The Taming of the Queen

Bishop George Day comes to find me in my rooms, a roll of manuscript in his hand. ‘My clerk has completed the copying,’ he says with triumph in his voice. ‘It’s done. It’s fair.’

He gives me the pages. For a moment I simply hold them, as if they were my newborn baby and I wanted to feel his weight. I have never borne a child but I imagine I feel something of a mother’s pride. This is a new joy for me. This is the joy of scholarship. For long moments I don’t unfurl the pages; I know well enough what they are, I have waited for them.

‘The psalms,’ I whisper. ‘Bishop Fisher’s psalms.’

‘Just as you translated them,’ he confirms. ‘The Latin psalms set into English. They read very beautifully. They read as if the first psalmist spoke the finest English. As they should. They are an honour to God and an honour to you. They are an honour to John Fisher, God bless him. I congratulate you.’

Slowly, I spread the pages out and start to read them. It is like reading a chorus through time: the old, old voice of the original psalmist in Hebrew translated to Greek, the sonorous wise voice of the martyred bishop rendering the Greek into Latin, and then it is my voice which sounds through the English lines. I read one psalm:

Thou art our Defender, our refuge, and our God and in Thee we trust. Thou shalt deliver me from the snares of the hunters, and from the perils of my persecutors. Thou shalt make a shadow for me under Thy shoulders; and under Thy wings I shall be harmless. Thy truth shall be my shield and buckler; and no evil shall approach near unto me.

‘Should it be harmless?’ I ask myself.

George Day knows better than to answer. He waits.

‘Without harm is clumsy,’ I say. ‘Safe is too strong. But harmless has the merit of meaning without harm and without being able to do harm. It feels a little odd perhaps, but the oddness draws attention to the word.’ I hesitate.

‘My clerk can copy any changes you want into fair script for the printer,’ he offers.

‘Under Thy wings I shall be harmless,’ I whisper to myself. ‘It’s like poetry. It carries a sense that is greater than the words, greater than the simple meaning of the words. I think it’s right. I don’t think I should change it. And I love how it sounds – under Thy wings – you can almost feel the feathers of the great wings, can’t you?’

George smiles. He can’t. But it doesn’t matter.

‘I don’t want to change it,’ I say. ‘Not this, not anything.’

I glance up at George Day, nodding his head at the steady rhythm of the words. ‘Clear as plainsong,’ he says. ‘Clear as a bell. It is open and honest.’

Clarity means more to him than poetry, and so it should. He wants English men and women to understand the psalms that Bishop Fisher loved. I want to do something more. I want to make these verses sing as they once did in the Holy Land. I want boys in Yorkshire, girls in Cumberland to hear the music of Jerusalem.

‘I shall publish these.’ I shudder at my own daring. No other woman has ever published in English under her own name. I can hardly believe that I can find the courage: to stand up, to speak aloud, to publish to the world. ‘I really will. George – you do think that I should? You don’t advise against it?’

‘I took the liberty of showing them to Nicholas Ridley,’ he remarks, naming the great reformer and friend of Thomas Cranmer. ‘He was deeply moved. He said that this is as great a gift to the faithful Christians of England as the Bible that your husband the king gave them. He said that these will be spoken and sung in every church in England where the priest wants the people to understand the beauty of God as well as His wisdom. He said that if you will lead the court and the country to a true understanding you will be a new saint.’

‘But not a martyr!’ I say, cracking a weak joke. ‘So it can’t be known that I am the translator. My name, and the names of my ladies, especially Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth, cannot be attached to it. The king’s daughters must never be mentioned. I will make many enemies at court if people know that I believe that psalms should be read in English.’