The Taming of the Queen

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

Thomas Cranmer has worked constantly on his liturgy, he brings it to the king, prayer by prayer, and the three of us read it and reread it. Cranmer and I study the original Latin, and rephrase it, and read it again to the king, who listens, beating his hand on the chair as if he were listening to music. Sometimes he nods his head approvingly at the archbishop or at me and says: ‘Hear it! It’s like a miracle to hear the Word of God in our own language!’ and sometimes he frowns and says: ‘That’s an awkward phrase, Kateryn. That sticks on the tongue like old bread. No-one will ever say that smoothly. Rework it, what d’you think?’ And I take the line and try it one way and then another to make it sing.

He says nothing about the Act of Succession and neither do I. It goes before the Houses of Parliament and is passed into law without my remarking to my husband that he is providing for my death, though I am young enough to be his daughter, that he is providing for a queen to follow me, though he has made no complaint of me. Gardiner is away from court, Cranmer is a frequent companion, and the king loves to work with us both.

Clearly, he is serious about this translation being made and offered to the churches. Sometimes he says to Cranmer: ‘Yes, but this has got to be heard up in the gallery, where the poor people stand. It’s got to be clear. It’s got to be audible even when an old priest is muttering away.’

‘The old priests won’t read it at all unless you force it on them,’ Cranmer warns him. ‘There are many who think that it cannot be the Mass unless it’s Latin.’

‘They will do as I command,’ the king replies. ‘This is the Word of God in English and I am giving it to my people whatever the old priests and the old fools like Gardiner want. And the queen is going to translate the old prayers, and write some new ones.’

‘Are you?’ Cranmer asks me with a gentle smile.

‘I am thinking about it,’ I say cautiously. ‘The king is so kind as to encourage me.’

‘He is right,’ Cranmer says with a bow. ‘What a church we will make with the Mass in English and prayers written by the faithful! By the Queen of England herself!’

The warmer weather brings an improvement to the king’s leg, which has been drained of the worst of the pus and is now only weeping gently, and this improves his temper. Working with me and his archbishop he seems to regain some of his old joy in study, and it even deepens his love of God. He likes us to come to him when he is alone before dinner, perhaps with only a page to serve him some pastries, or one of his clerks in attendance. He has to wear his spectacles for reading now, and he does not like the court to see him with the gold-rimmed glasses tied on his nose. He is shamed by the blurring of his sight and fearful that he will go blind, but he laughs when one day I take his fat face in my hands and kiss it and tell him he looks like a wise owl and that he is handsome in his spectacles and should wear them everywhere.

I go to my own rooms in the day and I am able to work on the liturgy with my ladies. In the afternoons Thomas Cranmer often comes in, and we work together. It is not a long piece, of course, but it is intense. It feels as if every word must be weighted with holiness. There is not a spare line or a false note from beginning to end.

In May, the archbishop brings me the first printed copy, bows and lays it in my lap.

‘This is it?’ I say almost wonderingly, my finger on the smooth leather cover.

‘This is it,’ he replies. ‘My work and yours, perhaps the greatest work that I will ever do. Perhaps the greatest gift that you will ever be able to give to the English people. Now they can pray in their own language. Now they can speak and trust that God hears them. They can be the people of God, indeed.’

I cannot lift my hand from the cover; it is as if I am touching the hand of God. ‘My lord, this is a work that will last for generations.’

‘And you have done your part in it,’ he says generously. ‘Here is a woman’s voice as well as a man’s, and men and women will say these prayers, perhaps they will even kneel side by side, equals in the sight of God.’