The Taming of the Queen Read online

  She cannot be betrothed to any foreign prince while nobody knows if she is a princess or a bastard. She cannot even be properly served while no-one knows if she is to be called Princess or Lady Elizabeth. Nobody but her governess and Lady Mary have loved this little girl and her only refuge from her fear and loneliness is in books.

  My heart goes out to her. I too was once a girl too poor to attract a good marriage, a girl who turned to books for company and comfort. As soon as she comes to court I see that she is given a bedroom near to mine. I hold her hand as we go together to the chapel every morning, and we spend the day together. She responds with relief, as if she has been waiting all her life for a mother, and finally I have arrived. She reads with me, and when the preachers come from London she listens to them and even joins in the discussion of their sermons. She loves music, as we all do, she loves fine clothes and dancing. I am able to teach her and, after a few days, joke with her, pet her, reprimand her, and pray with her. In a very little while, I kiss her forehead in the morning and give her a mother’s blessing at night almost without thinking.

  Lady Mary takes to this Christmas family as a young woman who has tiptoed through the world since the exile of her mother. It is as if she has been holding her breath in fear and she can breathe out at last. At last she knows where she should be: and she lives in a court where she has an honoured place. I would not dream of trying to mother her – it would be ridiculous: we are nearly the same age – but we can be like sisters together, making a home for the two younger ones, diverting and comforting the king, and keeping the country in alliance with Spain: Mary’s kinsmen. I support the religious reforms that her father has judged are right; naturally she would want the church to return to the rule of Rome; but I think that the more she hears of the philosophers who want to restore the church to its earliest purity, the more she will question the history of the papacy that has brought the church into corruption and disrepute. I believe that the Word of God must mean more to her than the empty symbols that decorated the churches and monasteries, the pointless ritual that was used to dazzle people who cannot read and think for themselves. When she thinks of this, as I am thinking about it, she will surely turn to reform as I am doing.

  Though we may differ over points of doctrine she comes every day to my rooms and listens to the readings. This Christmas season I have chosen the favourite psalms of the late Bishop Fisher. It is an interesting example of the delicate path I tread: inside inquiry, outside challenge. The bishop, a sainted man, a wonderful writer, died for the Church of Rome in defiance of the king. He was confessor to Katherine of Aragon, Mary’s mother, so it is natural and daughterly that she should think well of him. Many who secretly thought as he did are now the king’s favoured advisors, so it is allowed to read the bishop’s writings once again.

  My almoner, Bishop George Day, served as Fisher’s chaplain and loved his master. He reads from his collection of Latin psalms every day, and no-one can deny that these words of God have been beautifully rendered by the old bishop from the original Greek. It’s like a precious inheritance: from Greek to Latin and now, the ladies of my rooms, my churchmen, the Lady Mary and even little Elizabeth and I work on an English translation. The language is so fine that it seems wrong to me that only those who can understand Latin should be able to read what this holy man composed. Mary agrees with me, and her care for the work and the beauty of her vocabulary make every morning a time of great interest – not just to me but to all my ladies.

  My stepson Edward is my sweetheart, the darling of the court. He speaks with ridiculous formality, he is stiff with etiquette, and yet he longs to be loved and petted, teased and tickled like a normal boy. Slowly, gradually, through sports, games and silly jokes, with shared study and shared amusement, he comes to be easy with me, and I treat him as I treated my two Latimer stepchildren when they were under my care – with affection and respect, never trying to replace the mother that they had lost, but loving them as she might have done. To this day, Margaret Latimer still calls me ‘Lady Mother’, and I write often to my stepson Latimer. I am confident that here too I can give these royal children a mother’s love. My best judgement, I think, is to treat Edward with familiarity – as if we are a loving, carefree family, as if he might trust me, and I might be easy with him.

  Having struggled for my own place in the world – first in the house of a bad-tempered father-in-law, and then as a young wife to a cold and distant husband, before coming into a court as an insignificant widow – I have learned that the most precious thing is a place where you can be as you are, where someone can see you as your true self. Edward comes to my presence chamber where I am hearing petitions, and is greeted both as a prince and a little boy. I pull him up to my great throne to sit beside me, to listen and to talk quietly to me, to be the child that he is, and not a little manikin that everyone secretly eyes, wondering what he can do for their prospects.

  ‘Kate, you are everything that I hoped you would be,’ the king says, coming to my rooms late one night. I had thought that he was sleeping in his own bed and my maid-in-waiting, who had been settled for the night on the truckle bed, scuttles quickly away, bobbing a curtsey and closing the door behind her.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, a little startled.

  ‘I shall trust you further,’ he tells me, easing his great bulk into my bed. ‘No, I can manage,’ he says, raising his hand and heaving himself up into a half-sitting position. ‘You shall have the care of the kingdom while I am away. Tom Seymour has done his job: we have an alliance with the Netherlands, we have a treaty with Spain, we are ready to go to war with France.’

  His name, suddenly dropped into the conversation as I sit in my bed, naked but for my thin linen nightgown, gives me a shock that is almost physical, as if someone has violently shaken me, shouting his name aloud in the quiet room. I realise that the king is watching me closely.

  ‘You are alarmed?’ he asks. ‘What’s the matter? You’ve gone white!’

  ‘At the thought of war,’ I say unsteadily. ‘Only at the thought of danger.’

  ‘I will go myself,’ he announces. ‘I. Myself. Into the very heart of danger. I shall not send my armies without me. I shall lead them.’

  I close my eyes briefly. Thomas will almost certainly be coming home. If he has agreed the treaty he will have to come to court to receive his orders. He will meet with his brother and together they will muster their tenants and soldiers. It is certain that I will see him. It is impossible for him to stay away or for me to avoid him. He will have to bow before me and congratulate me on my happiness. I will have to nod and look indifferent.

  I shudder at the thought of it. Everything that I have achieved – with the children, with the court, with the king – has been in the certainty that I will never feel Thomas’s dark eyes on me, that I will never glance up and see him looking at me. I don’t know that I can even sleep if he is under the same roof. I can’t imagine lying quietly in my bed if he is somewhere in the palace, naked but for a sheet, waiting for my soft tap on his door. I won’t know how to dance if he is watching. What if we are in the same set and there is a moment when we go hand to hand? How shall I feel his touch and not turn to him? And when he puts his warm hand on my waist? How shall I land on my feet if he lifts me in the haute danse and I feel his breath on my cheek? When he helps me down from my horse I will have to put my hands on his shoulders; when he puts me on the ground will he take the chance to hold me close?

  I have no idea how I can hide my utter need for him. I cannot imagine how it should be done. I am on show all the time; everyone watches me. I cannot trust myself; I cannot trust my hand not to shake when I hold it out for the polite brush of his warm lips. This is a court schooled in the bad habit of watching Henry’s queens. I succeed Katherine Howard: a byword for immorality. Everyone will always be watching me to see if I am a fool like her.

  ‘I shall lead them myself,’ Henry repeats.

  ‘Oh, no,’ I say weakly. ‘My lord . . .