The Taming of the Queen

GREENWICH PALACE, SUMMER 1545

We make our way back to London in slow stages. The journey, which set out as a summer’s jaunt to see the fleet in triumph, crawls home with a king stunned by disappointment, through a fearful countryside. The fields of dark gold wheat and the springing green of the second growth in the hayfields bring us no pleasure as we look at the prosperous manor houses and the little villages and think they are impossible to defend.

We go to Greenwich, where the waves that slap at the stone pier before the palace remind us of the unforgiving waters of the Solent and the sinking of the king’s pride to its dark depths. Thomas stays at his post in Portsmouth, repairing and rebuilding the houses that were fired by the invading French, overseeing the refitting of the ships that were damaged in battle, sending down swimmers to see if they can salvage anything from the warship as she settles into her last berth. He cannot come to court; I don’t hope to see him. He writes privately to the king and Henry shows no-one the letter.

People think that the king is ill again, that perhaps his leg has opened up or the fever that shakes him four times a year has come back. But I know what is wrong: he is sick to his heart. He has seen a defeat, an undeniable defeat, and he cannot bear it.

This is a man so sharp with pride that he cannot hear contradiction. This is a man who will play both sides at once to make sure that he wins. This is a man who from a boy has never been refused. And, in addition to all of this – here is a man who cannot see himself as anything but perfect. He has to be the very best. King Francis of France was his only rival; but now Francis and all of Europe are laughing at the English navy, which was supposed to be so mighty, and at our famous flagship, which sank as soon as she set sail. They are saying that the king piled so many guns on her that she was as fat and as clumsy as he is.

‘It wasn’t that,’ he says to me shortly. ‘Don’t think that.’

‘No, of course,’ I say.

‘Of course it was not.’

He is like an animal in a trap, twisting and turning against his own pain. He grieves more for his hurt pride than for the drowned men. He has to rescue his self-regard. Nothing is more important than that; no-one is more important than that. The ship can sink into the silt of the Solent as long as the king’s pride can be salvaged.

‘There was nothing wrong with the ship,’ he says another night. ‘It was the fools of the gunners. They left the gunports open after firing.’

‘Oh, was that what happened?’

‘Probably,’ he says. ‘I should have left Thomas Seymour in command. I am glad that fool Carew paid with his life.’

I swallow a protest against this harsh judgement. ‘God save his soul,’ I say, thinking of his widow who saw her husband drown.

‘God forgive him,’ Henry says heavily. ‘For I never will.’

The king talks to me every night about his ship. He cannot sleep without persuading me that it was the fault of others, fools or villains. He can do no other work. Most of the Privy Council go back to Westminster ahead of us, and Charles Brandon, Henry’s old friend, asks permission to go quietly home with his wife, Catherine.

‘He should have warned me,’ Henry says. ‘Of all the people in the world Charles should have warned me.’

‘How could he know?’ I ask.

‘He should never have let her sail if she was overloaded with men,’ Henry bursts out in sudden anger, his face blazing, a vein in his temple bulging like a thick worm under his skin. ‘Why would he not know that she was overloaded? He must have been careless. I shall call him back to court to explain himself. He was commander on land and sea: he has to take responsibility. It was not my plans that were at fault, it was his failure to execute them. I have forgiven him everything, all my life, but I cannot forgive him this.’

But before the messenger summoning Charles back has even left the palace, we hear from the Brandon household that he is ill, and then a horseman thunders up the London road from Guildford and says that he is dead. The king’s greatest and longest-surviving friend is dead.

It is the last blow of a terrible summer. The king is inconsolable. He locks himself into his room and refuses all service. He even refuses to eat. ‘Is he sick?’ I ask Doctor Butts when they tell me that the monstrous dinner has been sent back.

He shakes his head. ‘Not in his body, God keep him. But this is a great loss to him. Charles Brandon is the last of his old friends, the only friend from his childhood. It is like losing a brother.’

