‘The Bible tells us that Christ fasted in the wilderness,’ Cranmer says reasonably. ‘That is all the model that we need to take for Lent.’
We agree. Even Princess Mary cannot defend the paganism of binding the statues’ eyes, or putting cloths over their heads.
Cranmer takes his changes to the king and then returns to my rooms elated.
‘Stephen Gardiner is still in Bruges working on the Spanish treaty, and so the king had no contrary voice urging him to the old ways,’ he says, delighted. ‘There was no-one there to accuse me of wrong-thinking. The Howards didn’t like it but the king is tired of them. He listened without argument. He was interested; indeed, he even suggested some more reforms to me himself.’
‘He did?’ Anne of Cleves asks, following the rapid talk.
‘Yes, indeed.’
‘I thought that he might,’ says Catherine Brandon. ‘He spoke to me about the danger of setting up a graven image. He thinks the people do not understand that the cross and the statues in church are there to represent God. They are signs, not objects of faith. They are not things to be worshipped for themselves.’
Without turning her head so much as an inch, Anne of Cleves slides her eyes towards mine to see if I have observed that Catherine Brandon is in the king’s confidence, and that he talks to her about religious reform. Anne of Cleves saw her maid-in-waiting pretty Kitty Howard dancing attendance on the king, absent without permission from the queen’s rooms. Now her sidelong glance asks me: is it the same for you?
I raise my eyebrows slightly. No, it is not the same for me. I have no concerns.
‘That’s what he said to me!’ Archbishop Cranmer says delightedly. ‘He suggests that there should be no kneeling to the cross, no bowing to the cross on entry to church, and no creeping to the cross from the church door on Good Friday.’
‘The cross is the symbol for the sacred crucifixion,’ Princess Mary objects. ‘It is revered for what it represents. Nobody thinks it is a graven image.’
There is a silence. ‘Actually, the king does,’ Catherine corrects her.
Instantly, Mary bows her head in obedience to the woman that people think is her father’s mistress. ‘Then I am sure he is right,’ she says quietly. ‘Who would know better than the king what his people think? And he has told us all that God has appointed him judge of these matters.’
We cannot discuss Thomas Cranmer’s reforms without mentioning the Mass, and we cannot discuss the Mass because it is illegal to speak of it. The king has outlawed debate on this most holy event. Only he shall think and speak.
‘And yet they can interrogate me,’ Anne Askew points out after she has delivered her sermon on the miracle of the wine at the wedding in Cana. ‘I may speak about the wedding wine, and about the wine at the Last Supper, but not the wine that is poured by a priest into a cup in the church in our own days, before our own eyes.’
‘You really may not,’ I say quietly. ‘I understand the point you are making, Mistress Askew, but you may not say it in words.’
She bows her head. ‘I would never speak of things that you wish to keep silent,’ she says carefully. ‘I would never bring trouble to your door.’
It is like a pledge between one honest woman and another. I smile at her. ‘I know you would not,’ I say. ‘I hope that there is no trouble for you, either.’
‘And what is your married name?’ Anne of Cleves asks abruptly.
Anne Askew’s beautiful face lights up with laughter. ‘His name was Thomas Kyme, Your Majesty,’ she says. ‘But I do not have a married name, for we were never married.’
‘You believe that you can be the one to declare that your marriage is over?’ asks the divorced queen who is now named princess, and is to be regarded as the king’s sister.
‘Nowhere in the Bible does it say that marriage is a sacrament,’ Anne replies. ‘It was not God who joined us together. The priest says it was; but this is not true. This is the word of the church, not the Bible. Our wedding, like every wedding, was an act of man, not of God. It was not a holy sacrament. My father forced me into an agreement with Thomas, and when I was old enough and had understanding enough I revoked that agreement. I claim the right to be a free woman, with a soul equal to any man under God.’
Anne of Cleves – another woman who was married with no choice, and divorced against her will – gives Anne Askew a little smile.
Thomas Cranmer goes home in triumph to codify the agreed reforms into a new law to put before parliament; but the king sends a message after to him to tell him to stop his work and do nothing.
‘I had to halt Thomas in his tracks the moment that I heard from Stephen Gardiner,’ he says to me as we watch a game of tennis at the royal court. The conversation is punctuated by the loud thwack of the racquet on the ball and then the delay as the ball rolls down the roof to fall into the court below, and the players run into position to hit it again. I think that the king’s religious policy is like this – a great advance in one direction and then an immediate return.
‘Gardiner says he is very near to a treaty with the emperor at Bruges, but the emperor insists there are to be no new changes to the church in England. I don’t dance to his piping – don’t think that. But it’s worth my while to delay reform to please the emperor. I don’t want to upset him now. I have to measure what I do, measure like a philosopher, all the time, every little change. The emperor wants a treaty with me so that he is safe to attack the Lutherans in his empire, especially Germany.’
‘If only—’ I begin.
‘He’ll wipe them out, burn them all as heretics if he can.’ He smiles. He is always attracted by ruthless means. ‘He says he will stop at nothing to stamp them out. And where will you get your heretical books from then, my dear?’
I stammer a denial, but the king is not listening to me.
‘The emperor needs my help. He wants us to be at peace with France so that he can get on with knocking the Germans into orthodoxy. Of course he doesn’t want me stepping any further from the papists as he defends the pope’s church.’
‘But surely, my lord, you would never return England to the power of the pope in Rome,’ I observe. ‘You would never fail God in order to please the Spanish emperor? You would not serve the world and risk your honour?’
Henry applauds a shot well played on court. ‘I shall do as God guides me,’ he says flatly. ‘And His ways and my ways are mysterious indeed.’
I turn and applaud as he does. ‘That was hard!’ I exclaim. ‘I never thought he would get it.’
‘I would have got it easily when I was young,’ Henry remarks. ‘I was a champion tennis player. You ask Anne of Cleves. She will remember the sportsman I was!’
I smile past him to where she sits, on his other side, watching the game. I know she is listening; I know that she is thinking what she would have said if she had been in my place. I know that she would speak up for the people of her country who only want to read the Bible in their own language and worship God with simplicity. ‘Is it the case, Princess Anne?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she says agreeably. ‘His Majesty was the finest.’
‘She is a good companion for you.’ Henry turns to me and speaks in an undertone. ‘It is pleasant to have a beautiful woman like her at court, isn’t it?’
‘Why, yes.’
‘And she is so fond of Elizabeth.’
‘Yes, she is.’
‘Everyone tells me I should never have let her go,’ Henry says with a little self-conscious laugh. ‘If she had borne me a son he would be five years old now, think of that!’
I know that my smile has died. I don’t know what to think of that, or of this entire conversation. Has Henry forgotten that he never consummated his marriage with the now-desirable Anne of Cleves, telling everyone that she was too fat, and no virgin, and that she smelled so badly that he could not bring himself to do the act?