The Taming of the Queen

OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY, SUMMER 1543

Nan is completely right: the court breaks itself up and reforms with practised ease, and I love my rooms in Oatlands Palace. It was built on the river near Weybridge to be a honeymoon palace for Anne of Cleves, so Nan cannot truly claim that it is not haunted. Anne of Cleves’ sorrow and disappointment are in every courtyard. Her maid-in-waiting Katherine Howard was triumphantly married to the king, here in the chapel; I imagine he chased her, panting endearments, limping as fast as he could go through the beautiful gardens.

The palace was built with the stone of the abbey at Chertsey, every beautiful sandstone block pulled down from where it was dedicated to God to stand forever. The tears of the faithful must have fallen in the mortar; but nobody thinks of that now. It is a huge sunny palace, near to the river, designed like a castle with a tower at each corner and a huge courtyard inside. My rooms look towards the south and they are sunny and light. The king’s rooms adjoin them, and he warns me that he can walk in at any time to see what I am doing.

Over the next few days Nan and I draw up the list of posts in my household and start to fill them with the king’s choices, with our friends and family and then, when we have satisfied everyone who has a claim on me, with those whose careers we want to advance. I look at the list prepared by Nan and her friends who support the religious reforms. Giving them a place as my household officials at court and in my rooms as my companions strengthens their numbers at the very moment that they are losing the king’s support.

He has approved the publication of a statement of doctrine called The King’s Book, which tells people that they have to make confession and believe in the miracle of the Mass. The wine becomes blood, the bread becomes flesh – the king says it is so, and everyone must believe. He has taken away the great English Bible from every church in every parish and only the rich and the noble are allowed to read the Bible in English, and they can only do so at home. The poor and the uneducated are as far from the Word of God as if they were in Ethiop.

‘I want some scholarly ladies,’ I say to Nan, almost shyly. ‘I always felt that I should have read more and studied more. I want to improve my French and Latin. I want to have companions who will study with me.’

‘Certainly you can hire tutors,’ she says. ‘They’re as easy to get as parakeets. And you could have an afternoon sermon preached every day, Katherine of Aragon did. You have a range of opinion in your rooms already. Catherine Brandon is a reformer, while Lady Mary is probably secretly faithful to Rome. Of course she would never deny that her father is Supreme Head of the church,’ Nan lifts a warning finger to me, ‘everyone has to be very, very careful what they say. But now that the king is restoring the rituals that he banned, and taking away the English Bible that he gave to his people, Lady Mary hopes that he will go further and reconcile with the pope.’

‘I have to understand this,’ I say. ‘We lived so far from London, we heard almost nothing, and I couldn’t get hold of books. And anyway, my husband Lord Latimer believed in the old ways.’

‘There are many that still do,’ Nan warns me. ‘A frightening number still do, and they are rising in favour. But we have to fight them and win this argument. We have to get the Bible back into the churches for the people. We cannot let the bishops take the Word of God from the people. It is to condemn people to ignorance. Even you will have to study discreetly, with an eye on the law of heresy. We don’t want Stephen Gardiner sticking his ugly nose into your rooms, like he does everywhere else.’

The king comes to me almost every night, but often wants nothing more from me than conversation, or to share a glass of wine before he goes to his own bed. We sit together like an old loving couple, he in a glorious embroidered nightgown strained across his massive chest and belly, with his sore leg propped on a footstool, me in my black satin with my hair in a plait.

His physician comes with him to give him his evening doses: drugs to ease the pain of his leg, for his headaches as his eyes are failing, to make his bowels move, to clear his urine, which is dangerously dark and sticky. Henry winks when he tells me that his physician has given him something to help with vigour. ‘Perhaps we will make a son,’ he suggests. ‘What about a little Duke of York to follow my prince?’

‘In that case I’ll have some of that physic?’ Will Somers takes the liberties allowed to an official Fool. ‘I could do with a bit of vigour at night-time. I would be a bull, but I am a little lamb; truly, I am a little lamb.’

‘Do you skip and prance?’ the king smiles as the physician hands him another draught.

