The Taming of the Queen

by Philippa Gregory

  I go to my own rooms in the day and I am able to work on the liturgy with my ladies. In the afternoons Thomas Cranmer often comes in, and we work together. It is not a long piece, of course, but it is intense. It feels as if every word must be weighted with holiness. There is not a spare line or a false note from beginning to end.

  In May, the archbishop brings me the first printed copy, bows and lays it in my lap.

  ‘This is it?’ I say almost wonderingly, my finger on the smooth leather cover.

  ‘This is it,’ he replies. ‘My work and yours, perhaps the greatest work that I will ever do. Perhaps the greatest gift that you will ever be able to give to the English people. Now they can pray in their own language. Now they can speak and trust that God hears them. They can be the people of God, indeed.’

  I cannot lift my hand from the cover; it is as if I am touching the hand of God. ‘My lord, this is a work that will last for generations.’

  ‘And you have done your part in it,’ he says generously. ‘Here is a woman’s voice as well as a man’s, and men and women will say these prayers, perhaps they will even kneel side by side, equals in the sight of God.’

  SAINT JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  We have days of sunshine and the king gets stronger. He is pleased with his campaign against Scotland, and in June we go to the rebuilt Saint James’s Palace for the wedding of his niece, my lady-in-waiting and friend Margaret Douglas, to a Scots nobleman, Matthew Stuart, the Earl of Lennox. Here the king can walk in the garden and he starts to move more easily and even takes up archery, though he’ll never play tennis again. He watches the young men of the court and I know that he eyes them as if they were still his rivals though he is far older than they are, older than their fathers, and he will never strip off his jacket and dance in his lawn shirt again. Especially, he watches the handsome young bridegroom Matthew Stuart.

  ‘He’ll win Scotland over for me,’ Henry says in my ear as the bride and groom walk handclasped down the aisle. Henry’s niece throws me a naughty wink as she goes by. She is a most unruly bride, openly relieved at finally being allowed to marry aged nearly thirty years old, after two scandals, both of them involving young men from the Howard house. ‘He’ll win Scotland for me and then Prince Edward shall marry the little Queen of Scots – Mary – and I shall see Scotland and England united.’

  ‘That would be wonderful if it can be done.’

  ‘Of course it can be done.’

  The king heaves himself to his feet and leans on the arm of a page as we process down the aisle. I walk by his side and we go slowly, an ungainly trio, towards the open chapel doors. There is to be a great feast in honour of this wedding, which promises so much for the safety of England.

  ‘With the Scots on my side it leaves me safe to take France,’ Henry says.

  ‘My lord husband, are you really well enough to go yourself?’

  The smile he shows me is as bright as any young captain in his army. ‘I can ride,’ he says. ‘However weak my leg is beneath me when I am walking, at least I can sit on a horse. And if I can ride at the head of my army I can lead them to Paris. You’ll see.’

  I look up to protest – half the Privy Council have come to me and begged me to support their appeal to the king that he does not go to war himself; even the Spanish ambassador says that the emperor advises against it – when I see, among the hundreds crowding into the chapel, the turn of a dark head, a profile, a jewel in a hat, and, from under the brim of the hat, a quick glance at me, and at once, in a moment, I know my lover, Thomas Seymour.

  I would know him anywhere. I recognised him by the back of his head. The king has stumbled and is cursing the page for failing to support him, and I step back and grab Nan’s arm and grip it tightly as the dimly-lit chapel swims around me and I think that I am going to faint.

  ‘What is it?’ she demands.

  ‘A gripe,’ I say at random. ‘In my belly. Just my monthly course.’

  ‘Steady,’ she says, watching me, so she does not notice Thomas and he has the sense to step back, out of sight. I take a few dizzy steps, blinking. I cannot see him but I can feel his eyes on me, I can feel his presence in the little chapel, I can almost smell the haunting scent of his clean sweat. I feel as if the print of his naked chest is on my cheek like a brand. I feel as if anyone looking at me could know that I am his lover, I am his whore. One night I lay beneath him and begged him to swive me all night, as if I were his field and he a plough.

