‘So you do think I will die!’ He crows at having trapped me. ‘You think you will outlive another old husband and enjoy a widow’s estate.’ His face flushes red as his anger rises. ‘You sit there, at my sickbed, and imagine the day you will be free of me and free to take some worthless lad as your next husband, the fourth! You, who have wedded and bedded three men, are thinking of the next!’
I hide my shock at his sudden fury and I stay very calm. ‘My lord husband, I am sure you will recover from this fever, as you have from the injuries of your youth. I was trying to reassure you so that you would not worry on your sickbed. I pray for nothing but your health and I know that it will be restored to you.’
He glares at me, as if he would see past my steady gaze and into my heart. I meet his eyes without flinching, for so much that I say is true. I honour him, I love him as a loyal subject and an honourable wife who has promised before God to love him. I never think of his death. It has been a long time since I dreamed of being free. I truly believe that he will recover from this illness and go on and on. This marriage will be my last. I may go to my grave loving Thomas Seymour, but I never think now that we will be together some day. There are no imaginable circumstances in which we could be together. He never looks at me, and I keep my passionate thoughts to myself and see his smile only in rare erotic dreams.
‘You cannot doubt my love for you,’ I whisper.
‘You pray for my health,’ the king says, soothed at the thought of me on my knees.
‘I do. Daily.’
‘And when the preachers come to your room and you read the Bible do you speak of a wife’s obedience to her husband?’
‘We do. We all know that a wife worships God in her husband. That is unquestioned.’
‘And do you doubt purgatory?’ he asks.
‘I think a good Christian goes to heaven because of the saving grace of Jesus,’ I say carefully.
‘At his death? At the exact hour and minute of his death?’
‘I don’t know when, exactly.’
‘So will you pay for Masses for me? Will you establish a chantry for me?’
How to answer this? ‘Whatever you wish,’ I promise him. ‘Whatever Your Majesty would prefer. But I don’t expect to see it.’
His little mouth trembles. ‘Death,’ he repeats. ‘Thank God I am afraid of nothing. It’s just that I cannot imagine the country without me. I cannot imagine a world without me here, without the king that I have become, the husband that I am.’
I smile tenderly. ‘I can’t imagine such a thing either.’
‘And your loss.’ He gives a little choke. ‘Yours, especially.’
His grief is catching; tears come to my own eyes. I press his hand to my lips. ‘Not for years yet,’ I assure him. ‘If ever. I might die before you.’
‘You might,’ he says, cheered at once. ‘I suppose you might. You might die in childbirth like so many women. Because you are quite old to have a first child, aren’t you?’
‘I am,’ I say. ‘But I pray that God will grant us a child. Perhaps in the summer when you are well again?’
‘Well enough to come to your bed and make another Tudor heir?’ he asks.
I turn down my eyes and nod modestly.
‘You long for me,’ he says, his mouth moist now and smiling.
‘I do,’ I whisper.
‘I should think so!’ the king says more cheerfully. ‘I should think so.’
Despite this promise he continues to be feverish and his leg gives him terrible pain for a long dark month. He is no better in spring – which comes slowly to the gardens of Greenwich Palace and makes the trees bud with life and shiver into leaf on the riverside walks, and the birds sing so loudly that they wake me at dawn every morning, which comes earlier and earlier and is warmer every day.
The lenten lilies swell and then flower beside the paths, their bright trumpet blooms like a shout of joy and hope, but the king keeps to his rooms with a table crowded with draughts and tinctures and herbs and jars of leeches, the shutters tightly closed against the dangerous fresh air. Doctor Wendy composes one physic after another, trying to keep the fever down, trying to cleanse out the suppurating wound on Henry’s leg, which gapes still wider, like a bloody mouth, as it eats into the flesh towards the bone. Two pages are dismissed, one for fainting at the sight of it, and one for saying in chapel that we should pray for the king as he is being eaten alive. Henry’s friends and courtiers gather around him, as if they are all under siege from disease, and each one tries to improve his position with the king in case this is not just another flaring up of fever and pain, but the beginning of a final illness.
