She turns to me and presents my gift. It is another translated book and she has embroidered a cover with the king’s name and my own. I exclaim with pleasure and show it to the king. He opens the book and sees the title, written in Elizabeth’s meticulous hand. It is an English translation of a book of theology by the reformist thinker Jean Calvin. Only a few years ago this would have been heresy, now it is a New Year’s present. It defines precisely how far we have come, what Elizabeth is allowed to read, and that reform is the new religion.
The king smiles at me and says, ‘You must read this to me and tell me what you think of it, and of my daughter’s scholarship.’
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer comes to me during the period of quiet study in my rooms and says that he would like to read to us the reforms he is going to suggest to the king, for our thoughts and comments. He glances at Princess Mary, who loves the old ways; but she bends her head, and says that she is sure that the good bishop will suggest only godly reforms, and that, anyway, nothing made by man is perfect. Anne of Cleves looks up with interest. She was raised as a Lutheran, she always hoped to bring sincere religious feeling into England. I have to take care not to look triumphant. This is God’s victory: not mine.
There is a small lectern in the corner of my presence chamber where the visiting preachers put their Bibles or their books and Thomas Cranmer places his sheaf of papers there, and looks shyly round at us.
‘I feel as if I am about to preach a sermon,’ he says, smiling.
‘We would welcome a sermon,’ I say. ‘We have had many godly preachers here, and you, dear archbishop, would be one of the greatest.’ I take care not to look at Anne of Cleves as I welcome a reformist archbishop to my rooms. If I believed in confession I would have to admit the sin of pride.
‘I thank you,’ he says. ‘But today I want to learn from you. I think my task has been to take the church’s many additions from the old act of the Mass. The challenge is to cut the words and actions of man and keep the intention of God.’
Anne Seymour and Catherine Brandon take up their sewing, but do not make so much as a stitch. I make no pretence of doing anything but listening. I fold my hands in my lap and Princess Elizabeth, sitting beside me, does the same, copying me exactly. Anne of Cleves sits beside her and puts her arm around Elizabeth’s narrow shoulders. I have to suppress a little pang of quite unworthy jealousy. Of course, she still thinks of herself as Elizabeth’s stepmother. She too cared for the motherless child. So does sin come into the smallest moments of daily life; but really, she was Elizabeth’s stepmother for no more than months!
The archbishop reads his list of proposed changes and his explanation. All the ritual of the church, which is nowhere described in the Bible, never required by Jesus, is to go. Curtseying to the cross, kneeling on command, all this must change. Old superstitions like ringing a peal of bells on All-Hallows Eve to scare away bad spirits and welcome the good saints, is to stop. Statues in churches will be rigorously inspected to see that they have no popish tricks like moving eyes or bleeding wounds. No-one is to pray to them as if they might intervene in day-to-day life, and they must remain uncovered during the season of Lent.
‘The Bible tells us that Christ fasted in the wilderness,’ Cranmer says reasonably. ‘That is all the model that we need to take for Lent.’
We agree. Even Princess Mary cannot defend the paganism of binding the statues’ eyes, or putting cloths over their heads.
Cranmer takes his changes to the king and then returns to my rooms elated.
‘Stephen Gardiner is still in Bruges working on the Spanish treaty, and so the king had no contrary voice urging him to the old ways,’ he says, delighted. ‘There was no-one there to accuse me of wrong-thinking. The Howards didn’t like it but the king is tired of them. He listened without argument. He was interested; indeed, he even suggested some more reforms to me himself.’
‘He did?’ Anne of Cleves asks, following the rapid talk.
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘I thought that he might,’ says Catherine Brandon. ‘He spoke to me about the danger of setting up a graven image. He thinks the people do not understand that the cross and the statues in church are there to represent God. They are signs, not objects of faith. They are not things to be worshipped for themselves.’