‘I gambol. I gamble away my fortune!’ Will clinches the joke with a pun, making the king laugh as he drinks, so that Will thumps him familiarly on the back. ‘Choke up, Nuncle. Don’t cough up your own vigour!’

I smile and say nothing while the physician is measuring out the series of little draughts, but when everyone has gone from the room, I say: ‘My lord husband, you have not forgotten that I had no child from two previous marriages?’

‘But you had precious little joy in them, didn’t you?’ he asks bluntly.

I give a little embarrassed laugh. ‘Well, yes, I wasn’t married for my own joy.’

‘Your first husband was little more than a boy, afraid to say boo to a goose, probably unmanned, and your second was a dotard, probably impotent,’ the king declares inaccurately. ‘How should you have got a child from either of them? I have studied these things, and I know. A woman needs pleasure in order to take a child. She has to have a crisis of pleasure, just as her husband does. This is ordained by God. So at last, dearest wife, you have a chance of becoming a mother. Because I know how to please a woman till she weeps for joy, till she cries out for more.’

I am silent, remembering the involuntary cry that I used to make when Thomas was moving inside me, his breath coming fast and my pleasure mounting. Afterwards I would find that my throat was sore and I would know that I had screamed with my face against his naked chest.

‘I give you my word,’ the king says.

I push away my thoughts and smile at him. I know that there can be no pleasure for me in a dead woman’s bed. It can’t be possible that his damp fumblings can give me a child, and the rue should prevent a monster-birth. But since two earlier wives were divorced for lack of a son I would be a fool to say that I don’t think we’ll get one – whatever sensual pleasures he promises.

Besides, oddly, I find that I don’t want to hurt his feelings. I’m not going to tell Henry that I cannot feel desire for him, not when he is smiling at me and promising me ecstasy. At the very least I owe him kindness, I can give him affection, I can show him respect.

He beckons me towards him as he sits on his great chair at the fireside. ‘Come and sit on my lap, dearest.’

I go readily enough and perch on the breadth of his good thigh. He puts his arms around me, he kisses my hair, he puts his hand under my chin and turns my face towards him so that he can kiss me on the mouth.

‘And are you glad to be a very rich woman?’ he asks me. ‘Am I kissing a great personage? Did you like the jewels? Did you bring them all with you?’

‘I love them,’ I assure him. ‘And I take such a pleasure in the wardrobe and the furs. You are very good to me.’

‘I want to be good to you,’ he says. He pushes a strand of hair away from my face and tucks it behind my ear. His touch is gentle, assured. ‘I want you to be happy, Kate. I married you to make you happy, not just for myself. I am not thinking just of myself, I am thinking of my children, I am thinking of my country, I am thinking of you.’

‘Thank you,’ I say quietly.

‘Is there anything else you would like?’ he asks. ‘If you command me, you command all of England. You can have samphire from the cliffs of Dover, you can have oysters from Whitstable. You can have gold from the Tower and cannonballs from the Minories. What would you like? Anything. You can have anything.’

I hesitate.

At once he takes my hand. ‘Don’t be afraid of me,’ he says tenderly. ‘I imagine that people will have told you all sorts of things about me. You will think yourself a Saint Tryphine, married to a monster.’

I give a little choke as he names my dream.

He is watching me closely. ‘My love,’ he says. ‘My last and only love. Please know this. What people will tell you about my marriages is completely wrong. I’ll tell you the truth. Only I know the truth, and I never speak of it. But I will tell you. I was married when I was a boy to a woman who was not free to marry me. I didn’t know it till God harrowed me with grief. Baby after baby was taken from us. It nearly killed her, it broke my heart. I had to let her go to spare her further pain. I had to release her from a marriage that was cursed. It was the hardest thing I ever did. But if I were to have a son for England I had to let her go. I sent Katherine of Aragon away, the finest princess that Spain ever raised, and it broke my heart to do so. But I had to do it.

‘And then, God forgive me, I was seduced by a woman whose only desire was ambition. She was a poisoner, a witch and a seductress. I should have known better, but I was a young man, longing for love. I learned my lesson late. Thank God I saved my children from her. She would have killed us all. I had to put a stop to her and I found the courage to do so.