It falls to me to dine before the court, to order the entertainments, and to make sure that the royal household runs as smoothly reporting to me as it does when it is reporting to the king. I even confer with the rivals Edward Seymour and Thomas Howard to see that there is nothing troubling, difficult or dangerous in the Privy Council reports to the king before they take them in to him. When the Spanish envoys visit with a new plan for a treaty against France so that the emperor can move against the Lutherans and Protestants in his land, they call on me in my rooms before they attend the king.
They do this in the morning, in order to avoid the embarrassment of arriving at my rooms when the preachers of reform are there. They would be horrified to bump into Anne Askew: a reformer and an intelligent woman. It is bitter for me to have to smile and greet them, knowing that they are seeking the friendship of England only to be strong enough to hunt down and murder men and women in Germany who believe as we do. But they come and speak of their plans, trusting that I will serve the interests of my country before anything, and I do my duty and greet them with politeness and assure them of our friendship.
It is well known that the afternoon is the time for our sermon and our study. The best preachers in England travel down the river to attend my rooms and speak of the Word of God and how it can be applied in daily life, and how the man-made rituals can be scoured from a clean pure church. In these long weeks of Lent we have some inspiring sermons. Anne Askew comes several times, and Hugh Latimer often. Members of the court come to listen, even one of the Howards, Tom, the old duke’s second son, makes his bow and asks if he may sit at the back and listen. I know that his lordship would be appalled to know that his son thinks as I do, but the yeast is spreading through the thick dough of court and the people will rise to holiness. I’m certainly not going to forbid a good young man to come to Jesus, even if he is a Howard.
These are the best theologians that England has, in touch with the reformers in Europe, and as I listen to them and sometimes debate with them, I am inspired to write a new book, one that I don’t mention to the king because I know that it will go too far for him. But I am more and more convinced by the rightness of the Lutheran view, and more and more opposed to the superstitious paganism of the old church, and I want to write – I have to write. When I have a thought in my head, when I breathe a prayer in the chapel, I have a great desire to see it set down on a page. I feel as if I can think only when I see the words flowing from the nib of my quill, that my thoughts only make sense when they are black ink on cream paper. I love the sensation of a thought in my head and the vision of the word on the page. I love that God gave the Word to the world, and that I can work in His chosen form.
The king started the reform but now he is old and fearful he has halted. I wish he would go further. The influence of Stephen Gardiner, even at a distance, seems to blight any new thinking. The power of Spain should not dictate the beliefs of English men and women. The king hopes to create his own religion, an idiosyncratic combination of all the views of Christendom, picking the elements that he likes, the rituals that move him, the prayers that strike him. But this cannot be the way to worship God. The king cannot cling to the empty gestures of his childhood for sentiment, he cannot retain the expensive ritual that the old church loves. He has to think, he has to reason, he has to lead the church with wisd
om, not with nostalgia for the past and fear of Spain.
I will have to write with care, always aware that my rivals at court will read it and use it against me if they can; but I am driven to tell the truth as I see it. I am going to call this new work The Lamentation of a Sinner as an echo of the title of a book by another learned lady, Margaret of Navarre, who wrote Mirror of the Sinful Soul. She had the courage to write and publish under her own name, and some day so will I. She was accused of heresy but it did not stop her thinking and writing, and I will not stop either. I will make it clear that the only forgiveness of sins, and the only way to heaven, is through personal faith and a complete commitment to Christ. The lie of purgatory, the nonsense of the chantries, the superstitions of indulgences, pilgrimages, Masses – none of these mean anything to God. They have all been created by man to make money. All that God requires of us was explained by His Son in the precious gospels. We do not need the long explanations of scholars, we do not need the magic and tricks of the monks. We need the Word. Nothing but the Word.