  I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands as if I would draw blood. The king has commanded another page to help him and he has one on either side as we walk on. He jarred his leg and is fighting his pain and unsteadiness and not looking at me. No-one has observed my moment of faintness. People are watching him, remarking that he is stronger than he was but still needs help. Henry glowers from right to left. He does not want to hear anyone suggest that he is still not well enough to ride at the head of his own army.

  He nods for me to come beside him. ‘Fools,’ he remarks.

  I twist my face into a smile and I nod, but I don’t hear him.

  The trumpets sound a great brassy shout as we come into the great hall and I remember the taste of Thomas’s mouth, the way he bites my lips in a kiss. I have a sudden memory, as sharp as if it were happening right now, of him taking my lower lip in his teeth and nibbling it till my knees go weak and he has to lift me to the bed. Henry and I walk in state through the bowing court to the raised dais. I can see nothing but Thomas’s face in candlelight. Two men come either side of the king to heave his great bulk up the two shallow steps and then seat him on his throne, his leg propped. I take my seat beside him and turn and look over the heads of the court, through the wide-open entrance door to the inner courtyard where the afternoon is shining rosy on the new red bricks.

  I take a breath. I wait for the moment, which must come, which must be now, when Thomas Seymour comes forward to make his bow.

  There is a movement at my side. Princess Mary takes her seat beside me. ‘Are you all right, Your Majesty?’ she asks me.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re so white . . .’

  ‘Just a little gripe,’ I say. ‘You know.’

  She nods. She is seldom free of pain herself and she knows that I cannot be excused from this feast or even show any discomfort. ‘I have a tincture of raspberry leaves in my room,’ she offers. ‘I can send someone to get it for you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, please,’ I say at random.

  My gaze rakes the room. He has to step forward and greet the king before the servers come in with the endless parade of courses that make up the bridal feast. He has to come and bow and then take his seat at the table for the noble lords of the court. And everyone will watch him bow to the king, and then everyone will see him bow to me, and nobody must remark that I look pale. Nobody must know that my heart is pounding so fast that I think Princess Mary will hear it over the clatter of the court pulling up the benches and stools to the trestle tables and taking their seats.

  I wonder if his nerve will fail. I wonder if his reckless laughing courage will fail him this once, and he won’t come in to dinner at all. Or is he outside now, nerving himself to walk forward? Perhaps he cannot greet me as a courteous acquaintance, perhaps he cannot bring himself to congratulate me on my wedding and my rise to greatness? But he knows that he will have to do it, so surely now would be better than later?

  Just when I think he is taking so long that he must have given some excuse and gone away, I see him, weaving his way between the tables, ahead of the servers, a smile to one man at one side and a touch on the shoulder of another, moving through the crowd with people calling his name and greeting him.

  He stands before the dais, and the king looks down at him. ‘Tom Seymour!’ he exclaims. ‘I’m very glad you’re back. You must have ridden hard. You had far to come.’

  Thomas bows. He does not look at me. He smiles up at the king, his easy, familiar smile. ‘I rode like a ho
rse-thief,’ he confesses. ‘I was so afraid that I would be too late and you would be armed and mounted and gone without me.’

  ‘You’re just in time,’ the king says. ‘For I will be armed and mounted and gone within the month.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Thomas exclaims. ‘I knew you would wait for nothing,’ and the king beams back at him. ‘Say I am to come with you?’

  ‘I’d have no-one else. You’re to be marshal of the army. I am trusting you, Tom. Your brother is away thrashing the Scots into peace. I am counting on you to bring glory to your name and defend your royal nephew’s inheritance in France.’

  Thomas puts his hand on his heart and bows. ‘I would die rather than fail you,’ he says. He still has not looked at me.

  ‘And you may greet your queen,’ Henry says.

  Thomas turns to me and bows very low, a Burgundy bow, the most graceful gesture in the world, one long-fingered hand sweeping the floor with his embroidered hat. ‘It is a joy to see Your Majesty,’ he says, his voice completely steady and cool.