‘Jane Seymour – my choice, the only wife I freely chose for myself – was my only true wife, and she gave me a son. She was like an angel, an angel, you know? And God took her back. I cannot complain for she left me with a son and His wisdom is infinite. The Cleves woman was an arranged marriage brought to me against my wishes by bad advisors. The Howard girl . . .’ His face crumples into rolls of fat. ‘God forgive the Howards for putting a whore in my bed,’ he gulps. ‘They deceived me, she deceived them, we were all blinded by her whorish prettiness. Kate, I swear, you will be a good wife to me indeed if you can make me forget the pain that she caused me.’

‘I will if I can,’ I say quickly. ‘Please don’t distress yourself.’

‘I have been heartbroken,’ he says honestly. ‘More than once. I have been betrayed – more than once. And I have been blessed by the true love of a good woman.’ He carries my hand to his lips. ‘Twice, I hope. I hope you will be my second and my last good angel. I hope you will love me as Jane did. I know that I love you.’

‘If I can,’ I say softly. I am genuinely moved to tenderness. ‘If I can, I will.’

‘So you can command me,’ he says gently. ‘I will do anything that you want. You just have to say.’

I trust him. I think that I will dare to name the favour that I want. ‘It’s my rooms at Hampton Court,’ I start. ‘Please don’t think me ungrateful, I know they are the finest rooms and Hampton Court is—’

He waves away my words. ‘It’s the most beautiful palace in England, but it is nothing to me if you don’t like it. I shall demolish it if you wish. What displeases you? I will have it altered at once.’

It is the ghosts in every corner, it is the initials of dead women on the stone bosses, it is the flags where their feet walked. ‘The smell,’ I say. ‘From the kitchens below.’

‘Of course!’ he exclaims. ‘You’re so right! I have often thought it myself. We should rebuild, we should change. The place was planned by Wolsey. He looked after himself, you can be sure of that. He planned his own apartments perfectly but he did not think what the other wing would be like. He never cared for anyone but himself, that man. But I care for you, beloved. Tomorrow you shall come to me and we shall get a builder to draw up new rooms for you, a queen’s side that will suit you completely.’

Truly, this is a rare husband. I’ve never known anyone so quick to understand, and so eager for the happiness of a wife. ‘Lord husband, you’re very good to me.’

‘I love your smile,’ he replies. ‘You know, I watch for your smile. I think I would give all the treasures of England for that smile.’

‘My lord . . .’

‘You shall be my wife and my partner, my friend and my lover.’

‘I will,’ I say earnestly. ‘I promise it, husband, I will.’

‘I need a friend,’ he says confidingly. ‘These days, I need a friend more than ever. The court is like a pit for dogfighting. They turn on one another and everyone wants my agreement and everyone wants my favour, but I can’t trust anyone.’

‘They seem so friendly . . .’

‘They are all liars and dissemblers,’ he overrules me. ‘Some of them are for the reform of religion and would make England Lutheran, some of them would have us return to Rome and put the pope at the head of our church again; and they all think that the way ahead is to trick me and entice me, step by step, down their way. They know that all the power is in my two hands. I alone decide everything, so they know that the way ahead is to persuade me.’

‘Surely, it would be a great shame to go back on your godly reforms,’ I say tentatively.

‘It’s worse now than ever. Now they look beyond me to Edward. I can see them trying to calculate how long I might live and how they can win Edward to their will and against mine. If I were to die soon they would fight over my boy like dogs over a bone. They would tear him apart. They wouldn’t see him as their master, they would see him as their road to greatness. I have to save him from that.’

‘But you are well,’ I reply gently. ‘Surely, you will live for years yet? Long enough to see him grow into a man and into his power?’

‘I have to. I owe it to him. My boy, my only boy. His mother died for him, I have to live for him.’

Jane again. I nod sympathetically and say nothing.

‘You will guard him with me,’ the king rules. ‘You will be as a mother to him, in place of the mother that he has lost. I can trust you as my wife in a way that I can trust no councillor. Only you are my partner and my helpmeet. You are my second self, we are as one. You will care for my power and for my son – no-one else can love and guard him. And if we go to war with France and I ride with the army you shall be regent here, and his protector.’

