My book of psalms, beautifully bound, is tucked deep in my locked box of books. I think of it as my treasure, my greatest treasure, one that I have to keep secret. But seeing those words that were first written, and scratched out, and rewritten again in print and bound into a book, I know that I love the process of writing and publishing. To take a thought and work on it, to render it into the clearest form possible, and then to send it out into the world – this is work so precious and so joyful that I am not surprised that men have kept it to themselves.
So now I practise my letter writing to my husband. I compose it as I would translate a psalm, by imagining the state of mind of the author that I want to be. When I am writing a translation of a prayer, I always imagine the first author – a man miserably conscious of his own sin. I think myself into his mind and then I write the most beautiful sonorous version of what I think might come from his mouth. Then I bring myself into the work, powerfully aware that I am a woman, not a man. The sins that grieve a man are often those of pride, or greed, or a lust for power for its own sake. But these are not the sins of a woman, I think. These are not my first sins. My worst sin is a failure of obedience: I find it so hard to bend my will. My other great fault is a passion: an adoration as if I were setting up an idol, a false God.
So writing a love letter to the king is the same as writing a prayer. I create a character to say the words. I pull the page towards me and I think how I would be if I were deeply in love with a man who is setting siege to the town of Boulogne in France. I think, what would his wife say? How would she tell him that she loves him and misses him and that she is glad that he is doing his duty? I think, how would I write to a man that I cannot see, who is so very far from me, who is so careful of my safety that he will not even breathe a kiss to me in farewell, so proud and independent and yet loves me, and wishes he had not left me, would never leave me?
In my mind, as bright as if it were real, I see Thomas Seymour before the walls of Boulogne and his dark smile as he faces danger and feels no fear. And so I take that sense of love and longing and I write to the king, tenderly and obediently, asking sincerely for his health, promising him truly that I am thinking of him. But running in my mind, at the same time, there is another letter – a shadow letter of words that are never written on paper. I never even scribble his name to clean the nib of ink; I never sketch his crest. I never say the words aloud. I only allow myself, last thing at night before I go to sleep in my empty bed, to think of the letter that I would write to him if I could.
I would tell him that I love him with a passion that leaves me sleepless. I would tell him that some nights I cannot bear the touch of the sheet on my shoulders, on my breasts, because the cool linen makes me yearn for his skilled warm hand. I would write that I put my palm against my mouth and imagine that I am kissing him. I would write that I lay the flat of my hand against my most private parts and press down, and that the leaping sensation of joy is all his. I would write that without him I am a shell, a hollow crown, that all my true life is stolen away. I would write that my life is like a beautifully carved tomb, an empty space, that I have everything a woman could desire – I am Queen of England – but a beggar woman with her legs and arms wrapped around her husband, and his mouth pressing down on hers, is richer than me.
I will never write this. I am an author and a queen. I can write only words that everyone can read, that the king’s clerks can read aloud to him before all his courtiers. I write words that can go to London and be published even if no-one knows who wrote them. I will never write, like poor little Queen Kitty: when I think that you shall depart from me again it makes my heart die. The king beheaded her for that silly little love letter. She wrote her own death warrant. I shall never write such a thing.
The king replies to me, telling me of their progress. He is by turns boastful and wistful, missing his home. The plan to march on Paris was abandoned as soon as he arrived in Calais and was discouraged by the Spanish emperor. They decided that first they should lay siege to the nearby towns. Charles Brandon and Henry take on Boulogne. Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolk continues in his dogged siege of nearby Montreuil. They all demand more powder, more cannon, more shot, and I am to send some miners from Cornwall to dig under the walls of the French towns. I send to the magistrates in Cornwall and demand volunteers, I order cannon to be cast, I have them make powder, I press more and more masons into carving stones for round shot. I summon the Lord Treasurer and ensure that we have enough money coming in to keep the army supplied, and caution him that he may have to go back to parliament to demand another grant. He warns me that the price of lead is falling as we put more and more on the market, and nobody will buy. I receive petitions from everyone who would normally apply to me, and then I meet with everyone who would normally apply to the king. I sit in the king’s presence chamber every day and the steward of my household indicates who may come forward and speak to me. I answer every letter the day that I receive it, I allow no neglected business to overwhelm my household, I draft in clerks from the Privy Council to work alongside my own people, and, without fail, I report every single thing that I do to the king.
He must know that I am Regent General in every way, neglecting nothing, but I make it clear that he rules through me. He must never think that I have taken power and am ruling for myself. I have to rule like a king and report like a wife. I have to walk this careful line in every word I put on paper, in everything I say that will be reported to him, in every meeting I have with the Privy Council, who are partly men of my household and affinity and partly there in their own interests. None of them can be wholly trusted not to sneak a report that I am greedy for power and doing too much, that I am the worst thing in the world: a woman with the heart and stomach of a man.
The king writes that he is in good health. They have built a platform for him to survey the siege of Boulogne, and he can climb the steps unaided and walk around without support. His leg has dried up, and the surgeons are keeping the wound safely open, and so he has less pain. He rides out every day on his great horse, with a massive musket laid over the pommel of the saddle, ready to fire on any Frenchman he sees. He goes all around the town and the siege camp to show himself to the men and assure them that he is leading them to victory. He is living the life that he loves, the imaginary life of his fairytale youth – his company are all handsome young men, invoking the chivalric dream of the Knights of the Round Table. He is reliving the campaign that he won as a young man at the Battle of the Spurs, the tents of his household are as beautiful as those that were raised on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It is as if in his old age he has been given the chance to enjoy the delights of his youth once more: comradeship, token danger, victory.
They give great dinners every night in which they report skirmishes during the day, drink celebratory toasts, and plan the advance on Paris. Henry is at the heart of the campaign, arm in arm with his reckless friends, and he swears that he will be King of France in name and in deed.
The king and his minions do not put themselves at risk – the viewing stage is well out of range of Boulogne’s guns. Of course, there is the hazard of illness in the army; but at the first sign of disease Henry will run away and his court will leave with him. While he is strong enough to ride and walk and dine as he is doing I don’t fear for his health or safety. And every single man in his train knows that he must lay down his life rather than let the king be in danger while his son and heir is a boy of only six in the nursery. The last boy king to take the throne lost our lands in France and his own throne in England. The kingdom cannot be abandoned to a boy with a woman regent.