The Taming of the Queen

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, WINTER 1545

In the quiet days before the start of the Christmas feast the king is troubled and openly irritated that neither his traditional advisors nor his new thinkers can get a truce with France. Charles of Spain is now urging that a truce be made so that he is free to turn on his own subjects. He is determined to stamp out the reformers in Flanders and the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. He says that he and Henry must forget their enmity against France to confront a greater danger. They must all three join together to make war against the Lutherans. He says that this must be the new crusade, that they must make war against people who are such sinners, they think that the Bible is the best guide to life.

I pray for the safety of the men and women of God in England, in Germany, in every corner of Christendom, who have done nothing wrong but have read the Word of God and study it in their hearts. Then they speak. Why should they not? Why should the scholars of the church and the priests of the church and – yes – the bullies and soldiers of the church be the only ones who can announce the truth as they see it?

Stephen Gardiner, still in Bruges, still desperately trying to gain a peace treaty with France, is passionately for peace with France and Spain, arguing in favour of a bloodstained crusade against Lutherans everywhere, especially in Germany, to start at once.

‘God only knows what he is offering, what he is promising on my behalf,’ Henry grumbles to me as we sit quietly playing cards together one evening.

Around us the court is dancing and flirting, someone is singing, and there is a small group standing around us, watching the play and betting on the outcome. Catherine Brandon is at the king’s elbow. He shows her his cards and asks for her advice, and she smiles and swears she will signal to me so that I have the advantage. Most people bet on the king. He does not like to lose. He does not even like someone betting against him. I see a weak card that he plays and I do not trump it. He roars at my mistake and scoops up the trick.

‘Shall you summon Bishop Gardiner home?’ I ask as calmly as I can. ‘Do you agree with him that the emperor should make a war against his own people?’

‘For certain they go too far in Germany,’ Henry says. ‘And these German princes have been no help to me at all. I won’t defend them. Why should I? They don’t understand the ways of man, why should they grasp the ways of God?’

I glance up and see Edward Seymour, Thomas’s brother, watching me. I know that he hopes that I will use my influence to persuade the king that the Lutherans in Germany should be spared, and that the new thinking in England should be allowed. But I walk a very careful course with the king. I have heard Nan’s warnings and I am wary of making enemies. I know by now that when the king complains of one side he is often, at the very same time, working against the other. People overestimate my influence when they blame me for reform. I use my influence lightly, and there is a portrait hanging on the wall that denies I even exist.

‘Surely it cannot be wrong to think that we should live by the Bible, and that we will go to heaven by faith and the forgiveness of our sins,’ I remark.

Henry glances up from his hand of cards. ‘I see you are no better a theologian than you are a card player,’ he says. His twinkle of a smile takes the sting from his words.

‘I don’t expect to understand more about religion than you, my lord husband,’ I say. ‘And I certainly never expect to beat you at cards.’

‘And what about my girls?’ he asks, turning to Princess Mary, who stands at his elbow, while Elizabeth leans against my chair.

‘Cards or scholarship?’ Elizabeth asks pertly.

Her father laughs. ‘Which do you prefer?’

‘Scholarship,’ she says. ‘Because it is a privilege to be allowed to study, especially with a scholar like the queen; but cards are a pastime for anyone.’

‘Quite right,’ he says. ‘And only the learned and the thoughtful should study and discourse. Holy things should be considered in quiet and holy places, and only by those fit to understand them under the guidance of the church. Cards are for the taproom; the Bible is only for those who can read and understand it.’

Princess Mary nods, and he smiles at her. ‘I take it that you are not one for the wayside sermon, bawled out by any fool perched on a milestone, my Mary?’

She curtseys before she speaks to him. ‘I think the church must teach the people,’ she says. ‘They cannot teach themselves.’

‘That’s what I think,’ Henry says. ‘That’s just what I think.’