This is the greatest trust, proof of love beyond anything I ever expected. This is far more than I could have dreamed, better than birds or jewels, better than new rooms. This is the chance to be a queen indeed. I have a moment of vaulting ambition succeeded by fear. ‘You would make me regent?’

The only woman to be regent in the absence of the king was Katherine of Aragon, a princess raised to rule a kingdom. If the next were to be me then I would be honoured higher than anyone but a royal in her own right, born and bred. And if I were Regent of England and protector of the heir then I would be expected to guide the people and the church in the way of God. I would have to become a defender of the faith, just as the king named himself. I would have to sponsor the faith of the people. I would have to learn the wisdom to steer the church towards truth. I am breathless at the prospect. ‘My lord, I would be so proud, I would work so hard. I would not fail you. I wouldn’t fail the country. I don’t know enough, I don’t understand enough, but I will study, I will learn.’

‘I know it,’ he says. ‘I know you will be a devoted wife. And I trust you. I hear from everyone that you were Lord Latimer’s friend and his helpmeet, that you cared for his children as if they were your own, that you saved his castle from the ungodly. You shall do the same for me and mine. You are above faction, you are above taking sides.’ He smiles. ‘You shall be Useful in All that You Do. I was so moved when they told me that was your motto. For I want you to be useful and to take pleasure, too, my dear. I want you to be happy – happier than you have ever been in your life.’

He takes my hands and kisses one, then the other. ‘You will come to love me and understand me,’ he predicts. ‘I know you would tell me that you love me now, but that is to flatter an old fool. These are early days for us, honeymoon days; you have to speak of love, I know that. But you will come to love me in your heart, even when you are alone and no-one is watching. I know it. You have a loving heart and a clever mind and I want them both devoted to me. I want them both turned to me and to England. You will watch me at work and at play, at bed and board and at prayer, and you will understand the man that I am, and the king that I am. You will see my greatness, and my faults and my tender parts. You will fall in love with me. I hope you will fall in love with me completely.’

I give a little nervous laugh but he is completely convinced. He is quite certain that he is irresistible, and in the face of his smiling determination I think he may be right. Perhaps I will learn from him and love him. He is very persuasive. I want to believe him. It is God’s will that I married him, there can be no doubt of that. Perhaps it is His will that I will come to love my husband fully, as a wife should do. And who could not love a man who trusts a wife with his kingdom? With his children? Who pours treasure at her feet? Who offers his love so sweetly?

‘You need never say one word of a lie to me,’ he promises me. ‘There shall never be anything but honesty between us. I don’t need you to say that you love me now. I don’t want any early promises, easy words. I need only to know that you care for me now, that you are glad to be my wife, and that you accept that you might love me in the future. I know that you will.’

‘I will,’ I say. I did not know that he would be like this as a husband. I never dreamed it. I have never had a husband who cared for me. It is an extraordinary sensation to have the devotion of a powerful man. It is extraordinary to feel this tremendous will, this burning concentration turned on me. ‘And love will grow, as you say, my lord.’

‘Love will grow, Henry,’ he prompts.

I kiss him, unasked. ‘Love will grow, Henry,’ I repeat.

I know that I have to understand more about the changes that my husband has brought to the church in England. I ask both Thomas Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner to recommend preachers who can come to my rooms and expound their views to me and to my ladies. By listening to both sides of the debate – the reformers and the traditionalists – I hope that I will understand the cause that divides the court and the country, and the careful route that Henry has so brilliantly traced between the two.

Every afternoon, as we sew, one of the priests attached to the king’s chapel, or a preacher from London, comes to my rooms and reads the Bible to us in English, and delivers a sermon explaining the passage. To my surprise, the task that I have undertaken as a duty becomes my favourite part of the day. I realise that I am a natural scholar. I have always loved to read and for the first time in my life I have time to do so and I am able to study with the greatest thinkers in the kingdom. I take an almost sensual delight in their work. They take a text from the Bible – the Great Bible that the king commanded should be translated into English so that everyone could study it – and they examine it word by word. It is like reading poetry, like studying the philosophers. The shades of meaning that arise and dissolve with translation, with the juxtaposition of one word against another, fascinate me, and then the way that the truth of God shines through, layer after layer like a sun through strips of cloud, as one wrestles with the words.