That night, even though my bedroom is three rooms away from the king’s chamber, I hear a terrible noise. It is a scream like a vixen makes at night, a howl so unearthly that I forget that I despise empty ritual, and I cross myself, and kiss my thumbnail and say, ‘God bless and keep me!’ There is another and another, and I jump out of my bed, snap, ‘Stay there!’ to my companion, and run into my empty presence chamber, through the king’s presence chamber, his privy chamber, his inner chamber, to his bedroom door, where the guard stands impassive. But behind the door I can hear heartbroken sobbing.

I hesitate. I don’t know whether to go forward or back. I don’t even know if I should tell the guard to knock for me, or try the door to see if it is locked from the inside. I don’t know if it is my duty to go to him and remind him that Charles Brandon will have died in his faith and will be waiting in purgatory, certain of his ascent to heaven on the uplifting vapour of expensive Masses, or whether I should leave the king to his monstrous grief. He is sobbing like a heartbroken child, like an orphan. The sound of it is terrible.

I step forward and I try the handle. The guard, his face completely blank as if his master is not blubbering only yards away, steps to one side. The handle turns but the door does not yield. He has locked himself in. He wants to be alone in the churning ocean of his grief. I don’t know what I should do and, judging by the blank face of the yeoman of the guard, he does not know either.

I go back to my own room, close the door and pull the covers over my head, but nothing can muffle the loud wailing. The king screams out his heartbreak all night long, and none of us, not in his rooms or mine, can sleep for his grief.

In the morning I dress in a dark gown and go to chapel. I am going to pray for the soul of Charles Brandon and for wisdom to help my husband, who has broken under this last loss. I take my place on the queen’s side and look across to the royal throne. To my surprise Henry is already there, in his usual place, signing papers for business, looking over petitions. Only his strained red-rimmed eyes betray his emotional vigil. Indeed, of the two of us, I show more signs of sleeplessness, with heavy eyes and a pale face. It is as if he burned away all his grief and fear in one night. As we finish the prayers and say ‘Amen’ he beckons to me. I go round to his side with my ladies following and we leave the chapel together, walking across the courtyard towards the main hall, my hand tucked under his arm, as he leans heavily on a yeoman of the guard on his other side.

‘I will give him a hero’s burial,’ he says. ‘And I shall pay for it all.’

I cannot hide my surprise at his calmness, but he takes it as delight in his generosity.

‘I will,’ he repeats proudly. ‘And little Catherine Brandon need not fear for their sons’ inheritance. I shall leave them both in her keeping. I will not take them as my wards. They can inherit their father’s estate entire. I will even let her manage it till they are men. I will take nothing from them.’

He is cheered by his own munificence. ‘She will be glad,’ he announces. ‘She will be thrilled. She can come to me and thank me personally as soon as she returns to court.’

‘She’ll be in mourning,’ I point out. ‘She may not want to serve in my rooms any more. She may not want to come to court. Her loss . . .’

He shakes his head. ‘Of course she will come,’ he says certainly. ‘She would never leave me. She has lived in my keeping since she was a girl.’

I say nothing in reply to this. I can hardly tell the king that a widow might prefer to spend the very first days of her widowhood in prayer, rather than entertaining him. Usually, a widow keeps to her house for the first three months, and Catherine will want to be with her fatherless boys. But then I realise: he will not know this. Nobody told him to wait before summoning me on the death of my husband. He would not imagine that anyone might not want to be at court. He has never lived anywhere but court, he has no idea of a private life or tender feelings that are not watched by the world. Within days of the death of my husband, he commanded me to court to play cards with him and flirt with him. Only I can stop him putting this burden on Catherine.

‘Perhaps she would rather stay at her home, at Guildford Palace.’

‘No, she would not.’

Nan comes to me one evening, long after dinner, when the court is closed down for the night and I am ready for bed. She nods to my lady-in-waiting, dismissing her from my bedroom, and takes a seat by the fireside.

‘I see you have come for a visit,’ I say drily, taking the seat opposite her. ‘D’you want a glass of wine?’

She gets up and pours us both a glass. We pause for a moment to savour the scent and taste of the deep red Portuguese wine and the light clarity of the Venetian glasses. Each glass, each perfectly blown glass, is worth a hundred pounds.

‘What would Mother say?’ Nan asks with a little smile.

