral leader, as a light to the world. And they will work for the king, as they want him to save them from the emperor. That papist monster is calling for a crusade against them, his own people, for nothing more than their religion – God save and keep them.’

‘But Bishop Gardiner will beat the Lutheran lords to it,’ I predict. ‘He’ll bring home a peace with France before they can.’

‘Not him!’ she says disdainfully. ‘He’s a spent force. The king doesn’t listen to him any more. He sending him on a fool’s errand to Bruges. He wants Gardiner out of the way so that he can talk freely to the Germans. He told me so himself.’

‘Oh, did he?’ I say levelly, and Nan, coming in, notes the edge in my voice and glances across at me.

‘Don’t think that I have said anything to betray us,’ Catherine says quickly. ‘I would never reveal what we study and what we read. But I swear that the king knows, and that he sympathises. He speaks of your learning with such praise, Your Majesty.’

‘It was the king who gave the English their Bible,’ I agree. ‘That’s what the Lutherans want.’

‘And it was Stephen Gardiner who took it away again. And now the king is meeting with Lutherans and Stephen Gardiner is far away. He can stay away from court for ever, for all I care. While he is gone, and while the king supports Henry Howard’s captaincy of Boulogne against his father the duke, our greatest enemies are ignored and we grow stronger every day.’

‘Well, God be praised,’ Nan says. ‘Just think if this country were to come to a true faith based on the Bible, not a hodge-podge of superstition based on spells and images and chants.’

‘Indulgences,’ Catherine says. She almost shudders with disdain. ‘That’s what I hate most. D’you know that the day after my lord died some damned priest came to me and said that for fifty nobles he could guarantee Charles’ ascent to heaven and would show me a sign that it was so?’

‘What sign?’ I ask curiously.

Catherine shrugs: ‘Who knows? I didn’t even ask. I am sure he could have given me anything that I would wish: a bleeding statue saved from some wrecked abbey? A portrait of the Madonna that spurts milk? It is such an insult to suggest that a man’s soul should be saved by half a dozen vile old men bawling out a psalm. How can anyone ever have believed it? How can anyone suggest it now that they can read the Bible and know that we get to heaven through faith alone?’

There is a tap on the door, the guards swing it open, and in walks Anne Askew, as trim and as pretty as if she had just come from the seamstress. She steps in, a gleeful little smile on her face, and dips a deep curtsey to me.

‘God bless us!’ Nan exclaims and, forgetting herself completely, crosses herself as if she were seeing a ghost.

‘You’re a welcome stranger!’ I say. ‘It’s a long time since we saw you! I was glad to know you were safe, that Bishop Bonner had released you, but we heard he sent you home. I didn’t think to see you again at court.’

‘Oh, yes, I was sent home to my husband,’ she says, quite matter-of-fact. ‘And I thank Your Majesty for letting it be known that I am under your protection. You saved me from more questioning, and a trial, I know. They did send me home to my husband, I was paroled into his keeping, but I have left him again and here I am.’

I smile at the boldness of the young woman. ‘Mistress Anne, you make it sound easy.’