My ladies, all drawn to the reform of the church, are in the habit of going directly to the Bible rather than to a priest for their learning, and we form a little group of scholars, interrogating the visiting preachers and offering our own suggestions. Archbishop Cranmer says that we should keep a note of our discussions so that we can share them with the colleges and with other theologians. I feel absurdly flattered that he thinks our studies are worthy to be read by others, but he persuades me that we are part of a body of thinkers, sharing what we study. Since I find the sermons so illuminating, will others?

Everything must be scrutinised, everything must be considered. Even the translation of the Bible is a powerful controversy. The king gave the Bible in English to his people, putting a translated Bible into every parish church in the country. But – as the traditionalists point out – people did not read it reverently, they started to discuss passages and dispute meanings. What should have been a gift from the king to his grateful people became the centre of argument and so the king took the Bibles away, and now only noblemen may read them.

I cannot help but think this is wrong. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God – surely it is the work of the church to bring the Word to the people? Surely it is the work of the church not to bring pictures and stained glass and candles and robes to the people but first, before everything, to bring the Word?

Lady Mary often comes from her own set of rooms to listen to the daily sermon in mine. Sometimes, I know, she fears that the priests stray too far from the teachings of the church; but her love of languages and her devotion to the Bible mean that she always comes back, and sometimes she will offer her own translation of a phrase, or challenge the preacher’s version. I admire her scholarship. She has had the best of teachers and her understanding of Latin and her subtlety of translation are quite beautiful. If she had not been frightened into silence, I think she might have been a poet. She laughs when I tell her this one day and says that we are so alike, we should be sisters rather than a stepmother and daughter – we are both women who love fine clothes and beautiful language.

‘Almost as if they are the same thing!’ she confesses. ‘I get so much pleasure from embroidery and from poetry. I think there should be beauty in the words of the church and in the church paintings, so the little prie-dieu in my room should be beautiful too, with a golden crucifix and a crystal monstrance. But then I think I am sliding towards vanity. Really, I cannot deny it. I have my books bound with fine leather and jewels, and I collect illuminated manuscripts and prayer books. Why not, if it is for the glory of God and the delight of our eyes?’

I laugh. ‘I know! I know! And I’m afraid that my love of study is the sin of pride. I find it quite thrilling to understand things, as if reading were a journey of discovery. I long to know more and more, and now I want to make translations and even compose prayers.’

‘Why should you not?’ she demands. ‘If you take pride in reading the Word of God, that is surely a little sin? It’s more a virtue of study than a pride of scholarship.’

‘It’s a joy I never thought I would have.’

‘If you are a reader, you are already halfway to being a writer,’ she says. ‘For you have a love of words and pleasure from seeing them on a page. And if you are a writer, then you will find that you are driven to write. It is a gift that demands to be shared. You cannot be a silent singer. You are not an anchorite, a solitary saint, you are a preacher.’

‘Even though I am a woman and a wife?’

‘Even though.’

I am to meet my stepson, the Prince of Wales, Queen Jane’s son. He comes in state from his own palace at Ashridge, where he lives at a safe distance from the plagues and illnesses of the city. I watch from the windows that overlook the river and the gardens, and see the royal barge approaching, the banks of oars cutting into the water and then lifting out, and pulling onwards again. I see the barge feather the oars to slow its stately progress and then steer smoothly to the pier. The oarsmen throw the ropes and moor up as the guns roar out to salute him. The richly carved gangplank is run ashore, and the men make a guard of honour with their green and white oars erect. Half of the court is already on the riverbank to greet the prince. I see Edward Seymour’s dark head and Anthony Denny beside him, Thomas Howard trying to get in front. They look almost as if they are jostling to be first to greet him. These are the men who will want him to favour them, whose power will come only from him, whose futures depend on him. If my husband dies and this boy becomes a child-king, then one of them will be his governor, his protector. It may fall to me to defend him from them all, to raise him as his father would have it done, and keep him in the ways of the true religion.