‘Don’t take it for granted.’ I can quote her at once. ‘Don’t let down your guard. Never forget your family.’ And, more than anything else: ‘How is your brother? How is William? Does William have glasses as fine as this? Can’t we get some for him?’ We both laugh.

‘She always thought that he would be the making of the family,’ Nan says, sipping her wine. ‘She didn’t disregard us, you know. It’s just that she put all her hopes on William. It’s natural to look to the son and heir.’

‘I know. I don’t blame her. She didn’t know that William’s wife would betray him and our name, cost us so much and then have to be set aside.’

‘She didn’t foresee that,’ Nan agrees. ‘Nor this.’

‘No.’ I shake my head with a smile. ‘Who’d have dreamed it?’

‘Your rise to greatness,’ Nan raises her glass in a toast. ‘But it comes with dangers.’

Nobody knows more about the dangers for a queen than Nan. She has served every one. She has given evidence on oath against three. Sometimes she has even told the truth.

‘Not for me,’ I say confidently. ‘I’m not like the others. I don’t have an enemy in the world. I’m famously room-handed, I’ve helped anyone who asked me. I have done nothing but good for the royal children. The king loves me, he made me Regent General and an editor for the English liturgy. He puts me at the heart of the court, of everything he cares about: his children, his country and his church.’

‘Stephen Gardiner is no friend of yours,’ she warns. ‘And neither are any of his affinity. They would throw you down from the throne and out of the royal rooms at the first moment they could.’

‘They wouldn’t. They might disagree with me; but this is a matter of debate, not enmity.’

‘Kateryn, every queen has enemies. You have to face it.’

‘The king himself supports the cause of reform!’ I exclaim irritably. ‘He listens to Thomas Cranmer more than to Stephen Gardiner.’

‘And they blame you for that! They planned for him to have a papist wife and they thought he had married one. They thought you were for the old church; they thought that you shared Latimer’s convictions. That’s why they welcomed you so warmly. They were never your friends! And now that they think you have turned against them, they won’t be your friends any longer.’

‘Nan, this is madness. They may disagree with me but they wouldn’t try to drag me down in the eyes of the king. They won’t falsely accuse me of God-knows-what because we don’t agree about the serving of the Mass. We differ; but they are not my enemies. Stephen Gardiner is an ordained bishop, called by God, a holy man. He is not going to seek my destruction because I differ from him on a point of theology.’

‘They went against Anne Boleyn because she was for the cause of reform.’

‘Wasn’t that Cromwell?’ I ask stubbornly.

‘It doesn’t matter which advisor it is, what matters is if the king is listening to him.’

‘The king loves me,’ I say finally. ‘He loves only me. He would not listen to a word against me.’

‘So you say.’ Nan puts out her foot and pushes a log further into the fire. A plume of sparks flies up, she looks awkward.

‘What is it?’

‘I have to tell you that they’re proposing another wife.’

I almost laugh. ‘This is ridiculous. Is this what you came to tell me? It’s nothing but gossip.’

‘No, it isn’t. They are proposing another wife more amenable to returning the church to Rome.’

‘Who?’ I scoff.

‘Catherine Brandon.’

‘Now I know that you are mistaken,’ I say. ‘She is more of a reformer than I am. She named her dog after Bishop Gardiner. She’s openly rude to him.’

‘They think she will join them if they offer her the throne. And they believe that the king likes her.’

I look at my sister. Her face is turned away from me, fixed on the embers of the fire. She fidgets, putting on dry wood.

‘Is this what you came in to tell me? Did you come so late tonight to warn me that the king is thinking of another wife? That I must defend myself?’

‘Yes,’ she says, still not meeting my eyes. ‘I am afraid so, yes.’

The fire crackles in the silence. ‘Catherine would never betray me. You’re wrong to say such a thing. She’s my friend. We study together, we think alike. It’s really vile, Nan, it’s black-babbling to say such a thing.’

‘It’s the crown of England. Most people would do anything for it.’

‘The king loves me. He doesn’t want another wife.’

‘All I am saying is that the king is sentimental over her, he’s always liked her, and now she is free to marry, and they will be pushing her forward.’

