The Taming of the Queen

‘I agree,’ he says. ‘The papists would be quick to criticise and you cannot risk Stephen Gardiner turning against you. So these will be known only as the bishop’s psalms. Nobody need know that it is your study and scholarship that has brought them into English. I have a very discreet printer. He knows that the manuscript comes from me, and that I serve you at court, but I have not told him the name of the author. He thinks highly of me – I must say, he thinks far too highly of me – for he imagines that I could have done this translation. I have denied it, but not so strongly that he is searching for another candidate. I think we can publish and you not own it. Except . . .’

‘Except what?’

‘I think it’s a pity,’ he says frankly. ‘These are fine translations with the ear of a musician, the heart of a true believer and the language of a serious writer. Anyone – I mean any man – would be proud to publish them under his own name. He would boast of them. It seems unfair that you have to deny that you have such a gift. The king’s grandmother collected translations and published them.’

I have a wry smile on my face. ‘Ah, George,’ I say. ‘You would lure me with vanity, but neither the king nor any man in England wants to be taught by a woman, not even a queen. And the king’s grandmother was above criticism. I will publish these as you suggest, and I shall get great happiness from knowing that the bishop’s psalms translated by me and my ladies into English may guide men and women to the king’s church. But it must be for the glory of the bishop and the glory of the king. I think it better for all of us if they come without my name emblazoned on the cover, like a boast. We are all safer if we don’t advertise our beliefs.’

‘The king loves you. Surely he would be proud . . .’ George starts to argue when there is a tap on the door. At once he shuffles the pages out of the way as Catherine Brandon comes in, drops me a curtsey, smiles at George and says: ‘The king is asking for you, Your Majesty.’

I get to my feet. ‘He is coming here?’

She shakes her head but does not answer. George at once understands that she does not want to explain before him. He gathers up the papers. ‘I shall take these, as we agreed,’ he says, and I nod as he leaves.

‘His leg has gone bad,’ Catherine says quietly, as soon as the door is closed behind my almoner. ‘My lord husband warned me, and then sent a messenger to say that the king would see you this morning in his private rooms.’

‘Am I to go to him without being seen?’ I ask. There are interconnecting rooms between the king’s and the queen’s sides at Whitehall. I can either process through the great hall with everyone observing that I am visiting my husband, or I can go through to his wing by our shared gallery with only a lady in attendance.

‘Discreetly,’ she nods. ‘He doesn’t want anyone to know that he has taken to his bed.’

She leads the way. Catherine has been in and out of the royal palaces since childhood. She was the daughter of Katherine of Aragon’s most favoured lady-in-waiting, María de Salinas, and is the wife of Henry’s great friend Charles Brandon. She was brought up as an expert way-finder around palaces, avoiding wrong turnings and malicious courtiers alike. It is not the first time that I feel like a provincial nobody trailing behind one of the exclusive few, born and bred to this court.

‘Are his physicians with him?’

‘Doctor Butts and Doctor Owen, and his apothecary is making up a draught to ease the pain. But it is very bad this time. I don’t think I have seen him worse.’

‘Did he knock it? Has it broken open?’

She shakes her head. ‘It’s just the same as it always is,’ she says. ‘He has to keep the wound open or the poison will mount to his head and kill him, but often when they pull the wound apart with wires, or grind gold chips into it, it seems worse than before. Now it was healing up and so they have torn it open and the poison is oozing out as it should, but this time it has gone very red inside. It’s swollen up very hot and puffy, and the ulcer seems to be deepening into his leg. Charles told me it is eating its way to the bone. It’s causing him terrible pain, and nothing eases it.’

I can’t help but be apprehensive. The king in pain is as dangerous as a wounded boar. His temper is as inflamed as his pulsing wound.

She gives me a gentle touch on my back as she steps aside for me to go first through the adjoining double doors. ‘Go on,’ she says very quietly. ‘You can manage him when no-one else can.’

Henry is in his privy chamber. He looks up as the private door opens and I come into the room. ‘Ah, thank God, and here is the queen,’ he says. ‘The rest of you can hold your tongues and step back and let me speak privately with her.’