I dare not speak of Anne by name. But I can defend her beliefs. ‘Since Our Lord spoke in simple language to simple people, in stories that they could understand, why should we not do so?’ I ask. ‘Why should they not read the stories in the simple words of the Son of God?’
‘Because they go on and on!’ Thomas Howard suddenly bursts out. ‘Because it’s not as if they read and think in silence! Every time I ride by Saint Paul’s cross there are half a dozen of them, cawing away like crows! How many shall we endure? How much noise shall they be allowed to make?’
Laughing, I turn to the king. ‘Your Majesty does not think like this, I know,’ I say with more confidence than I feel. ‘Your Majesty loves scholarship and respectful discussion of the Bible.’
But his face is sour. ‘Sweetmeats,’ he says again to the page. ‘You can leave us, ladies. Stephen, you stay by me.’
It is a snub, but I am not going to let Stephen Gardiner or that fool Norfolk think I am offended. I rise to my feet and curtsey to the king and kiss him goodnight on his damp cheek. He does not squeeze my haunches as I bend over him, and I am relieved that all the court does not watch him pet me like his hound. I give a cool nod to the bishop and the duke, who seem to be clinging to their places. ‘Goodnight, my lord husband, and God bless you,’ I say gently. ‘I shall pray that your pain is eased by the morning.’
He grunts a farewell, and I lead my ladies out of the room. Nan glances back as we go and sees that Stephen Gardiner has been given a seat and he is head to head with the king.
‘I’d like to know what that false priest is saying,’ Nan says irritably.
I kneel at the foot of my gorgeously carved wooden bed and I pray for Anne Askew, who will be lying on a stinking pallet of straw at Newgate tonight. I pray for all the other prisoners of faith, those that I know, since they have been in my rooms talking with me, and those that have been in my service and are now being forced to betray me, and those that I will never know: in England, in Germany and far, far away.
I know that Anne will endure this for her faith but I cannot bear to think of her lying in the dark, listening to the rats rustle in the corners, and the groans of other prisoners. The punishment for heresy is death by burning. Although I am certain that neither Gardiner nor the king will send a young woman, a young gentlewoman, to such a brutal end, the thought of her facing public trial is enough to make me shudder and bury my face in my hands. All she has said is that the bread of the Mass is bread, the wine of the Mass is wine. Surely they won’t keep her in prison for saying no more than everyone knows?
Our Lord said: ‘This is my body, this is my blood,’ but he was no trickster like the false priests who dribble red ink from the wounds of statues. He meant: ‘Think of me when you eat bread, think of me when you drink wine. Consume me in your heart.’ Thomas Cranmer’s liturgy makes this clear, and the king himself supports this reading. We have published this; it can be read in English. Why then should Anne be sleeping tonight in Newgate with a trial before her and the Bishop of London demanding that she recant, when she has said no more than the King of England has ruled?
It is late when I finally go to bed and Nan is already asleep on her side. The sheets are cold but I don’t send for the maid to warm them. I am ashamed of the luxury of the smooth sheets and the white on white embroidery under my fingertips. I think of Anne on her bed of straw, and Thomas in a cramped bunk at sea, his cabin swaying around him, and I think that I suffer nothing; and yet I am unhappy, like a spoilt child.
I fall asleep almost at once, and almost at once I dream that I am climbing a circular stair in an old castle, not one of our palaces – it is too cold and damp for any of the king’s houses. My hand rests on the outer wall and there is icy water beneath the arrow-slit windows. The stair is dark, barred with moonlight, the steps worn and uneven. I can hardly see my way from one window to another. I hear someone whispering from the foot of the stair, his voice echoing up the tower: ‘Tryphine! Tryphine!’ and I give a little gasp of fear for now I know who I am, and what I am going to find.
The stair arrives on a stone landing at the top of the tower facing three small wooden doors. I don’t want to open the doors, and I don’t want to enter the rooms behind them; but the whisper of my name ‘Tryphine!’, hissing up the stair behind me, forces me on. The first door opens with a ring handle that moves under my grip, lifting the latch on the inside of the door. I don’t like to think who might hear this, who might be in there, turning their heads, seeing the latch lifting, but I feel the door yield against my hand and I push it open. I can see the little room by the light of the moon coming in through the narrow window. I can see just enough to make out a piece of machinery taking up the whole length of the room.