I am the sinner of the title, though my greatest sin I keep concealed. In my daily life I sin in my constant love for Thomas. His face comes to me when I am dreaming and when I am waking and – worst of all – when I am praying and should have my mind on the cross. The only thing that comforts me for sacrificing him is the knowledge that I have given him up so that I can do God’s work. I have given him for my soul, for the souls of all Christians in England that they may pray in a true church. I have surrendered the great love of my life for God, and I will bring reformed religion into England so that my suffering is worthwhile.
I pray for him; I fear he is in constant danger. His ships are commanded to take his brother, Edward, as the new commander, and reinforcements to Boulogne, and I have a long night of vigil when I think that Thomas may attack the French fleet, within the very reach of their shore guns, to clear the seas for his brother’s safety. I go down in the morning, white-faced, to see Edward Seymour leave. He is leading his men down to Portsmouth to take ship.
‘Godspeed,’ I say to him miserably. I cannot send him with a message for Thomas. I cannot even name him, not even to his brother. ‘I shall pray for you and for all in your company,’ I say. ‘I wish you very well.’
He bows. He turns and kisses his wife, Anne, goodbye and then he mounts his horse, wheels it around and salutes us all, as if he were a hero in a portrait, and leads his men out, south down the muddy lanes to Portsmouth and over the rough seas, stormy with spring gales, to France.
For several weeks we wait for news from Boulogne. We hear that they have landed safely and are preparing to engage the French forces. We are on the brink of war again with Edward commanding on land and Thomas at sea, but then the king decides that he is not yet ready to fight the French, and orders them all back. He says that John Dudley and Edward Seymour must meet with the French envoys and write a treaty of peace.
I don’t think of the small English force trying to defend Boulogne. I don’t even think of the fleet on the dark seas with the high spring tides. I just think that my prayers have been answered by a caring God, a God that loves Thomas for his bright courage as I do. God has saved Thomas Seymour because I prayed for him with all my heart, with my sinful, sorry heart, and I go to the chapel and gaze up at the cross and thank God that there will be no war and death has missed Thomas once again.
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1546
I am seated at my table, books all around me, ink drying on the nib of my quill as I try to find the right thing to say, how to express the concept of obedience to God, which is such a central part of the God-given duty of a woman, when Princess Mary comes into the room and curtseys to me. The ladies of my court look up. Each of us has a book or some writing – we could be posing for a drawing of a godly company – but all of us are alerted by Princess Mary’s grave face and the way she comes to my table and says quietly: ‘May I speak with Your Majesty?’
‘Of course, Princess Mary,’ I say formally. ‘Will you sit?’
She draws up a stool to the table and sits at the head of it so that she can lean towards me and speak very quietly. My sister, Nan, always ready to protect me from trouble, says, ‘Why don’t you read to us, Princess Elizabeth?’ and Elizabeth stands at the lectern, puts her book on it and offers to translate extempore from Latin to English.
I see Mary’s doting smile at her clever little sister and then she turns back to me and her face is grave. ‘Did you know that my father has proposed a match for me?’ she asks.
‘Not that he was ready to go ahead,’ I say. ‘He spoke to me some time ago only of a marriage that might come. Who is it?’
‘I thought you might know. I am to marry the heir of the Elector.’
‘Who?’ I ask, completely baffled.
‘Otto Henry,’ she says. ‘His Majesty my father wants to create an alliance with the German princes against France. I was very surprised but it seems that he has decided to side with the German Lutherans against Spain after all. I would be married to a Lutheran and sent to Neuburg. England will become Lutheran, or wholly reformed, at the very least.’
She looks at my aghast expression. ‘I thought that Your Majesty had such sympathies,’ she says carefully. ‘I thought you would be pleased.’