‘She would never take my place!’

‘She would have no choice,’ Nan says quietly. ‘Just as you had no choice. And anyway, some people say that he has been her lover for years. They say that Charles and he shared her. Charles never refused the king anything. Perhaps when he got a beautiful young wife, young enough to be his daughter, the king had her too.’

I get to my feet and go the window. I want to throw open the shutters and let the night air into the room as if the place stinks like the king’s bedroom of corruption and disappointment.

‘This is the vilest gossip,’ I say quietly. ‘I should not have to hear it.’

‘It is vile. But it is widely repeated. And so you do have to hear it.’

‘So what now?’ I say bitterly. ‘Nan, do you always have to be so ill-tongued? Must you always breathe sorrows in my ear? Are you telling me that he would put me aside for Catherine Brandon? Shall he have a seventh wife? What about another after her? Yes, he likes her, he likes Mary Howard, he likes Anne Seymour! But he loves me, he favours me above all others, more than any previous wife. And he has married me! That means everything. Can’t you see that?’

‘I am saying that we have to keep you safe. There must be nothing that anyone can say against you. No hint against your reputation, no suggestion of disagreement between you and the king, nothing that could make him turn against you. Not even for a moment.’

‘Because it only takes a moment?’

‘It only takes a moment for him to sign a warrant,’ she says. ‘And then it is all over for all of us.’

Catherine Brandon comes back to court as commanded, and she does not wear mourning. She comes first to my rooms and curtseys before me, and before all my ladies I give her my condolences for her loss and welcome her back to my service. She takes her seat among them and looks at the translation that we are working on. We are studying the gospel of Luke in the Latin and trying to find the purest, clearest words in English to express the beauty of the original. Catherine joins in as if she is here by choice, as if she does not want to be at her own home, with her sons.

At the end of the morning when we put away our books to go out riding I beckon her to come with me as I change into my riding dress.

‘I am surprised that you came back to court so soon,’ I say.

‘I was commanded,’ she says shortly.

‘Weren’t you secluded, and in mourning?’

‘Of course.’

I rise from my seat before the silvered looking-glass and I take her hands. ‘Catherine, I have been your friend since I first came to court. If you don’t want to be here, if you want to go home, I will do my best for you.’

She gives me a little sad smile. ‘I have to be here,’ she says. ‘I have no choice. But I thank Your Majesty for your kindness.’

‘Do you miss your husband?’ I ask curiously.

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘He was like a father to me.’

‘I think the king misses him.’

‘He must do. They were always together. But I don’t expect him to show it.’

‘Why not? Why should the king not show his grief for the loss of his friend?’

She looks at me as if I am asking her a question to which everyone must know the answer. ‘Because the king cannot bear grief,’ she says simply. ‘He cannot tolerate it. It makes him angry. He will never forgive Charles for leaving him. If I want to stay in favour, if I want my sons to have their inheritance, I will have to conceal the fact that Charles has deserted him. I cannot show him my grief as it reminds him of his own.’

‘But he died!’ I say impatiently to the man’s widow. ‘He didn’t leave the king on purpose, he just died!’

She gives me a slow sad smile. ‘I suppose if you are King of England, you think that everyone’s life is dedicated to you. And those that die have let you down.’

I don’t want to hear Nan’s bleak warnings, I prefer to see the gloze of Catherine’s false smile as the court is at peace among itself with no quarrels or dogfights, and God’s goodness to England shines out in the sunshine and the golden leaves of the trees in the meadows that run beside the river. The country is at peace, the news from France is that they plan nothing against us, the battle season is coming to a close and Thomas has survived another year. It is a blissful end of summer. Every day starts bright and every evening ends in a warm glow. The walls of the palace are golden in the sunset reflected in the river. Henry enjoys a return to good health. His servers haul him onto his horse every morning and we hunt every day, easy runs, through the water meadows alongside the river, and it is like being married to a man of my own age when his huge hunter outpaces mine and he goes past, yelling like a boy.

The wound on his leg is bound tight, and he can manage a limping walk without support, needing help only up and down the stairs that lead from the great hall to his rooms, where I visit him every other night.