I turn to my ladies and let them adjust my hood, settle my jewels at my neck, and pull out the hem of my gown. I am wearing a new gown in deep red, the king’s huge ruby ring cut down to fit my finger, Queen Anne’s rubies sitting heavily and coldly on my neck. With my ladies behind me and with Rig, my spaniel, trotting beside me in his red leather collar with silver rings, we walk to the king’s presence chamber, through a whispering crowd of people who have come to witness this meeting.

His Majesty is there already, seated beneath the golden cloth of estate, his leg supported on a footstool. His face is dark with bad temper. I guess that he is in pain and I curtsey before him and take my place at his side without speaking. I have learned that it is better to be silent when he is ill; the least word angers him. He cannot hear a reference to his weakness, but he cannot bear that his suffering should be ignored. It is impossible to say the right thing, impossible to say anything at all. I feel nothing but pity for him, fighting the decay and collapse of his body with such dauntless courage. Anyone else in pain like this would be wild with temper.

‘Good,’ is all he says as I sit beside him, and I see that however sour his mood, he is not displeased with me.

I turn my head to smile at him in silence and we exchange a little gleam of mutual understanding.

‘Did you watch from the window?’ he asks. ‘Were the jackals gathering around the young lion?’

I nod. ‘They were. So I came to the great lion,’ I say. ‘I cleave to the greatest lion there is.’

Henry gives a little grunt of amusement. ‘The old lion still has his teeth and claws. You will see I can draw blood. You will see I can rip a throat.’

The double doors are flung open, the herald bellows, ‘Edward Prince of Wales!’ and the little boy of just five years old walks in, with half the court trailing sycophantically behind him. I could almost laugh aloud. All their shoulders are hunched, all their heads are stooped, everyone is trying to bend down to smile at the little boy, to lean towards him so that they can hear anything he might say. When they walk behind the king they match his swagger, heads up and shoulders back, chests thrust out, pacing themselves to his limping stride. But to follow his son they have invented a new way of sidling along. What fools they are, I think to myself, and I glance at my husband and see his sardonic grin.

Prince Edward stops before the thrones and bows. His pale face is turned to his father with the dazzled expression of a child who hero-worships a distant parent, his lower lip trembles. He gives a small speech in Latin in a piping little voice that I assume expresses his honour and pleasure at coming to court. The king replies briefly in the same language. I can pick out a few words but I have no idea what he is saying. I guess that he had this speech prepared for him; he has little patience with study these days. Then Edward turns to me and speaks in French, a courtly language more appropriate for a woman without much learning.

As I did with Elizabeth, I rise to my feet and go towards him but he looks anxious as I approach and this makes me cautious. He bows, I curtsey, I extend my hand and he kisses it. I dare not embrace him as I did Elizabeth; I cannot fold him into my arms. He is only a little boy, but he is a unique being, as rare as a unicorn, sighted only in tapestries. This is the only Tudor prince in the whole world. After a lifetime of marriages and couplings, this is the only surviving boy that Henry could get.

‘I am so pleased to meet you, Your Highness,’ I say to him. ‘And I look forward to knowing and loving you, as I should.’

‘I too am honoured,’ he says carefully. I imagine he has been coached in every possible response. This is a boy whose speech was scripted from the first words he ever learned. His first word was not ‘Mama’; they will have taught him to say something else. ‘It will be a comfort and joy to me to have a mother in you.’

‘And I’ll learn Latin,’ I say.

No-one could have prepared him for this surprising promise and I see the leap of amusement of a normal boy. ‘You’ll find it awfully hard,’ he warns me in English, and for a moment I see the child that he is, under the carapace of the prince that he has to be. ‘I’ll get a tutor,’ I say. ‘I love to learn and study. I have wanted all my life to have a good education. Now I can start, and then I can write to you in Latin and you can correct me.’

He gives a funny little formal bow. ‘I shall be honoured,’ he says, and looks up fearfully to see if his father approves.

But Henry, the king, sombre in his own thoughts and besieged with pain, does not smile at his little son. ‘Very well,’ is all he grudgingly says.