‘You’ll never guess what task I am going to give him,’ he says, slyly smiling at me as he lies back on his great heap of pillows and I sit beside his enormous bed, his fat damp hand in mine. ‘You’ll never guess!’
‘I am sure I never will,’ I say. I like Thomas Cranmer, a constant believer in the reform of the church, whose sermon was published at the front of the Great Bible in English, and who has always urged that the king should rule the English Church and that the sermons, psalms and prayers should be in English. The quiet courage that he showed when he faced the plot against him has confirmed my liking for him, and he often comes to my rooms as an honoured friend, to see what I am writing and to join our discussion.
‘This is the way to play them,’ Henry confides in me. ‘This is the way to rule a kingdom, Kateryn. Watch and learn. First you appoint one man, then you appoint another, his rival. You give one a task – you praise him to the skies, then you give an opposite task, a complete contradiction, to his greatest enemy. While they fight one against the other, they can’t conspire to plot against you. When they are divided to death they are yours to command. D’you see?’
What I see is a zigzag confusion of policy so that no-one knows what the king believes or truly wants, a muddle in which the loudest voice or the most pleasing person can triumph. ‘I am sure Your Majesty is wise,’ I say carefully. ‘And cunning. But Thomas Cranmer would serve you in anything; surely you don’t have to trap him into obedience?’
‘He is my balance,’the king says. ‘I balance him against Gardiner.’
‘Then he will have to drag us to Germany,’ Will Somers suddenly intervenes. I had not realised he was listening. He has been sitting so quietly on the floor, his back against the great pillars of the bed, throwing a little golden ball from one hand to the other.
‘Why so?’ Henry asks, always tolerant of his Fool. ‘Jump up, Will. I can’t see you down there.’
The Fool springs up, tosses the golden ball high in the air and catches it, half singing:
Thomas must pull us all the way
Over the mountains to Germany,
For Stephen is dragging us up and down
Over the Alps to Rome.
Henry laughs. ‘I have my counterpoise to Gardiner,’ he tells me. ‘I am going to get Cranmer to write an exhortation and litany in English.’
I am stunned. ‘An English prayer book? In English?’
‘Yes, so that when people come to church they can hear the prayers in their own language and understand them. How are they to make a true confession in a language they don’t understand? How are they to truly pray if the words mean nothing to them? They stand at the back and say “yammer yammer yammer – amen”.’
This is exactly what I thought when I translated Bishop Fisher’s psalms from Latin to English. ‘What a gift to the people of England it would be!’ I am almost stammering in excitement. ‘A prayer book in their own tongue! What a saving of souls! I should be so pleased if I were to be allowed to work on it, too!’
‘And I say good morning to the queen,’ Will Somers says suddenly. ‘Good morning to the morning queen.’
‘Good morning to you, Will,’ I reply. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘It is a morning joke. And the king’s idea is the plan for this morning. After dinner you will find it quite different. This morning we send for Cranmer, tonight – heigh ho – it will be my lord Gardiner who is the fount of all knowledge, and you will be the morning queen and quite out of your time.’
‘Hush, Fool,’ Henry says. ‘What do you think, Kateryn?’
Despite Will’s warning, I cannot resist speaking. ‘I think it is an opportunity to write something both true and beautiful,’ I say enthusiastically. ‘And something that is beautifully written must lead people to God.’
‘But it cannot be ornamental,’ Henry insists. ‘It cannot be a false god. It has to be a true translation from the Latin, not a poem grafted on it.’
‘It must be the Word,’ I say. ‘The Lord spoke in simple language to simple people. Our church must do the same. But I think there is great beauty in simple language.’
‘Why don’t you write some new prayers yourself?’ Henry asks suddenly. ‘Write in your own hand?’
For a moment I wonder if he knows of my book of translated psalms published without a name on the cover. I wonder if his spies have told him that I have already translated prayers and discussed them with the archbishop. I stammer. ‘No, no, I could not presume . . .’
But he is sincere in his interest. ‘I know that Cranmer thinks highly of you. Why not write some original prayers? And why don’t you translate some prayers from the Latin Mass and show your version to him? Bring one to me to read. And Princess Mary works with you, doesn’t she? And Elizabeth?’
‘With her tutor,’ I say cautiously. ‘As part of Elizabeth’s study, with her cousin Jane Grey.’
‘I believe that women should study,’ he says kindly. ‘It is not part of the duty of woman to remain ignorant. And you have a learned and scholarly husband; there is no chance of you outpacing me, after all!’ He laughs at the thought of it and I laugh with him.
I don’t even look at the Fool, though I know he is listening for my reply. ‘Whatever you think best, my lord,’ I say levelly. ‘I should enjoy to do the work and it would be an education for the princesses also. But you will judge how far it should go.’
‘It can go far,’ the king rules. ‘It can go as far as Cranmer can compose it. Because I will send my dog Gardiner after it to bring it back if it goes too far.’
‘Is it possible to find a middle way in this?’ I wonder aloud. ‘Cranmer either writes the prayers of the Mass in English and publishes in English or he does not.’
‘We’ll find my way,’ Henry replies. ‘My way is inspired by God Himself to me, His ruler on earth. He speaks to me. I hear Him.’
‘You see,’ Will suddenly bounds to the fireside and addresses the sleeping hound, lifting his big head and putting it on his knee, ‘if she said that, or I said that, they would beg us as a madwoman and a Fool. But if the king says that, everyone thinks it is nothing but true since he is descended from God, and has the holy oil on his chest so he can never be wrong.’
The king narrows his eyes at his favourite. ‘I can never be wrong for I am king,’ he says. ‘I can never be wrong because a king is above a mortal man, seated just below the angels. I can never be wrong because God speaks to me, in words that no-one else can hear. Just as you can never be wise for you are my Fool.’
He glances towards me. ‘And she can never have an opinion that is not mine, for she is my wife.’
I pray that night for discretion. All my life I have been an obedient wife, first to a young, fearful and foolish boy, then to a powerful, cold man. To both of them I showed complete obedience for that is the duty of a wife, laid down by God and taught to every woman. Now I am married to the King of England and owe him three sorts of duty: as a wife, as a subject, and as a member of the church over which he sits as Supreme Head. That I should read books that he would not like, and think of opinions that he does not hold is disloyalty, or worse. I should think as he does, morning and evening. But I cannot see that God would give me a brain and not want me to think for myself. The words ring in my head: I cannot see that God would give me a brain and not want me to think for myself. And with them comes the couplet: And God has given me a heart, He must want me to love. I know that the pairing of the two sentences is not the logic of a philosopher: but that of a poet. It comes from having a writer’s ear; it is the words that persuade me as well as the idea. God has given me a brain – He must want me to think. God has given me a heart – He must want me to love. I hear them in my mind. I don’t say them out loud, not even here, in the deserted chapel. But when I look up from my place at the chancel rail at the painting of the crucified Christ, all I see is Thomas Seymour’s dark smile.