The Taming of the Queen (21 page)

Nan marches into my bird room where I am sitting in the window seat with a pair of yellow canaries on one hand pecking at a speck of manchet bread that I hold in the other. I am revelling in their bright little eyes, the cock of their heads, the brilliance of their colour, the intricate detail of feather upon feather and their warm, scratchy little feet. They are like a miracle of intense life, sitting in the palm of my hand. ‘Sshh,’ I say without raising my head.

‘You need to hear this,’ Nan says in a tone of muted fury. ‘Put the birds away.’

I glance up to refuse; but then I see her grim face. Behind her Catherine Brandon is pale. Beside her is Anne Seymour looking grave.

Gently, so as not to startle them, I put my hand into the pretty cage and the pair hop to their perches, and one of them begins to preen and tidy his feathers as if he was an important ambassador, returned from a visit, and must straighten his cloak.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s the new Act of Succession,’ Nan says. ‘The king is naming his heirs before he goes to war with France. Charles Brandon and Edward Seymour were with him when he was taking advice, and Wriothesley – Wriothesley! – was there with the lawyers drawing it up.’

‘I know all about this,’ I say calmly. ‘He discussed it with me.’

‘Did he tell you that he is naming the heirs of your body to follow Prince Edward?’ she demands.

I wheel round and the little birds in the cage flutter at my sudden movement.

‘My heirs?’ I demand.

‘We have to take care what is said.’ Anne Seymour glances anxiously around as if the parrot might report to Bishop Gardiner any words of treason.

‘Of course, of course,’ I nod. ‘I was just surprised.’

‘And any other heirs,’ Catherine Brandon says, her voice very quiet, her face carefully expressionless. ‘That’s the point, really.’

‘Other heirs?’

‘From any future queen.’

‘Any future queen?’ I repeat. I look at Nan, not at Catherine or Anne. ‘He is planning for a future queen?’

‘Not really,’ Anne Seymour reassures me. ‘He is just drawing up an Act of Succession that would still apply even if he were to outlive you. Say you died before him . . .’

Nan gives a little choke. ‘From what? She’s young enough to be his daughter!’

‘It has to be provided for!’ Anne Seymour insists. ‘Say you were to be so unlucky as to become unwell and die . . .’

Catherine and Nan exchange blank glances. Clearly Henry has a habit of outliving his queens and none of them has ever become unwell.

‘Then he would be obliged to marry again and to get a son if he could,’ Anne Seymour concludes. ‘It is not to say he is planning it. It is not to say it is his intention. It is not to say that he has anyone in mind.’

‘No,’ Nan snarls. ‘He did not have it in mind, someone has put it into his mind. They have put it into his mind now. And your husbands were there when they did so.’

‘It may just be the proper way to draw up the Act of Succession.’ Catherine suggests.

‘No it isn’t.’ Nan insists. ‘If she were to die and he remarried and had a son, then the boy would become heir after Edward by right of birth and sex. There’s no need for the king to provide for this. If she were to die then a new marriage and a new heir would mean a new Act of Succession. It does not need to be provided for here and now. This is just to put the idea of another marriage into our minds.’

‘Our minds?’ I ask. ‘He wants me to consider that he might put me aside and marry again?’

‘Or he wants the country to be prepared for it,’ Catherine Brandon says very quietly.

‘Or his advisors are thinking of a new queen. A new queen who favours the old ways,’ Nan replies. ‘You have disappointed them.’

We are all silent for a moment.

‘Did Charles say who added the clause?’ Anne Seymour asks Catherine.

She gives a little shrug. ‘I think it was Gardiner. I don’t know for sure. Who else would want to prepare for a new queen, a seventh queen?’

‘A seventh queen?’ I repeat.

‘The thing is,’ Nan concludes, ‘as King of England and head of the church, he can do what he likes.’

‘I know that,’ I say coldly. ‘I know that he can do exactly as he likes.’

Thomas Cranmer has worked constantly on his liturgy, he brings it to the king, prayer by prayer, and the three of us read it and reread it. Cranmer and I study the original Latin, and rephrase it, and read it again to the king, who listens, beating his hand on the chair as if he were listening to music. Sometimes he nods his head approvingly at the archbishop or at me and says: ‘Hear it! It’s like a miracle to hear the Word of God in our own language!’ and sometimes he frowns and says: ‘That’s an awkward phrase, Kateryn. That sticks on the tongue like old bread. No-one will ever say that smoothly. Rework it, what d’you think?’ And I take the line and try it one way and then another to make it sing.

He says nothing about the Act of Succession and neither do I. It goes before the Houses of Parliament and is passed into law without my remarking to my husband that he is providing for my death, though I am young enough to be his daughter, that he is providing for a queen to follow me, though he has made no complaint of me. Gardiner is away from court, Cranmer is a frequent companion, and the king loves to work with us both.

Clearly, he is serious about this translation being made and offered to the churches. Sometimes he says to Cranmer: ‘Yes, but this has got to be heard up in the gallery, where the poor people stand. It’s got to be clear. It’s got to be audible even when an old priest is muttering away.’

‘The old priests won’t read it at all unless you force it on them,’ Cranmer warns him. ‘There are many who think that it cannot be the Mass unless it’s Latin.’

‘They will do as I command,’ the king replies. ‘This is the Word of God in English and I am giving it to my people whatever the old priests and the old fools like Gardiner want. And the queen is going to translate the old prayers, and write some new ones.’

‘Are you?’ Cranmer asks me with a gentle smile.

‘I am thinking about it,’ I say cautiously. ‘The king is so kind as to encourage me.’

‘He is right,’ Cranmer says with a bow. ‘What a church we will make with the Mass in English and prayers written by the faithful! By the Queen of England herself!’

The warmer weather brings an improvement to the king’s leg, which has been drained of the worst of the pus and is now only weeping gently, and this improves his temper. Working with me and his archbishop he seems to regain some of his old joy in study, and it even deepens his love of God. He likes us to come to him when he is alone before dinner, perhaps with only a page to serve him some pastries, or one of his clerks in attendance. He has to wear his spectacles for reading now, and he does not like the court to see him with the gold-rimmed glasses tied on his nose. He is shamed by the blurring of his sight and fearful that he will go blind, but he laughs when one day I take his fat face in my hands and kiss it and tell him he looks like a wise owl and that he is handsome in his spectacles and should wear them everywhere.

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.’

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.’