‘We are happy,’ he tells me, as if it were an official announcement, as I take my seat on the other side of the fireside from his strengthened throne and his new footstool. Surprised by his formality, I giggle.

‘When you have been as troubled as I by unhappiness, you too will take note of a good day, a good season,’ he says. ‘I swear to you, my sweetheart, that I have never loved a wife more than I love you, and never known contentment as I do now.’

So much for your dark warnings, Nan, I think. ‘Lord husband, I am glad,’ I say, and I mean it. ‘If I can please you then I am the happiest woman in England. But I have heard some rumours.’

‘Of what?’ he demands as his sandy brows twitch together.

‘Some say that you might want a new queen,’ I say, taking the risk of speaking Nan’s warning out loud.

He chuckles and waves a dismissive hand. ‘There will always be rumours,’ he says. ‘While men have ambitious daughters, there will always be rumours.’

‘I am glad they mean nothing.’

‘Of course they mean nothing,’ he says. ‘Nothing but people talking about their betters, and plain women envying your beauty.’

‘Then I am happy,’ I tell him.

‘And the children are well and thriving,’ he says, continuing to list his blessings. ‘And the country is at peace, though all but bankrupt. And for once I have some quiet in my court for my rival bishops have taken the summer off from their wrangling.’

‘God smiles on the righteous,’ I say.

‘I have seen your studies,’ he says in the same smug tone of congratulation. ‘I was pleased, Kate. You have done well to study, anyone can see how I have influenced your learning and your spiritual growth.’

I am sick with sudden fear. ‘My studies?’ I repeat.

‘Your book of prayers,’ he says. ‘That’s right, it is dutiful and pleasing to have a wife who spends her time on prayers.’

‘Your Majesty honours me with your attention.’ I say feebly.

‘I glanced at them,’ he says. ‘And I asked Cranmer what he thought. And he praised them. For a woman they are scholarly work. He accused me of helping you, but I said – no, no, they are all her own. I am glad to see your name on the cover, Kate. We should credit them to a royal author. What other king in Christendom has a scholarly wife? Francis of France has a queen who is neither wife nor scholar!’

‘I only put my name on the page as a sign of my gratitude to you,’ I say carefully.

‘You do that,’ he says, comfortable. ‘I am a lucky man. I have only two things that trouble me, and neither of them overmuch.’ He eases himself back in his chair, and I stand at once and move a little table laden with sweet cakes and wine closer to his hand.

‘What are they?’

‘Boulogne,’ he says heavily. ‘After all our courage in taking it, the council want me to return it to the French. I never will. I sent Henry Howard out there in place of his father just so that he will persuade everyone that we can keep it.’

‘And does he convince them?’

‘Oh, he swears he will never leave it, says he is dishonoured by the very suggestion.’ Henry chuckles. ‘And his father whispers to me that he is a boy who should come home and live at his father’s say-so. I love it when a father and son disagree. It makes my life so much easier if they are dancing to different tunes, but both of them played by me.’

I try to smile. ‘But how do you know which to believe?’

He taps the side of his nose with his hand to indicate his cunning. ‘I don’t know. That’s the secret. I listen to one, I listen to the other, I encourage each to think he has my ear. I weigh them as they bicker, and I choose.’

‘But it puts father against son,’ I point out. ‘And sets your chief commander in France against your Privy Council, and makes a deep division in the country.’

‘All the better, for then they cannot conspire against me. Anyway, I cannot return Boulogne to the French, whatever the Privy Council wants, for Charles of Spain insists that I keep it, insists that we don’t make peace with France. I have to play Spain and France like two dogs in a fight as well. I have to match them against each other like a dog-master.’

‘And your other worry?’ I ask gently.

‘God be praised, it’s just a little worry. It’s nothing. Just a plague at Portsmouth.’

‘Plague?

‘Ripping through my navy, God help them. Of course they will take it hard. The sailors sleep on the ships or in the worst of lodgings in that poor little town, the captains and the bo’suns little better. They’re all crammed on top of one another and the marshes are pestilential. The soldiers in my new castles will die like flies when it goes through them.’