I think at first that it is some kind of loom for weaving tapestry. It is a long raised bed with two great rollers at either end, and a lever in the middle. Then I step a little closer and I see that a woman is strapped to it, arms above her head, horribly wrenched out of shape, her feet, strapped to the bottom end, turned out as if her legs are broken. Someone has lashed her hands and feet and hauled on the lever so the rollers turn over and the gulf between them widens. This has dragged her arms out of their sockets and her elbows have popped out of joint, her hips and knees and even her ankle bones are torn apart. The agony makes a white mask of her face, but even so, I recognise Anne Askew. I stumble back from the torture room and fall against the next door. That room is empty and silent. I draw a breath in momentary relief at being spared any further horror but then I smell smoke. There is smoke coming from the floorboards, and the boards themselves are getting hotter. And now, in the strange life of the dream, I am myself tied, hands behind my back. I am standing, strapped to a stake, and I am lashed with chains so that I cannot move, and my feet are no longer on floorboards but are shifting anxiously on cords of wood. It is getting hotter and hotter and there is smoke in my eyes and mouth, and I am beginning to cough. I gasp and I feel my throat scorched by the hot smoke. Then I see a little flicker of the first flame from the wood under my feet, and I cough again, flinching away from it. ‘No,’ I say, but I cannot speak for smoke, and as I breathe in the heat of the smoke burns my throat and I cough and cough . . .
‘Wake!’ Nan says. ‘Wake up! Here.’ She presses a cup of ale into my hand. ‘Wake up!’
I cling to the cold cup, my hands covering hers. ‘Nan! Nan!’
‘Hush. You’re awake now. You’re safe now.’
‘I dreamed of Anne.’ I am still choking as if the smoke were still burning my lungs.
‘God bless her and keep her,’ Nan says instantly. ‘What did you dream?’
Already the horrific clarity of the dream is fading from me. ‘I thought I saw her . . . I thought I saw the rack . . .’
‘There’s no rack in Newgate,’ Nan says, firmly practical. ‘And she’s not a common traitor to be racked. They don’t torture women, and she is a gentleman’s daughter. Her father served the king, no-one can lay a hand on her. You just had a bad dream. It means nothing.’
‘They wouldn’t rack her?’ I clear my throat.
‘Of course not,’ Nan says. ‘Many of them knew her father, and her husband is a wealthy yeoman. They’ll hold her for a couple of days, hoping to give her a fright, and then send her home to that poor husband of hers, like they did before.’
‘She won’t stand trial?’
‘Of course they’ll say that she must face a jury and threaten her with a guilty verdict. But they’ll send her home to her husband and tell him to beat her. Nobody is going to torture a lady with a noble father and a wealthy husband. Nobody is going to send a woman as argumentative as that into a public courtroom.’
Despite Nan’s words I can’t sleep, and next morning I have my maids pinch my cheeks and powder me with rouge to try to make me look less haggard. I must not resemble a woman sleepless with fear, and I know that the court is watching. Everyone knows that my woman preacher is in Newgate Prison today; I have to appear comple
tely indifferent. I lead my ladies to chapel and then to breakfast as if we are in good spirits, and the king himself, wheeled in his chariot, meets me at the door to the great hall. There, to my amazement, bounding through the great front doors, is George Blagge, like Lazarus up from the grave, released from prison, fat and cheerful as ever, a man accused of heresy but galloping into the king’s presence like a friend returned from an adventure.
Stephen Gardiner has a face like thunder. Behind him Sir Richard Rich scowls as this man, thrown into prison for nothing worse than attending the sermons in my rooms, kneels before the king and looks up to show him a beaming face.
‘Pig! My pig!’ cries the king, laughing and leaning forward in his chair to pull him to his feet. ‘Is it you? Are you safe?’