Without turning her head so much as an inch, Anne of Cleves slides her eyes towards mine to see if I have observed that Catherine Brandon is in the king’s confidence, and that he talks to her about religious reform. Anne of Cleves saw her maid-in-waiting pretty Kitty Howard dancing attendance on the king, absent without permission from the queen’s rooms. Now her sidelong glance asks me: is it the same for you?
I raise my eyebrows slightly. No, it is not the same for me. I have no concerns.
‘That’s what he said to me!’ Archbishop Cranmer says delightedly. ‘He suggests that there should be no kneeling to the cross, no bowing to the cross on entry to church, and no creeping to the cross from the church door on Good Friday.’
‘The cross is the symbol for the sacred crucifixion,’ Princess Mary objects. ‘It is revered for what it represents. Nobody thinks it is a graven image.’
There is a silence. ‘Actually, the king does,’ Catherine corrects her.
Instantly, Mary bows her head in obedience to the woman that people think is her father’s mistress. ‘Then I am sure he is right,’ she says quietly. ‘Who would know better than the king what his people think? And he has told us all that God has appointed him judge of these matters.’
We cannot discuss Thomas Cranmer’s reforms without mentioning the Mass, and we cannot discuss the Mass because it is illegal to speak of it. The king has outlawed debate on this most holy event. Only he shall think and speak.
‘And yet they can interrogate me,’ Anne Askew points out after she has delivered her sermon on the miracle of the wine at the wedding in Cana. ‘I may speak about the wedding wine, and about the wine at the Last Supper, but not the wine that is poured by a priest into a cup in the church in our own days, before our own eyes.’
‘You really may not,’ I say quietly. ‘I understand the point you are making, Mistress Askew, but you may not say it in words.’
She bows her head. ‘I would never speak of things that you wish to keep silent,’ she says carefully. ‘I would never bring trouble to your door.’
It is like a pledge between one honest woman and another. I smile at her. ‘I know you would not,’ I say. ‘I hope that there is no trouble for you, either.’
‘And what is your married name?’ Anne of Cleves asks abruptly.
Anne Askew’s beautiful face lights up with laughter. ‘His name was Thomas Kyme, Your Majesty,’ she says. ‘But I do not have a married name, for we were never married.’
‘You believe that you can be the one to declare that your marriage is over?’ asks the divorced queen who is now named princess, and is to be regarded as the king’s sister.
‘Nowhere in the Bible does it say that marriage is a sacrament,’ Anne replies. ‘It was not God who joined us together. The priest says it was; but this is not true. This is the word of the church, not the Bible. Our wedding, like every wedding, was an act of man, not of God. It was not a holy sacrament. My father forced me into an agreement with Thomas, and when I was old enough and had understanding enough I revoked that agreement. I claim the right to be a free woman, with a soul equal to any man under God.’
Anne of Cleves – another woman who was married with no choice, and divorced against her will – gives Anne Askew a little smile.
Thomas Cranmer goes home in triumph to codify the agreed reforms into a new law to put before parliament; but the king sends a message after to him to tell him to stop his work and do nothing.
‘I had to halt Thomas in his tracks the moment that I heard from Stephen Gardiner,’ he says to me as we watch a game of tennis at the royal court. The conversation is punctuated by the loud thwack of the racquet on the ball and then the delay as the ball rolls down the roof
to fall into the court below, and the players run into position to hit it again. I think that the king’s religious policy is like this – a great advance in one direction and then an immediate return.
‘Gardiner says he is very near to a treaty with the emperor at Bruges, but the emperor insists there are to be no new changes to the church in England. I don’t dance to his piping – don’t think that. But it’s worth my while to delay reform to please the emperor. I don’t want to upset him now. I have to measure what I do, measure like a philosopher, all the time, every little change. The emperor wants a treaty with me so that he is safe to attack the Lutherans in his empire, especially Germany.’
‘If only—’ I begin.
‘He’ll wipe them out, burn them all as heretics if he can.’ He smiles. He is always attracted by ruthless means. ‘He says he will stop at nothing to stamp them out. And where will you get your heretical books from then, my dear?’
I stammer a denial, but the king is not listening to me.