‘But your admirals must be safe?’

‘No, for I insist they stay with the fleet,’ he says, as if the life of Thomas Seymour is an afterthought. ‘They have to take their chances.’

‘Can’t they go to their homes while the plague is in Portsmouth?’ I suggest. ‘It must make sense that the captains and commanders are not lost to the plague. You will need them in battle. You must want to keep them safe.’

‘God will watch over those who serve me,’ he says comfortably. ‘God would not raise his hand against me and mine. I am His chosen king, Kateryn. Never forget it.’

He sends me away at midnight – he wants to be alone – but instead of going to my bed I go to the beautiful chapel, kneel before the altar and whisper to myself: ‘Thomas, Thomas, God bless you, God keep you, my love, my only love. God keep you from the sea, God keep you from the plague, God keep you from sin and sorrow and send you safe home. I don’t even pray that you come home to me. I love you so dearly that I would have you safe, anywhere.’

The king’s leg swells up again and the wound opens up further. He cannot bear to put weight on it at all and instead has wheels put under his strengthened chair and has himself wheeled around the palace. Unusually, his spirits stay high and he continues to be the dog-master, as he boasted to me. He is going to send Stephen Gardiner to meet the emperor at Bruges to negotiate a treaty with the French that will bring an end to war between the three great kings of Europe; but at the same time, and in complete contradiction, he invites delegates from the German Lutheran princes to mediate between England and France for a secret peace to betray the Spanish emperor. At this rate, we will end up with two peace treaties, one brokered by papists and one brokered by Lutherans, and unable to sign either.

‘No, this is a great chance for our faith,’ Catherine Brandon disagrees, as we sit down behind my long table, assemble our pens and papers and prepare to listen to the sermon of the day. ‘If the Lutheran lords from Saxony can bring peace to Christendom then the reformed faith will be seen as the moral leader, as a light to the world. And they will work for the king, as they want him to save them from the emperor. That papist monster is calling for a crusade against them, his own people, for nothing more than their religion – God save and keep them.’

‘But Bishop Gardiner will beat the Lutheran lords to it,’ I predict. ‘He’ll bring home a peace with France before they can.’

‘Not him!’ she says disdainfully. ‘He’s a spent force. The king doesn’t listen to him any more. He sending him on a fool’s errand to Bruges. He wants Gardiner out of the way so that he can talk freely to the Germans. He told me so himself.’

‘Oh, did he?’ I say levelly, and Nan, coming in, notes the edge in my voice and glances across at me.

‘Don’t think that I have said anything to betray us,’ Catherine says quickly. ‘I would never reveal what we study and what we read. But I swear that the king knows, and that he sympathises. He speaks of your learning with such praise, Your Majesty.’

‘It was the king who gave the English their Bible,’ I agree. ‘That’s what the Lutherans want.’

‘And it was Stephen Gardiner who took it away again. And now the king is meeting with Lutherans and Stephen Gardiner is far away. He can stay away from court for ever, for all I care. While he is gone, and while the king supports Henry Howard’s captaincy of Boulogne against his father the duke, our greatest enemies are ignored and we grow stronger every day.’

‘Well, God be praised,’ Nan says. ‘Just think if this country were to come to a true faith based on the Bible, not a hodge-podge of superstition based on spells and images and chants.’

‘Indulgences,’ Catherine says. She almost shudders with disdain. ‘That’s what I hate most. D’you know that the day after my lord died some damned priest came to me and said that for fifty nobles he could guarantee Charles’ ascent to heaven and would show me a sign that it was so?’

‘What sign?’ I ask curiously.

Catherine shrugs: ‘Who knows? I didn’t even ask. I am sure he could have given me anything that I would wish: a bleeding statue saved from some wrecked abbey? A portrait of the Madonna that spurts milk? It is such an insult to suggest that a man’s soul should be saved by half a dozen vile old men bawling out a psalm. How can anyone ever have believed it? How can anyone suggest it now that they can read the Bible and know that we get to heaven through faith alone?’