George snorts in his joy and at once Will Somers triumphantly snorts in reply as if a herd of swine were celebrating George’s return. The king roars with laughter; even William Paget hides a smile.
‘If Your Majesty had not been so good to his pig, I should have been roasted by now!’ George crows.
‘Smoked like back bacon!’ the king replies. He turns in his chair and narrows his eyes at Stephen Gardiner. ‘Wherever the hunt for heretics leads you, those that I love are exempt,’ he says. ‘There is a line that I expect you to observe, Gardiner. Don’t forget who my friends are. No friend of mine could be a heretic. To be loved by me is to be inside the church. I am the head of the church: no-one can love me and be outside my church.’
Quietly I step forward and rest my hand on my husband’s shoulder. Together we look at the bishop who has arrested my friends, my yeoman of the guard, my preachers, my bookseller and the brother of my doctor. Stephen Gardiner drops his eyes before our gaze.
‘I apologise,’ he says. ‘I apologise for the error.’
I am triumphant at this public humiliation of Stephen Gardiner, and my ladies rejoice with me. George Blagge is welcomed back to court with the king’s declaration of his love for him, and the king’s declaration of his protection over those who love him. I take it that we are to be reassured by this. The tide that was flowing so strongly in favour of tradition and against reform has gone still, and is now on the turn, as tides ebb and flow, drawn by some invisible power. Perhaps it is the pull of the moon, as the new philosophers suggest. At court, where the tides of power are pulled this way and that by the turn of the expressionless moon-face of the king, we know that we reformers are a spring tide once again, flowing strong and high.
‘So how can we get Anne Askew released?’ I ask Nan and Catherine Brandon. ‘The king released George Blagge for love of him. Clearly, we are rising high again. How quickly can we set her free?’
‘Do you think you are strong enough to act?’ Nan queries.
‘George’s return shows that the king has gone as far as he wants with the old churchmen. Now we return to favour.’ I am certain. ‘And anyway, we have to take a risk for Anne. She can’t stay in Newgate. It’s at the very heart of disease and the plague. We have to get her out of there.’
‘I can send one of my men to see that she is housed well, and well fed,’ Catherine says. ‘We can bribe the guards to let her have some comforts. We can get her into a clean cell and get her books as well as food and warm clothes.’
‘Do that,’ I nod. ‘But how can we get her released?’
‘What about our cousin Nicholas Throckmorton? He can go and speak with her,’ Nan suggests. ‘He knows the law, and he is a good Christian of the reform faith. He must have listened to her speak in your rooms a dozen times. He should go and see what can be done and we can speak to Joan, Anthony Denny’s wife. Anthony is in constant attendance on the king these days – he will know if the Privy Council mean to go ahead against her. It is he that will take the arraignment for her trial into the king for signature, or dry-stamp it himself. He’ll take the king’s letter to the jury if he means to dictate the verdict. Sir Anthony knows everything, and he will tell Joan what is planned.’
‘Are you sure he’s on our side?’ I query. ‘Are you sure he is faithful to the side of reform?’
Nan makes a little gesture with both hands, like a woman weighing one purse against another. ‘His heart is with reform, I am sure of it,’ she says. ‘But like all of us, he wants to keep the king’s favour. He’s not going to take a single step that might turn the king against him. Before anything else he is a powerless subject at the court of . . .’
‘A tyrant,’ Catherine whispers defiantly.
‘A king,’ Nan corrects her.
‘But a king who favours us,’ I remind them.
With a new confidence I go to the king’s rooms before dinner and when I find him and his gentlemen talking of religion I give my opinion. I take good care not to be bold or proud of my learning. That’s not hard: the more that I learn, the more sure I am that I have very much to learn; but I can at least join in a conversation with those men who have taken up reformation as others take up archery – to please the king and to give themselves something to do.
‘So Tom Seymour has no wife,’ the king remarks in the middle of one of our conversations. ‘Who’d have thought it?’
It is like a physical blow to hear his name. ‘Your Majesty?’
‘I said, Tom Seymour has no wife,’ he says, raising his voice as if I am going deaf. ‘Though I gave my blessing for the marriage and the Howards told me it would go ahead at once.’