‘The emperor needs my help. He wants us to be at peace with France so that he can get on with knocking the Germans into orthodoxy. Of course he doesn’t want me stepping any further from the papists as he defends the pope’s church.’
‘But surely, my lord, you would never return England to the power of the pope in Rome,’ I observe. ‘You would never fail God in order to please the Spanish emperor? You would not serve the world and risk your honour?’
Henry applauds a shot well played on court. ‘I shall do as God guides me,’ he says flatly. ‘And His ways and my ways are mysterious indeed.’
I turn and applaud as he does. ‘That was hard!’ I exclaim. ‘I never thought he would get it.’
‘I would have got it easily when I was young,’ Henry remarks. ‘I was a champion tennis player. You ask Anne of Cleves. She will remember the sportsman I was!’
I smile past him to where she sits, on his other side, watching the game. I know she is listening; I know that she is thinking what she would have said if she had been in my place. I know that she would speak up for the people of her country who only want to read the Bible in their own language and worship God with simplicity. ‘Is it the case, Princess Anne?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she says agreeably. ‘His Majesty was the finest.’
‘She is a good companion for you.’ Henry turns to me and speaks in an undertone. ‘It is pleasant to have a beautiful woman like her at court, isn’t it?’
‘Why, yes.’
‘And she is so fond of Elizabeth.’
‘Yes, she is.’
‘Everyone tells me I should never have let her go,’ Henry says with a little self-conscious laugh. ‘If she had borne me a son he would be five years old now, think of that!’
I know that my smile has died. I don’t know what to think of that, or of this entire conversation. Has Henry forgotten that he never consummated his marriage with the now-desirable Anne of Cleves, telling everyone that she was too fat, and no virgin, and that she smelled so badly that he could not bring himself to do the act?
‘Some people say that she had a child by me,’ Henry whispers. He waves encouragement to the losing player, who bows his thanks.
‘They do?’
‘Nonsense, of course,’ he says. ‘You must pay no attention to what people say. You don’t listen to such gossip, do you, Kateryn?’
‘No,’ I reply.
‘Because d’you know what they are saying in France?’
I smile, ready to be amused. ‘What are they saying in France?’
‘That you are ill and are going to die. That I shall be a widower and free to marry again.’
I force a thin laugh. ‘How very ridiculous! But you can assure the French ambassador that I am very well indeed.’
‘I will tell him,’ Henry smiles. ‘Imagine them thinking that I would take another wife. Is it not ridiculous?’
‘Ridiculous indeed. Ridiculous. What are they thinking? Who is advising them? Where do they get these rumours from?’
‘So, no reform,’ Archbishop Cranmer says to me when I come to church to pray and find him kneeling before the cross. His old face looks tired in the light of the candles from the altar. He had thought and studied and prayed on the reforms that the church needed, and then found that one letter from Bishop Gardiner turned the king around again.
‘No reform yet,’ I correct him. ‘But who can doubt that God will shine the light of learning on England and its king? I have hope. I have faith, even when progress is so very slow.’
‘And he listens to you,’ Thomas says. ‘He is proud of your scholarship and he takes your advice. If you will keep warning him against the power and corruption of Rome, and advising him to be tolerant of the new thinking, we will go on. I am sure we will go on.’ He smiles. ‘He once called me the greatest heretic in Kent,’ he says. ‘But still I am his bishop and his spiritual advisor. He will tolerate discussion from those he loves. He is generous to me and to you.’
‘He is never anything but kind to me,’ I confirm. ‘When we first married I feared him, but I have come to trust him. Except for when he is in pain, or when he is angry about something, or when things are going badly, he is always patient and generous.’
‘We two who are honoured with his affection and trust, will work for his good and the good of the kingdom,’ Thomas Cranmer pledges. ‘You, with the cause of reform in the court, teaching them the right way with your rooms a beacon of learning, and I will keep the clergy to the Bible. The Word, the Word; there is nothing greater than the Word of God.’
