The Taming of the Queen

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, WINTER 1546

The king’s health worsens as the season turns, and Doctor Wendy says that he has uncontrollable fevers that cannot be cooled. While he sweats and rages in his delirium the heat rises from his overburdened heart to his brain and may prove too much for him. The doctor suggests a course of baths and the court moves to Whitehall so that the king can be dipped in hot water and swaddled like a baby in scented drying sheets to draw the poisons from him. This seems to help and he recovers a little; but then he says that he wants to go to Oatlands.

Edward Seymour comes to my rooms to consult with me. ‘He’s hardly well enough to travel,’ he says. ‘I thought the court would stay here for Christmas.’

‘Doctor Wendy says that he should not be crossed.’

‘Nobody wants to cross him,’ Edward rejoins. ‘God knows that. But he cannot risk his health going by barge on the winter river to Oatlands.’

‘I know. But I can’t tell him that.’

‘He listens to you,’ he reminds me. ‘He trusts you with everything, his thoughts, his son, his country.’

‘He listens to his grooms of the chamber as much as he does to me,’ I say stubbornly. ‘Ask Anthony Denny or William Herbert to speak to him. I will agree with them if he asks me. But I can’t advise him against his wishes.’ I think of the whip that he keeps in a cupboard somewhere in his bedroom. I think of the ivory codpiece stained with blood from the broken skin of my lips. ‘I do what he commands,’ I say shortly.

Edward looks at me with a thoughtful expression. ‘In the future,’ he says carefully, ‘in the future, you may have to make decisions for his son, and for his country. You may be the one who commands.’

It is illegal to speak of the death of the king. It is treason to even suggest that his health is failing. I shake my head in silence.