I cannot think what to say. Behind the king I see the impassive face of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, father of Mary, who should have been Thomas’s bride.
‘Was there an obstacle?’ I ask quietly as if I am moderately surprised.
‘The lady’s preference, apparently.’ The king turns to the duke. ‘Did she refuse? I’m surprised you allow a daughter such freedoms.’ The duke bows, smiling. ‘I am afraid to say that she is not an admirer of Thomas Seymour,’ he says. I grit my teeth in irritation at his sneering tone. ‘I think she is not confident of his beliefs.’
This is to imply he is a heretic. ‘Your Majesty . . .’ I start.
The duke dares to speak over me. I break off as I realise that he thinks he can interrupt me – the Queen of England – and that no-one has challenged him.
‘The Seymours are all famously in favour of reforming the church,’ Norfolk says, hissing the ‘s’ through his missing front tooth like the snake that he is. ‘From Lady Anne in the queen’s rooms, to his lordship Edward. They’re all very intent on their scholarship and their reading. They think they can instruct us all. I’m sure we should be grateful, but my daughter is more traditional. She likes to worship in the church that Your Majesty has established. She seeks no change except as you command.’ He pauses. His dark eyes flicker downwards as if he might manage to squeeze out a tear in memory of his son-in-law. ‘And she loved Henry Fitzroy with a true heart – we all did. She cannot bear another man in his place.’
The mention of his bastard son trips the king into sentimental memory. ‘Ah, don’t speak of him,’ he says. ‘I can’t bear to think of my loss. The most beautiful boy!’
‘I can’t see Thomas Seymour taking our beloved Fitzroy’s place,’ the duke says scathingly. ‘It would be a mockery.’
With mounting rage I hear the old man insult Thomas, and I see that no-one says a word to defend him.
‘No, he’s not the man our boy would have been,’ the king agrees. ‘Nobody could be.’
Nicholas Throckmorton, my cousin, comes back from Newgate with good news of Anne Askew. She has many supporters in the City of London, and warm clothes, books and money have been arriving hourly to her little room. She is certain to be released. The importance of her late father and the wealth of her husband count in her favour. She has preached before some of the greatest citizens of London and the City fathers, and she herself has done nothing worse than say what thousands of other people think. There is a general belief that the king has acted only to frighten the more vocal supporters of reform into silence, and that they will all, li
ke Tom Howard, like George Blagge, be quietly released over the next few days.
‘Can you talk to the king?’ Nicholas asks me. ‘Ask for a pardon for her?’
‘He’s in a difficult mood,’ I confess. ‘And the churchmen are always with him.’
‘But he has definitely turned to our side?’
‘All his recent decisions are in favour of reform but he is equally irritable with everyone.’
‘Can you not advise him as you used to do?’
‘I will try,’ I promise. ‘But the conversation in his rooms is not easy as it used to be. Sometimes when I speak I feel that he is impatient with me, and sometimes he is clearly not listening.’
‘You have to keep reform in his mind,’ he says anxiously. ‘You are the only one at court now. Doctor Butts is dead, God keep him. Edward Seymour is away, Thomas, his brother, at sea, Cranmer at his palace. You are the only one left at court who can remind the king of what he passionately believed only a few months ago. I know he is changeable; but our view is his, and you are the only one who can keep him constant. It is a burden, but you are the only one at court who will defend reform. We are all looking to you.’
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1546
It is midsummer, too hot for being in London. We should be on progress, going down the long green valley of the Thames, staying in the beautiful riverside palaces, or heading to the south coast, perhaps going to Portsmouth, where I might see Thomas. But this year the king does not fear the plague, does not fear the heat in the city. This year he fears that death is stalking him by another route, coming closer and closer like a constant companion.
He is too tired to go far, even in flight from disease. Poor old man, he can no longer ride, he can no longer walk. He is ashamed to be seen by the people who used to line the roadsides and doff their caps and cheer as he went by. He used to be the most handsome prince in Christendom. Now he knows that nobody can look at him without feeling pity for the wreck that he has made of his bloated body, and for the moon-like face.