‘He spoke today of a war on the reformers in Germany,’ I say. ‘I am afraid that the emperor is planning a terrible purge of believers, a massacre. But there was no way for me to speak against it.’
‘There will always be times when he won’t listen. Just bide your time and speak when you can.’
‘He spoke also of rumours that Anne of Cleves had his child, and he said that she was an ornament to our court. He told me that people are saying that I am ill and likely to die.’
Thomas Cranmer looks at me as if he fears what I might say next. Gently he rests his hand on my head in a blessing. ‘As long as you never do anything wrong, then God will protect you, and the king will love you,’ he says quietly. ‘But you have to be completely innocent of any sin, my daughter, completely innocent of any imputation of sin. You must always show wifely loyalty and wifely obedience. Always make sure of that.’
‘I am innocent of sin,’ I maintain stubbornly. ‘You don’t have to caution me. I am Caesar’s wife – no-one can say anything against me.’
‘I am glad of it,’ replies Thomas Cranmer, who has seen two adulterous queens climb the steps to the scaffold and not defended them. ‘I am glad of it. I could not bear . . .’
‘But how am I to think? How am I to write? How am I to speak to him of reform without offending him?’ I ask bluntly.
‘God will guide you,’ the old churchman says. ‘You must have courage, you must use your God-given wits and your God-given voice, and you must not let the old papists of the court tame you. You must be free to speak. He will love that in you. Don’t waver. You are the God-given leader for reform at court. Take your courage – do your work.’
GREENWICH PALACE, SPRING 1546
In February the king’s fever returns.
‘No-one can care for me like William Butts used to do,’ he says miserably. ‘I shall die for lack of good doctoring.’
He demands that I come to his bedside but he is ashamed of the smell in the room that no oils and herbs can conceal, and he does not like me to see his linen shirt wet in the armpits and stained at the front with constant sweat. But worse than this, he is starting to think that this is not ill health, but old age. He is sinking into a dark fearfulness of death that nothing but the return of his health will lift.
‘Doctor Wendy will do his best for you,’ I say. ‘He is so faithful and careful. And I pray for you every morning and night.’
‘And bad
news from Boulogne,’ he remembers miserably. ‘That young fool Henry Howard is squandering everything I have gained there. He’s boastful, Kateryn. He’s vain. I have recalled him and I will send out Edward Seymour to take his place. I can trust Edward to keep my castle safe.’
‘He will keep it safe,’ I say soothingly. ‘You need not fear.’
‘But what if I don’t get better?’ His eyes, tiny in his puffy face, squint at me as fearfully as a child. ‘There is Edward, of no age, there is Mary who would turn to Spain in a moment. If I were to die now, this month, the country would be at war again by Easter. I wouldn’t trust any one of them not to take arms, and they would say they were fighting for the pope or fighting for the Bible, and all they would do would be to plunge this country into an internal war, and the French would invade.’
I sit at his bedside and take his damp hand. ‘No, no,’ I say. ‘For you will get better.’
‘If I had a second son, I would be at peace,’ he frets. ‘If you were carrying a child at least I would know that there was the chance of another son.’
‘Not yet,’ I say carefully. ‘But I don’t doubt that God will be good to us.’
He looks dissatisfied. ‘You will be Regent General,’ he reminds me. ‘It will all fall on you. You will have to keep them at peace while Edward grows up.’
‘I know I can,’ I say. ‘For so many of your councillors love you and have promised their duty to your son. There would be no war. There would be a loving care of him. The Seymour brothers would protect him, their nephew. John Dudley would support them. Thomas Cranmer would serve him as he does you. But it will never happen, for you will be well as the weather turns brighter.’
‘I see you only name reformers?’ he demands, his eyes sharp and suspicious. ‘You are of the reform party, as people say. You are not on my side, you are on theirs.’
‘No indeed, I acknowledge the good men of all points of view. No-one can doubt that Stephen Gardiner loves you and your son. The Howards are true to you and to Prince Edward. We would all protect him and bring him to the throne.’