The Taming of the Queen Read online

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  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Philippa Gregory, 2015

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  for

  Maurice Hutt 1928–2013

  Geoffrey Carnall 1927–2015

  Contents

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, SPRING 1543

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, SUMMER 1543

  OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY, SUMMER 1543

  MANOR OF THE MORE, HERTFORDSHIRE, SUMMER 1543

  AMPTHILL CASTLE, BEDFORDSHIRE, AUTUMN 1543

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, CHRISTMAS 1543

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1544

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  SAINT JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, SUMMER 1544

  LEEDS CASTLE, KENT, AUTUMN 1544

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1544

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1545

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1545

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, EARLY SUMMER 1545

  NONSUCH PALACE, SURREY, SUMMER 1545

  SOUTHSEA CASTLE, PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR, SUMMER 1545

  COWDRAY HOUSE, MIDHURST, SUSSEX, SUMMER 1545

  GREENWICH PALACE, SUMMER 1545

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, AUTUMN 1545

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, WINTER 1545

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, CHRISTMAS 1545

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, WINTER 1546

  GREENWICH PALACE, SPRING 1546

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1546

  GREENWICH PALACE, SUMMER 1546

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1546

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, SUMMER 1546

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, SUMMER 1546

  WINDSOR CASTLE, AUTUMN 1546

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, WINTER 1546

  OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY, WINTER 1546

  GREENWICH PALACE, WINTER 1546

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, WINTER 1547

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE, SPRING 1543

  He stands before me, as broad as an ancient oak, his face like a full moon caught high in the topmost branches, the rolls of creased flesh upturned with goodwill. He leans, and it is as if the tree might topple on me. I stand my ground but I think – surely he’s not going to kneel, as another man knelt at my feet, just yesterday, and covered my hands with kisses? But if this mountain of a man ever got down, he would have to be hauled up with ropes, like an ox stuck in a ditch; and besides, he kneels to no-one.

  I think, he can’t kiss me on the mouth, not here in the long room with musicians at one end and everyone passing by. Surely that can’t happen in this mannered court, surely this big moon face will not come down on mine. I stare up at the man that my mother and all her friends once adored as the handsomest in England, the king that every girl dreamed of, and I whisper a prayer that he did not say the words he just said. Absurdly, I pray that I misheard him.

  In confident silence, he waits for my assent.

  I realise: this is how it will be from now until death us do part, he will wait for my assent or continue without it. I will have to marry this man who looms larger and stands higher than anyone else. He is above mortals, a heavenly body just below angels: the King of England.

  ‘I am so surprised by the honour,’ I stammer.

  The pursed pout of his little mouth widens into a smile. I can see the yellowing teeth and smell his old-dog breath.

  ‘I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘I will show you how to deserve it,’ he assures me.

  A coy smile on his wet lips reminds me, horribly, that he is a sensualist trapped in a rotting body and that I will be his wife in every sense of the word; he will bed me while I am aching for another man.

  ‘May I pray and think on this great proposal?’ I ask, stumbling for courtly words. ‘I’m taken aback, I really am. And so recently widowed . . .’

  His sprouting sandy eyebrows twitch together; this displeases him. ‘You want time? Weren’t you hoping for this?’

  ‘Every woman hopes for it,’ I assure him swiftly. ‘There is not one lady at court who does not hope for it, not one in the country who does not dream of it. I among all the others. But I am unworthy!’

  This is better, he is soothed.

  ‘I can’t believe that my dreams have come true,’ I embellish. ‘I need time to realise my good fortune. It’s like a fairy story!’

  He nods. He loves fairy stories, disguising and play-acting, and any sort of fanciful pretence.

  ‘I have rescued you,’ he declares. ‘I will raise you from nothing to the greatest place in the world.’ His voice, rich and confident, lubricated for all his life with the finest of wines and the fattest of cuts, is indulgent; but the sharp little gaze is interrogating me.

  I force myself to meet his gimlet eyes, hooded under his fat eyelids. He doesn’t raise me from nothing, I don’t come from nowhere: I was born a Parr of Kendal, my late husband was a Neville, these are great families in the far N