The king takes this careless talk at the card table and uses it as the basis for his speech to parliament. He goes to them on Christmas Eve, as the members are thinking about calling for their horses and going to their homes for the season. He makes a grand entrance, as the nation’s father, coming to address his people on the very night before the birth of Christ, like a fat lame herald angel, to tell them how Christ is to be served by them, here on earth. Everyone knows that this is to be a great statement of the king’s belief, perhaps the last that he ever makes, and that whether they agree or not, they had better be there. The kingdom knows what I believe – they have read the liturgy that I translated with Thomas Cranmer. They see me as temperate, traditional, but with a focus on personal belief, personal prayer. Some may suspect me of leaning towards reform but everything I have publicly authored has been approved by the king and cannot be heretical. They have seen Stephen Gardiner’s beliefs in the uncompromising King’s Book, which defines hundreds of true believers as heretics, so they feel the tide is against reform. But always, until now, they have had to guess at the king’s beliefs. He has written books and banned them, he has given people the Bible and taken it away again, he has told them that he is the Supreme Head of the church, but never before has he told them what he believes. Never before has the king gone to his parliament in person, and told them directly what they are to think about God.

Men are moved to tears. The crowds outside, gathered to see the great procession led by the huge king, stand with their heads uncovered as some climb up to peer in through the open windows of Westminster Hall and then shout down what the king, seated like a mountain on his throne under the golden cloth of estate, has pronounced. People are desperate to know if he will be like a German prince and pronounce for reform of the church, or whether he will be like the French king and the Spanish emperor and defend the old ways of the old church and ally with the pope.

‘It’s bad,’ Anne Seymour says to me shortly. ‘We’ve lost.’ She is first into my rooms with the news. Her husband, Edward, stood beside the king, his face impassive as the king complained bitterly to his commons that they mangled the Word of God in taverns and took His name in vain. As soon as they got back from parliament Edward came straight to his wife and muttered his report to her.

‘It’s very bad for those who think as we do. The king is moving back to the old ways. It will be the Catholic church as it was, everything is to be restored, and there are some who say that he will join in communion with the Greek Church.’

‘Greek?’ I say blankly. ‘What has the Greek Church to do with England?

She looks at me as if my husband is as ineffable as God himself. ‘Anyone but Protestants,’ she says bitterly. ‘That’s what he means. Anyone but reformers. He told parliament that he is tired of the constant debate and the questioning of the Bible. He is tired of the gospellers. He is tired of all the thinking and writing and publishing. Of course, he fears that people will question him next. He told them that he had given them the Bible only for men to read to their own families. They are not to discuss it.’

‘The Bible is only for men?’

She nods. ‘He says that it is for him to judge between truth and error. They are not to think, they are merely to read aloud to their household and children.’

I bow my head under this insult to God-given intelligence.

‘But then – just when you think that he is going back to papistry – he says that he is going to pull down all the chantries, and take their lands.’

This makes no sense. ‘Destroy the chantries and abolish Masses for the dead?’

‘He says it is nothing but a hollow superstition. He says that there is no purgatory and so no need for Masses for the dead and so no need for chantries.’

‘He says that there is no purgatory?’

‘He says it has been a way for the old church to make money from the innocent people.’

‘He’s right!’

‘But at the same time the service of the Mass is to be unchanged, with all the bobbing and bowing and ducking. And the bread and wine is to be regarded as the true body and blood. And it is heresy to question this.’

I look at her with a sort of despair. ‘What does your husband think that the king actually believes? In his heart?’

She shrugs. ‘Nobody knows. It is half Lutheranism and half Catholic, it is papist with the king as pope, it is Lutheranism with the king as Luther. It has become a religion quite of his own making. That’s why he has to keep explaining it to us. And so heresy, too, is what he says it is. We are all of us – papists and Protestants, Lutherans and gospellers alike – in danger.’

‘But what does he believe? Anne, we have to know. What does the king believe?’

‘All sorts of things, all at once.’

The king comes home very tired, and sends for me to visit him in his rooms. They have already put him to bed, and I hesitate on the threshold, wondering if he intended me to come in my nightgown, to bed him.

He beckons me in. ‘Come in,’ he says. ‘Sit with me. I want to tell you all about it before I sleep. You will have heard that they were in awe of me at Westminster? They wept as I told them I was their father and I would have command of them. They said that they had never heard such a speech before.’

‘How wonderful,’ I say faintly. ‘And how good you are to make the effort to go out to them, and on Christmas Eve as well.’

He waves a fat hand. ‘I wanted them to know my mind,’ he says. ‘It is important that they are clear. I think for them, I decide for them, they must know what I am thinking. How else are they to find their way through life? How else get to heaven?’

