“Why was Henry apoplectic this morning?” I asked. All had seen his blood-infused face as he strode through the long hall.
“Thomas More,” she answered, winding her way down through the roses.
“Truly?” Thomas More had been like a surrogate father to Henry; Henry admired him greatly and though More differed with the king on the great matter, he had mostly kept his peace and thus retained their friendship and his head.
“Sir Thomas has issued another book and in it he stridently defends the pope and comes out against all who question him.” Anne looked at me over her shoulder. “Which would include Luther and Tyndale, mainly. But though it remains unspoken, all know he means Henry as well.”
“What has he said?” I asked.
“Oh, everything. That Tyndale’s a heretic. More ridicules them at every turn, including his marriage. You knew that Luther had married and yet still claims to remain a priest.”
My heart was ensnared. “Mayhap…. mayhap with reform that will be the case for priests here, as well,” I said.
Anne reached out and twisted a lock of my hair in the sisterly fashion. “No, dearest. Henry himself has told me that there will be no married priests in England whilst he is the king. In most manners, Henry is a prim man with a desire to follow, not change, rules. His rules, of course, but he views his rules, rightly, I believe, as God’s rules. He’s the anointed king. Any priest in his realm will always remain unmarried. His idea for reform is to bring that which concerns the king into line with Holy Writ—as rendered in Latin.”
Which would not include priests who could marry. I gently slid away from her and turned my face toward the river, ostensibly to look out over the gliding swans but also to hide my anger. It worked well enough for Henry to overthrow those canons that suited him but perhaps not those that might rightly benefit others. Do not his subjects both great and low deserve to have reform in keeping with Holy Writ? I surprised myself with my strong feelings on the matter. I turned back to her. “And, as we speak of marriage, Anne, does Henry still speak of marriage to you? Or only of bedding?”
Anne sat down on a stone bench under an arbor of curled roses, climbing for all they were worth like any ambitious gentry. She patted the seat beside her and indicated that I should sit down. I did.
“He does seek to bed me still, but I have persuaded him that we must wait. Not only for my own honor, but also for the sake of the legitimacy of our son. Another Fitzroy would do him no good.”
“Nor you,” I said, my voice not unkind. But I was aware that a shell of pretense now surrounded Anne at court and if she were ever to hear the truth it would only come from myself or George.
“Nor I,” she admitted. “But do not fret. I will not chase a man I cannot have. I’ll let the one I can have chase me.”
“I’m no longer certain this is such a good idea,” I said, foreboding rising up within me like bile. “There has been no annulment and a divorce does not look likely, either.”
“I’ve not been polished by years in the French court to be sent to a backwater after a short time as Henry’s bedmate. God did not create me to be any man’s plaything. My father, for all his worldliness, has never taken a mistress, nor had he bedded my mother before marriage.”
Anne stopped and faced me afore taking my hands in her own. “God has given clear instructions on how a man is to treat his wife. I require—and desire—that kind of treatment. I will not back down.”
I had never been more aware that my own life and fortunes were so closely buttoned to those of Anne, especially as my husband was disabled by illness and shortly would no longer offer me any legal protection, though my finances would be well situated.
“Henry’s ability to resolve his own marriage situation is his right, as it is any man’s who claims that his bride was not a maid. As well, it’s to vindicate his rule—his right to determine what happens in his own realm. He must be sovereign over his entire kingdom. Hence, his title: king.”
This last one, of the king’s superiority over even the pope, was a new thought, and I wondered where she’d come upon it.
“He’s often recounted to me how he, as a boy, cried in the Tower as he and his mother took refuge there whilst his father defended his kingship. It could not have been defended by a woman. Henry cannot let that victory be nullified by his lack of a capable heir.
“His marriage is null and void before God,” she continued. “We speak openly of it. He knows how I prize a true marriage and he would not lead me astray if one were not possible.”
“That prize comes at a cost,” I said pointedly, not backing away.
“Everything comes at a cost,” she replied.
We often spent an evening in Anne’s rooms, which were large and many; they had become a center for social gatherings of both sexes, but often just for us women as the men were hunting or at bowls. Sometimes when our numbers were few and trusted, Anne brought out her reformist books and started a discussion. She was interested in reform for its own sake, of course—her faith was true and vibrant and I could see it grow within her—but also, I believed, she enjoyed such discussions because they engendered risk and that fit with her personality. I knew she agitated for Scripture in English and for priests who spoke of salvation by grace and not by works. I sat nearby and listened but did not participate. Though I attended Mass with all, in my personal life God and I remained alienated. I oft felt like a stubborn child with crossed arms but a justified one who crossed said arms over her heart to protect it from an untrustworthy Father.
Anne Gainsford, soon to be Lady Zouche, had no such alienation. “May I see?” She reached out and touched a book from Anne’s cache, William Tyndale’s Obedience of a Christian Man. It had been published in Antwerp the year before and smuggled to Anne through George.
“Of course,” Anne said. “I have marked a few passages to share with the king. Here, look.”
Mistress Gainsford leaned over and paraphrased some passages aloud for us. “All men should obey God’s law, not the law of the church, which is not the same.” She scanned some more. “All men are subject to the earthly authority of a king and the king is not subject to the separate authority of the church but instead is the final authority in his own land.” She looked up. “You know that More and Wolsey have burnt Tyndale’s books. And men themselves have similarly been set ablaze for like cause.”
“I know,” Anne said. “Take it. Have a care, and return it to me when you are done.”
A week later Mistress Gainsford raced into Anne’s chambers in the most indelicate manner. “A terrible mishap has befallen me!” She fell on her knees before Anne and rested her head in Anne’s lap. “And therefore you, mistress! Lord Zouche found Tyndale’s book in my possession and was reading it when the dean spied him. The dean snatched the book, asked who it belonged to, and when he replied that it was yours he swore to take it to Wolsey to be your undoing.”
Anne patted her head, and though I could spy a twist of concern between her eyes she kept her voice smooth and commanding. “Fear not. ’Twill be the dearest book that ever dean or cardinal took away.”
Later that evening she returned to us, triumphant. Mistress Gainsford had worn her hands and eyes red with anticipation but she needn’t have worried. “What did the king say, my lady?” she asked.
Anne grinned. “I showed him my marked passages, those declaring his supremacy in his own realm, and he said, ‘This is a book for me and all kings to read.’”
Weeks later Henry set a zealous young priest of a reformist bent to find biblical cause for the resolution of his great matter. The priest, Cranmer, was a friend of my nephew John Rogers, and therefore of Will. Cranmer boarded at Hever Castle whilst he began to marshal the evidence.