  ‘You are welcome back to court, Sir Thomas,’ I say carefully. I can hear the words as if I were a little girl reciting them in a schoolroom, the correct way to greet a returning councillor: ‘You are welcome back to court, Sir Thomas.’

  ‘And he has done great work for us!’ Henry turns to me and pats my hand as it rests on the arm of my throne. He leaves his damp palm over mine, as if to show that he owns my hand, my arm, my body. ‘Sir Thomas has a treaty with the Netherlands that will keep us safe as we advance on France. He persuaded Queen Mary, the governor. He’s a charmer, this one. Did you find her very beautiful, Tom?’

  I can tell from Thomas’s hesitation that this is an unkind jest against the queen’s plain looks. ‘She is a thoughtful and gracious lady,’ he says. ‘And she would prefer peace with France to war.’

  ‘An oddity on two counts!’ Will Somers bobs up to observe. ‘A thoughtful woman who wants peace. What will you tell us of next, Tom Seymour? An honest Frenchman? A witty German?’

  The court breaks into laughter.

  ‘Well, you’re welcome home in time for war; the time for peace is over!’ Henry exclaims, and holds up his great goblet in a toast. Everyone stands and holds their tankards and their glasses and drinks to war. There is a clatter and scrape of the benches on the wooden floor as everyone sits again and Thomas bows and steps back to the table for the first noblemen of the court. He takes his seat, someone pours him wine and someone slaps him on the back. He still has not looked at me.

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  He does not look at me. He does not look at me, ever. When I am dancing in a circle and my gaze goes from one smiling face to another I never see him. He is talking with the king, or in a corner laughing with a friend, he is at a gaming table or looking out of the window. When the court goes hunting he is high on a big black horse, his face turned down, tightening the girth or patting its neck. When there is archery his dark narrowed gaze is directed only along the shaft of the arrow to the target; when he plays tennis, a white linen scarf around his neck, his shirt open at the throat, his attention is entirely on the game. When he comes to Mass in the morning, with the king’s hand resting on his shoulder, he does not look up to my gallery where the ladies and I are kneeling, heads bowed in prayer. During the long service, when I peep between my fingers I see that he is not praying with his eyes closed; he is gazing at the monstrance, his face illuminated by the light falling from the window above the altar, as beautiful as a carved saint himself. I close my eyes then and I whisper in my mind: ‘God help me, God take this desire from me, God make me as blind to him as he is to me.’

  ‘Thomas Seymour never says one word to me,’ I remark to Nan when we are alone before dinner one evening, to see if she has noticed.

  ‘Doesn’t he? He’s as vain as a puppy and always flirting with someone. But his brother never makes much of you, either. They’re a family who think very highly of themselves, and of course they won’t want a Parr stepmother to make people forget the Seymour mother of the prince. He is always perfectly polite to me.’

  ‘Sir Thomas speaks to you?’

  ‘In passing only. For politeness only. I don’t have much time for him.’

  ‘Does he ask you how I am?’

  ‘Why should he?’ she demands. ‘He can see how you are. He can ask you himself, if he has any interest.’

  I shrug as if I don’t care. ‘It’s just that since he has come home from the Netherlands he seems to have no time for any of the ladies, whereas before he was such a flirt. Perhaps he has left his heart behind.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she says. Something in my face makes her remind me: ‘Not that you care.’

  ‘I don’t care at all,’ I agree.

  Seeing Thomas every day makes me stumble in my confident progress to love and respect the king, and throws me back into the feelings that I had before my wedding, as if the year between had never been. I am angry with myself: one year into a good marriage, and as breathless as a girl in love again. I have to get down on my knees once more and beg God to cool my blood, to keep my eyes off Thomas and my thoughts on my duty and my love for my husband. I have to remind myself that Thomas is not playing with me, nor is he torturing me; he is doing as we agreed – keeping as far from me as possible. I have to remember that before, when I loved him and revelled in the knowledge that he loved me, I was a widow and free. Now I am a wife, and it is a sin against my vows and against my husband to feel as I do.