‘I might be pleased by England becoming fully reformed in religion and by an alliance with the German princes, but I am shocked at the thought of you going to Bavaria. To a country where they might have a religious rebellion, with your father allied to their emperor? What is he thinking? This is to send you into certain danger, to face an invasion from your own Spanish kinsman!’
‘And I believe that I would be expected to take up my husband’s religion,’ she says quietly. ‘There is no intention to protect my faith.’ She hesitates. ‘My mother’s faith,’ she adds. ‘You know that I cannot betray it. I don’t know what to do.’
This is against tradition as well as respect for the princess and her faith and her church. Wives must raise the children in the faith of their husband, but are always allowed to retain their own faith.
‘The king expects you to become a Lutheran?’ I ask. ‘A Protestant?’
Her hand drops into the pocket of her gown where I know she keeps her mother’s rosary. I imagine the cool beads and the tenderly carved coral crucifix between her fingers.
‘Your Majesty, Lady Mother, did you not know of this?’
‘No, my dearest. He spoke of it as one of his plans; no more. I did not know it had gone this far.’
‘He is going to call it the League Christian,’ she says. ‘He will be the head.’
‘I am so sorry,’ I whisper.
‘You know that they threatened me with death if I did not swear that my father was Supreme Head of the church,’ she whispers. ‘Thomas Howard, the old duke, threatened to smash my head against the wall until it was as soft as a baked apple. They tamed me as surely as they took a whip to me. The pope himself sent me a message to say that I might take the oath and he would forgive me. I failed my mother then, I betrayed her faith. I can’t do it again.’
Wordlessly, I feel for her hands and hold her tightly.
‘Is there anything you can do, Kateryn?’ she whispers to me as a friend. ‘Is there anything you can do?’
‘What do you want?’
‘Save me.’
I am shocked into silence.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ I say. ‘I’ll do everything I can. But you know . . .’
She nods, she knows. ‘I know. But tell him. Speak for me.’
That afternoon we have a sermon on the vanity of war, a powerful piece of reasoning from one of the London preachers. He argues that all Christians should live in peace, for whatever their way of worshipping God they are all praying to the one God. Jews also should not be persecuted since their God is our God – though we have a greater insight into Him. He reminds us that Our Saviour was born of a Jewish mother. He Himself was born a Jew. Even Muslims, in their benighted da
rkness, should not be attacked, because they too acknowledge the God of the Bible.
This is so strange and so radical that I check that the doors are locked and the sentries standing out of earshot, keeping all strangers at a distance, before we enter into a discussion. The preacher, Peter Lascombe, defends his thesis and appeals to the brotherhood of man. ‘And the sisterhood,’ he says, smiling, though this too is a great claim. I think it must be heretical. He says that, as in Spain in the old days, when the country was ruled by Muslim kings, everyone who believes in God should respect the others’ faiths. The enemy should be those who don’t believe in God at all and refuse to accept His Word: pagans and fools.
He takes my hand when it is time for him to go and bows over it. I feel between my fingers a little scrap of paper, double-folded. I let him go without a word and tell my ladies that I shall work at my studies for the next hour in silence, and I sit at my table and open my books. Unseen, hidden behind the great folios, I unwrap the note. It is from Anne Askew:
I write to tell you that a man came to me saying he was a servant of the Privy Council and asked me when I have preached before you and if you deny the Mass. I will say nothing. I will mention no names, I will never say yours. A.
I rise from my seat and stand before the small fire that brightens the room as the afternoon grows dark. I hold out my hands as if to warm them and flick the little scrap of paper into the heart of the embers where it flames and curls into ash. I notice how cold I feel and that my hands are shaking.
I don’t understand what is happening. On the one hand the king’s own daughter Princess Mary is to be betrothed to a Lutheran, on the other hand the forces of popery are gaining power. The Seymours are away from court, Thomas Cranmer keeps to his home, there is no-one to speak to the king for the new religion but me. I feel very alone, and I cannot read these contradictory signs. I cannot understand the king.