There is a tap on the door, the guards swing it open, and in walks Anne Askew, as trim and as pretty as if she had just come from the seamstress. She steps in, a gleeful little smile on her face, and dips a deep curtsey to me.

‘God bless us!’ Nan exclaims and, forgetting herself completely, crosses herself as if she were seeing a ghost.

‘You’re a welcome stranger!’ I say. ‘It’s a long time since we saw you! I was glad to know you were safe, that Bishop Bonner had released you, but we heard he sent you home. I didn’t think to see you again at court.’

‘Oh, yes, I was sent home to my husband,’ she says, quite matter-of-fact. ‘And I thank Your Majesty for letting it be known that I am under your protection. You saved me from more questioning, and a trial, I know. They did send me home to my husband, I was paroled into his keeping, but I have left him again and here I am.’

I smile at the boldness of the young woman. ‘Mistress Anne, you make it sound easy.’

‘As easy as sin,’ she says cheerfully. ‘But it is not sin, I promise you. My husband knows nothing of me, nor of my faith. I am as strange to him as a deer in the sheep pen. There is no way that we could marry in the sight of God and no way that such vows could be binding. He thinks as I do, though he has not the courage to say it to the bishop. He does not want me in his home, any more than I can tolerate being there. We cannot be yoked together – a deer and a sheep.’

Nan gets to her feet, alert as a yeoman of the guard. ‘But should you be here?’ she asks. ‘You cannot bring heresy to the queen’s rooms. You cannot come here if you have been ordered to stay with your husband, whether he is a sheep and you a deer or both of you a pair of fools.’

Anne puts out her hand to halt Nan’s anxious torrent of words. ‘I would never bring danger to Her Majesty’s door,’ she says calmly. ‘I know who I have to thank for my release. I owe you a debt for life,’ she adds with a little curtsey to me. Then she turns back to Nan. ‘They were satisfied with my answers. They questioned me over and over but I did not say a word that was not in the Bible and they had no handle to hold me, nor rope to hang me.’

Nan hides an involuntary shudder at the mention of the hangman and glances towards me. ‘Bishop Bonner has no complaint against you?’ she repeats incredulously.

Anne lets out a ringing, confident laugh. ‘That’s a man who would always be complaining about something. But there was nothing he could fix on me. The Lord Mayor asked me did I think the Host was holy, and I did not answer, because I know that it is illegal to speak of the bread of the Mass. He asked me if a mouse ate the Host would the mouse be holy? I just said, “Alack, poor mouse.” That was the best of his questions: trying to trap me with a holy mouse!’

Despite myself I cannot help but laugh, and Catherine Brandon catches my eye and she giggles.

‘Anyway, thank God that they released you, and obeyed the queen,’ Catherine says, recovering. ‘We are winning the argument, almost everyone is persuaded by the queen’s thinking. The king listens to her, and the whole court thinks as we do.’

‘And the queen has translated a book of prayers that have come out under her own name,’ Nan says proudly.

Anne turns her brown gaze to me. ‘Your Majesty, this is to use your education and your position for the good of all true believers, and especially for the good of women. To be a woman and to write! To be a woman and to publish!’

‘She is the first,’ Nan boasts. ‘The first woman to publish in the new printed books in England, the very first woman to publish in the English language. The first to write her own prayers and not merely translate.’

‘Hush,’ I say. ‘There are many scholars like me, and many better read. There have been women writers before me. But I am blessed with a husband who allows me to study and write, and we are all blessed with a king who allows the prayers of the church to be understood by his people.’

‘Thank God for him,’ Anne Askew says fervently. ‘Do you think he will allow the Bible back into the churches again for everyone to read?’

‘I am certain of it,’ I say. ‘For since he has commissioned a translation of the Mass, he is bound to want the Bible to be read to the people in English, and the Bible will be restored to the churches once more.’

‘Amen,’ Anne Askew says. ‘And my work will be done. For all I ever do is recite the words of the Bible that I have memorised, and explain what the words mean. Half the gospellers in London are nothing more than speaking Bibles. If the Bible were allowed back into the churches we would all be at peace. If the people can read it for themselves again it will be like the feeding of the multitude. It will be a miracle of our age.’