The Taming of the Queen

‘You’ll never guess what task I am going to give him,’ he says, slyly smiling at me as he lies back on his great heap of pillows and I sit beside his enormous bed, his fat damp hand in mine. ‘You’ll never guess!’

‘I am sure I never will,’ I say. I like Thomas Cranmer, a constant believer in the reform of the church, whose sermon was published at the front of the Great Bible in English, and who has always urged that the king should rule the English Church and that the sermons, psalms and prayers should be in English. The quiet courage that he showed when he faced the plot against him has confirmed my liking for him, and he often comes to my rooms as an honoured friend, to see what I am writing and to join our discussion.

‘This is the way to play them,’ Henry confides in me. ‘This is the way to rule a kingdom, Kateryn. Watch and learn. First you appoint one man, then you appoint another, his rival. You give one a task – you praise him to the skies, then you give an opposite task, a complete contradiction, to his greatest enemy. While they fight one against the other, they can’t conspire to plot against you. When they are divided to death they are yours to command. D’you see?’

What I see is a zigzag confusion of policy so that no-one knows what the king believes or truly wants, a muddle in which the loudest voice or the most pleasing person can triumph. ‘I am sure Your Majesty is wise,’ I say carefully. ‘And cunning. But Thomas Cranmer would serve you in anything; surely you don’t have to trap him into obedience?’

‘He is my balance,’the king says. ‘I balance him against Gardiner.’

‘Then he will have to drag us to Germany,’ Will Somers suddenly intervenes. I had not realised he was listening. He has been sitting so quietly on the floor, his back against the great pillars of the bed, throwing a little golden ball from one hand to the other.

‘Why so?’ Henry asks, always tolerant of his Fool. ‘Jump up, Will. I can’t see you down there.’

The Fool springs up, tosses the golden ball high in the air and catches it, half singing:

Thomas must pull us all the way

Over the mountains to Germany,

For Stephen is dragging us up and down

Over the Alps to Rome.

Henry laughs. ‘I have my counterpoise to Gardiner,’ he tells me. ‘I am going to get Cranmer to write an exhortation and litany in English.’

I am stunned. ‘An English prayer book? In English?’

‘Yes, so that when people come to church they can hear the prayers in their own language and understand them. How are they to make a true confession in a language they don’t understand? How are they to truly pray if the words mean nothing to them? They stand at the back and say “yammer yammer yammer – amen”.’

This is exactly what I thought when I translated Bishop Fisher’s psalms from Latin to English. ‘What a gift to the people of England it would be!’ I am almost stammering in excitement. ‘A prayer book in their own tongue! What a saving of souls! I should be so pleased if I were to be allowed to work on it, too!’

‘And I say good morning to the queen,’ Will Somers says suddenly. ‘Good morning to the morning queen.’

‘Good morning to you, Will,’ I reply. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘It is a morning joke. And the king’s idea is the plan for this morning. After dinner you will find it quite different. This morning we send for Cranmer, tonight – heigh ho – it will be my lord Gardiner who is the fount of all knowledge, and you will be the morning queen and quite out of your time.’

‘Hush, Fool,’ Henry says. ‘What do you think, Kateryn?’

Despite Will’s warning, I cannot resist speaking. ‘I think it is an opportunity to write something both true and beautiful,’ I say enthusiastically. ‘And something that is beautifully written must lead people to God.’

‘But it cannot be ornamental,’ Henry insists. ‘It cannot be a false god. It has to be a true translation from the Latin, not a poem grafted on it.’

‘It must be the Word,’ I say. ‘The Lord spoke in simple language to simple people. Our church must do the same. But I think there is great beauty in simple language.’

‘Why don’t you write some new prayers yourself?’ Henry asks suddenly. ‘Write in your own hand?’

For a moment I wonder if he knows of my book of translated psalms published without a name on the cover. I wonder if his spies have told him that I have already translated prayers and discussed them with the archbishop. I stammer. ‘No, no, I could not presume . . .’

But he is sincere in his interest. ‘I know that Cranmer thinks highly of you. Why not write some original prayers? And why don’t you translate some prayers from the Latin Mass and show your version to him? Bring one to me to read. And Princess Mary works with you, doesn’t she? And Elizabeth?’

‘With her tutor,’ I say cautiously. ‘As part of Elizabeth’s study, with her cousin Jane Grey.’