The door behind me opens and the first of the servers comes in with a platter and a spoon and knife. The king is to be served his dinner in bed. One after another the men come in with dish after dish. Henry piles food on his platter as they wrap a great linen napkin under his chin to keep the bedclothes from being spattered with juices from the meats and sauces. I am served in my seat at a table at the foot of the great bed and I eat slowly, so that we may finish our meal together. Henry’s plate is constantly replenished and he drinks at least three bottles of wine, the meal takes for ever, and when he waves the last dish away he throws himself back against the pillows, exhausted and sweating. I am nauseous just from watching the huge plates of food come and go.

‘Should you see the doctor?’ I ask him. ‘Is your fever rising?’

He shakes his head. ‘Doctor Wendy can attend me later,’ he says. ‘Did you know that Doctor Butts is ill?’ He gives a wheezy laugh. ‘What sort of a doctor is that? I sent him a message – what sort of doctor are you, too sick to attend his patient?’

‘How amusing. But is he at court? Is he cared for?’

‘I think he went home,’ Henry says indifferently. ‘He knows better than to bring illness to court. As soon as he had the first symptom he sent me a message to tell me that he would not come near me till he is well again. He begged my pardon for not being able to attend to me. He should be here. I knew I would be overtaxed, going to my people, taking my wisdom to my people, like that. In this cold weather.’

I nod to the servers to take everything from the room but to bring the king another bottle of wine and the sweet pastries that he likes to have beside the bed in case he is hungry during the night.

‘I was inspiring.’ He belches with quiet satisfaction. ‘They listened to me in complete silence. When people talk about preaching, they should have heard me in Westminster this evening! People who call for a new prophet should have heard me speak tonight! I am a father to my people, and a better father than the false priest they call the Holy Father in Rome!’

‘Did someone write it down so that others can read it?’ I ask.

He nods. His eyes are closing like a sleepy child after a busy day. ‘I hope so,’ he says. ‘I shall see that you get a copy. You will want to study it, I know.’

‘I will,’ I say.

‘I have pronounced,’ he says. ‘That is the end of all argument.’

‘Yes. Shall I leave you to sleep, husband?’

‘Stay,’ he says. ‘Stay. I have hardly seen you all day. Did you sit beside old Latimer’s bed?’

‘Hardly ever,’ I lie. ‘He was not a husband to me as you are, my lord.’

‘I thought not,’ he says. ‘You must have had a moment, when he was dying, when you thought you would be free of all husbands. Did you? When you thought you would be a widow, with your own little estate and your own fortune? Perhaps you even picked out a handsome young man?’ The little eyes open, twinkle with sly amusement.

It is illegal for a woman to marry the king if she has any hidden love affairs in her past. These are dangerous words for a bedtime story.

‘I thought I would be a widow living only for my family, just like your grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort,’ I smile. ‘But a great destiny called me.’

‘The greatest destiny a woman can have,’ he agrees. ‘But why do you think you have not conceived, Kateryn?’

The question is so unexpected that I give a little start. His eyes are closed; perhaps he does not see it. I think at once, guiltily, of the purse of herbs and Nan’s terror that if I do not prevent it, he will give me some monstrous miscarriage. It is not possible that someone in my rooms has told him of the herbs. I am certain that no-one would betray me. No-one knows but Nan and me. Even the maid who brings the hot water knows nothing more than that she brings a jug of hot water for a morning tisane, now and then.

‘I don’t know, husband,’ I say humbly. ‘Sometimes it takes time, I suppose.’

He opens his eyes. Now he is completely wide awake, as if he was never drowsy. ‘It never took time for me before,’ he says. ‘I have three children, as you see, from three different mothers. And there were others, of course. They all conceived at once, within the first months. I am potent, royally potent.’

‘Indeed.’ I can feel my anxiety rising. This sounds like a trap, but I cannot see how to avoid it. ‘I see it.’

‘So it must be some fault in you,’ he says pleasantly enough. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Lord Latimer was not capable, so I never expected a child from him, and when I married my first husband I was too young, and we were hardly ever together.’ Pointless to say that you, my third husband, the king, are an old man, sick as a fat dog, rarely potent, probably sterile, and that the wives that you now remember as so readily fertile were the wives of your youth, the first three, and now they are all dead: one was beheaded by you, two died of your neglect. They miscarried time after time, except the third, the one who died in her first childbed.

‘Do you think that God does not smile on our marriage? Since he gives you no child, you must think that.’