  I pray to God to keep me in the state of peaceful loving tenderness that I have established with the king, to keep me a wife in my dreams as well as in my daily life. But as the presence of Thomas churns my thoughts, I start to dream again, not of a happy marriage and the duties of an obedient wife, but of climbing up damp stairs, a candle in my hand, and the stink of rotting flesh all around me. In the dream I go towards a door that is locked, and try the handle as the smell of death grows stronger. I have to know what is behind it. I have to know. I am terrified of what I might find but, dreamlike, I cannot stop myself going forward. Now the key is in my hand and I listen at the keyhole for any sound of life from the room that smells of death. I insert the key, I turn it, silently the lock yields, and I put my hand on the door and it swings horribly open.

  I am frightened into wakefulness. I sit bolt upright in my bed, gasping, the king fast asleep in his bedroom next door, the open door between our bedchambers admitting the roaring snore and snuffle and the terrible stench of his leg. It is so dark, it must be long hours from dawn. Wearily, I get out of my bed and go to the table to look at my new clock. The golden pendulum swings backwards and forwards, beautifully balanced, emitting a tiny click like a constant heartbeat. I feel my pounding heart steady to its rhythm. It is half past one, hours yet before I can look for light. I wrap myself in a robe and I sit beside the dying fire. I wonder how I am to get through the night, how I am to get through the next day. Wearily, I get down on my knees and pray again that God will take this passion from me. I did not seek love with Thomas, but I did not resist it. And now I am trapped in desire like a butterfly with its feet in honey, and the more I struggle, the deeper I sink. I think I cannot bear to live my life trying to do my duty to a good man, a gentle and generous husband who cries out for attentive care and a loving heart, while all I do is long for a man who does not need me at all but sets my skin on fire.

  And then, though I am trapped in the sin of fear, and a slave to a passion, something very strange happens. Though it is nowhere near dawn, though it is the darkest time of the night, I feel the room lighten, the ashes of the fire grow a little brighter. I raise my head, and my forehead no longer throbs and my fearful sweat has cooled. I feel well, as if I had slept well and I am waking to a bright morning. The smell from the king’s room is diminished and I know once again my deep pity for him in his pain and illness. His rumbling snore has grown quieter and I am glad that he is sleeping well. Hardly believing my own sense of being uplifted
, I feel as if I can hear the voice of God, as if He is with me, as if He has come to me in this night of my trial, as if His mercy can look on me, a sinner, a woman who has sinned and has longed for sin, who still longs for sin, and that, even seeing all this, He can forgive me.

  I stay, kneeling on the hearthstone, till the clock on the table strikes four with its silvery little chime and I realise that I have been in a trance of prayer for hours. I have prayed and I believe that I have been heard. I have spoken and I believe I have been answered. No priest took my confession or gave me absolution, no church took my fee, no pilgrim badges or miracle cures or little pieces of trumpery helped me to come into the presence of God. I simply asked for His great mercy and I received it, as He promised in the Bible that it should be granted.

  I rise up from the floor and I get into my bed, shivering a little. I think, with a sense of great wonderment, that I have been blessed, as God promised I would be blessed. I think He has come to me, a sinner, and that I have, by His grace, been granted forgiveness and the remission of my sins.

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  The army is setting sail for France; Thomas Howard has already gone with the vanguard but still the king delays.

  ‘I have summoned my astronomer,’ he says to me as we leave Mass one morning. ‘Come with me and see what he advises.’

  The king’s astronomer is as skilled as any of the European scientists in understanding the movement of the stars and the planets, and he can also identify a favourable date for any venture depending on which planet is in the ascendancy. He treads a difficult course between describing the known and observable movement of the heavens, which is philosophy, and the art of fortune-telling, which is illegal. To suggest that the king might be ill or injured is treason, so anything he sees or foresees has to be described with extreme caution. But Nicholas Kratzer has drawn charts for the king many times before, and knows how to phrase his warnings and advice to stay inside the law.