The Taming of the Queen Read online

  I report on his good behaviour to the king, and Henry says that he will meet the admiral himself, and take him to Mass in the chapel royal.

  ‘You have served me and my family well today,’ Henry says to me when I go to his room in the evening to tell him of the visit and the ceremonies, of how well Prince Edward acted as host in his father’s absence, of how proud we must be of Jane Seymour’s boy. ‘You have been as a mother to him,’ the king says. ‘Far more than his own mother, who never knew even knew him.’

  I notice that tonight he speaks of her death as a dereliction of her duty. ‘You have been as a regent to the country today. I am grateful to you.’

  ‘I have done nothing more than I should,’ I coo.

  ‘I am glad that you are pictured with him in the family portrait,’ he says. ‘It is right that you are honoured as his stepmother.’

  I hesitate. Clearly, he has forgotten that it is Jane Seymour, the dead wife, who is in the portrait. I sat for it, but I did not get my face in the frame. There is no portrait of me together with the little boy that I love.

  He continues, regardless. ‘You have been an honour to your country and to your beliefs,’ he says. ‘You have quite persuaded me over these last few months of the rightness of your place at the head of the country and of your convictions.’

  I glance around the room. There is no-one here to disagree. The usual courtiers are in earshot but now they are almost all friendly to me or to the cause of reform. Stephen Gardiner is absent. There was some argument over a small estate of land and the king took sudden offence. Gardiner will have to wheedle his way back into favour, but in the meantime, it is a pleasure to be without him. Wriothesley has not been at the king’s side since the day in the garden when he came to arrest me.

  ‘I am always guided by Your Majesty,’ I say.

  ‘And I think you are right about the Mass,’ he says casually. ‘Or do you call it the Communion?’

  I smile, pretending confidence while I feel the ground shuddering and weakening beneath me. ‘I call it whatever Your Majesty thinks best,’ I say. ‘It is your church, it is your liturgy. You know better than I, better than anyone, how it should be understood.’

  ‘Let’s call it the Communion then, the Communion for all the people of the church,’ he says, suddenly expansive. ‘Let us say that it is not literally the body and blood of Our Lord – for how are the common people to understand such a thing? They will think we mean some magic or some trickery. To those of us who think deeply, who meditate on these things, we who understand the power of language, it may be the body and the blood as well as bread and wine; but to the ordinary people we can say to them that it is a form of words. Likewise also when they had supped he took the cup saying: This cup is the new testament in my blood which shall for you be shed. It is clear that He gave them bread, He blessed bread, He gave them wine and told them it was a testament. We, who understand so much more than the village dullards, should not muddle them and confuse them.’

  I dare not look up in case this is a trap set for me, but I feel myself tremble with the strength of my feeling. If the king is coming to this realisation, if the king is coming to this clarity, then Anne did not die in vain and I did not throw down my scholarship and take a beating like a slave in vain, for God has brought the king enlightenment through her ashes and my shame.

  ‘Is Your Majesty saying that we should understand that the words are symbolic?’

  ‘Isn’t it what you think?’

  I will not be tempted into declaring my opinion. ‘Your Majesty, you will find me a very stupid woman, but I hardly know what to think. I was brought up to believe one thing, and then taught to consider another. Now, as a married woman, I have to know what my husband believes for he is there to guide me.’

  He smiles. This is exactly right; this is what he wants to hear. This is what a tamed wife parrots to her husband. ‘Kate, I will tell you – I think we need to create a sincere religion in which the communion is the centre of the liturgy but its power is symbolic,’ he pronounces. The rounded phrase and the sonorous delivery tells me that he has prepared this. He may even have written it down and learned it by heart. Someone may even have coached him – Anthony Denny? Thomas Cranmer?

  ‘Thank you,’ I say sweetly. ‘Thank you for guiding me.’

  ‘And I am going to suggest to the French ambassador that we work together, France and England, to drive out the superstition and heresy of the old church and create a new church in France and in England, based on the Bible, based on the new learning, and that we spread it throughout all our lands, and then throughout the world.’

  This is incredible. ‘You will?’

  ‘Kate, I want a learned thoughtful people walking in the ways of God, not a pack of fearful fools plagued by witches and priests. All of Europe but the papal states are persuaded that this is the way to understand God. I want to be part of this. I want to advise them, I want England to lead them. And if the day ever comes, I want to leave you as a regent and my son as a king to reign over people who say prayers that they understand and take part in a Mass – in a Communion that makes sense to them, as Our Lord described – not some kind of mumpsimus-sumpsimus invented in Rome.’

  ‘I think it too, I think it too!’ I can no longer contain my enthusiasm.

  He smiles at me. ‘We’ll bring the new learning, the new religion into England,’ he says. ‘You will see this, even if I do not.’

  WINDSOR CASTLE, AUTUMN 1546

  We go on progress after the French visit and the king is even able to hunt. He cannot walk, but his indomitable spirit drives him on and they lift him into the saddle, and once astride he can ride to hounds. At each of our beautiful palaces on the river they build a hide for him, equipped with bows and arrows, and drive the game towards him. Dozens of deer and many stags go down before the royal box, with arrows in their eyes and their faces ripped open. It is more intensely cruel than when we are in the open field. The king takes careful aim with the beautiful beast herded towards him, the animal goes down with a barb in its face and a hound tearing at its hindquarters. Henry is not troubled by the cold savagery of killing a trapped animal. He watches the huntsman cut the throat of a struggling beast with complete calm. Indeed, I almost think that the suffering pleases him. He watches the little black hooves kicking until they are still and then he gives a short laugh.

  He is watching the death throes of some poor doe when he suddenly remarks, ‘What do you think of Thomas Seymour as a match for Princess Elizabeth? I know the Seymours would like it.’

  I flinch, but he is not looking at me but at the glaze that is coming over the sloe-black eye of the wounded deer.

  ‘Whatever you think best,’ I say. ‘Of course, she is still young. She could be betrothed and stay with me until she is sixteen.’

  ‘Do you think he would make her a good husband? He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he? Does she like him? Would he get a boy on her, d’you think? Is she eager for him?’

  I hold my scented leather glove to my lips to hide the tremble that I can feel. ‘I can’t say. She’s very young still. She likes him well enough, as she should, as her half-brother’s uncle. I think that he would make her a good husband. His courage cannot be questioned. What do you think, Your Majesty?’

  ‘He’s handsome, isn’t he? As randy as a dog? He’s a terrible man for the ladies.’

  ‘No more than many others,’ I say. I have to take care. I cannot think what I should say to keep myself safe and promote Thomas’s hopes.

  ‘D’you like him?’

  ‘I hardly know him,’ I say. ‘I know his brother far better, because his wife is in my rooms. When I speak with Sir Thomas he is always interesting, and he has served you most loyally, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He has,’ the king concedes.

  ‘He has been a great help in the safety of England, the fleet and the ports?’

  ‘Yes; but to give him a daughter would be an exceptional reward. And it would make the Seymour