The king’s God sent him one dead baby after another in his first marriage until the king realised that God was not smiling A tiny squirm of protest turns in my mind. It is such blasphemy to call in God when the truth is something that we simply don’t understand. I cannot have God in this conversation as a witness against me. God should not bear witness against yet another of Henry’s wives. I think God Himself would be unwilling to argue that Kateryn Parr should be put aside. I feel my temper silently rise.

‘Who can doubt His blessing?’ I assert boldly, gripping my hands on the arms of the chair, nerving myself to go on. ‘Since you are so well and so strong and so potent, and we have had so many happy months together? Two and a half years of success? Your capture of Boulogne and the defeat of the Scots? Our happiness with your children? Who can doubt that God smiles on you, a king like you? He must smile on your marriage too? A marriage of your own choice when you honoured me with your favour. Who can doubt that God smiled on me when you chose me, and when you persuaded me, against my own humility, that I might become your wife? We cannot doubt that God loves you and inspires you. We cannot doubt that you have His favour.’

I have saved myself. I see the pleased smile spread across his face as he relaxes into sleep. ‘You are right,’ he says. ‘Of course. And a child born to you must follow. God’s blessing is on me. He knows that I have only ever done the right thing.’

The doctor, Sir William Butts, does not come back to court as he promised. He died of his fever, far away from the court, and we don’t even hear of it until after Christmas. The king says that no-one else understands his constitution, no-one else can keep him well as Doctor Butts could do. He feels that it was wrong and selfish of the doctor to leave court so abruptly and die in such inconsiderate haste. He takes the draughts that Doctor Wendy prepares for him, he keeps him at his bedside night and day, but he complains that he will never be well now that Doctor Butts is not there to soothe his temper and diminish his fever.

‘And we have lost a good friend and an advisor,’ Anne Seymour remarks to me and to Catherine Brandon. ‘Doctor Butts would often ask the king to ignore a piece of gossip against a Lutheran, or to release a preacher. He never declared his own opinions, but he often asked the king to be merciful. He was a good man to have at the king’s side.’

‘Especially when the king was in pain and angry,’ Catherine agrees. ‘My husband used to say that Doctor Butts could soothe the king when no-one else could do it. And he was a most honest believer in reform.’ She smooths out her skirt and admires the shine on the satin. ‘But still we make progress, Anne. The king has asked Thomas Cranmer to make a list of old superstitions in the church that should be banned.’

‘How do you know? What has he told you?’ Anne asks. I hear the hostility in her voice and remember that she is always anxious about someone who might rise in prestige and diminish her, or her husband.

Catherine is trying to manage a difficult relationship with the king: constantly at his side, his favourite flirt, ignored as a councillor but relished as a partner at cards. This is a path that many have trod before her: four ladies-in-waiting have become queen – I am only the most recent. Now Catherine is the most favoured lady at court, and Anne Seymour, who never ceases to measure her husband’s prestige as the uncle of the prince, is painfully jealous. Surely, the danger is to me, but Anne thinks only of herself.

‘He is going to establish two colleges, just as he promised Her Majesty,’ Catherine says, smiling at me. ‘One at Oxford and one at Cambridge. This is learned work, just as Her Majesty asked him to do. They will teach the new learning and they will preach in English.’

‘He’s planning to send my husband, Edward, to Boulogne to replace that fool young Henry Howard,’ Anne says anxiously. ‘The Howards are in disgrace for Henry’s rashness and incompetence – which is all to our good – but with my husband away from court, who is going to keep us Seymours in the king’s remembrance? How shall we stay in favour? How can we be influential?’

‘Ah, the Seymours,’ Catherine says sweetly. ‘The Seymours! The Seymours! Just when we thought we were talking of the friends that we could trust to bring the king and the church closer to God, I find that we are actually talking about the rise of the Seymours, once more. Again.’

‘We don’t need to rise,’ Anne replies irritably. ‘We are high in favour. We Seymours are kin to the only Tudor heir, and Prince Edward loves his uncles.’

‘But it is the queen who is named as regent,’ Catherine reminds her silkily. ‘And the king prefers her company, and even mine, to yours. And if Edward is sent to Boulogne, and Thomas is always at sea, who will keep the king in mind of the Seymours indeed? Do you have any friends at all?’

‘Peace,’ I say quietly. But it is not their wrangling that disturbs me. It is that I cannot bear to hear his name. I cannot bear to think that while I am trapped in a court that seems smaller and more confining every day, he is always, always far away.