The Taming of the Queen by Philippa Gregory
He looks across at Stephen Gardiner – who uses his name and his title without question – and they nod at each other as if I have revealed something that they long suspected.
‘What can be wrong with this?’ I demand.
He does not even answer me, he waves me away.
When I wake in the morning the privy chamber outside my bedroom is oddly quiet. Usually there is the low reassuring buzz of my ladies arriving for the day and then the tap on the door by the maid-in-waiting for that day bringing in the hot water. As I get up and wash my face and hands in a golden bowl of warm water, the ladies bring my gowns drawn from the queen’s wardrobe for me to choose what I will wear, and the sleeves and the bodice and the hood and the jewels. They will offer something to eat; but I will not taste anything or drink until we have been to Mass, for I am uncertain, as everyone is now uncertain, as to whether we are to fast before Mass or not. It may be well known as a meaningless ritual, or Gardiner may have restored it to the court as a holy tradition. I am not sure. It is a sign of how ridiculous the times have become that I – a queen in my own rooms – do not know if I may eat a bread roll or not. It is ludicrous.
Ludicrous, and yet this morning I cannot hear the noise of the baker’s boy bringing bread from the kitchen. It is so eerily quiet outside my private chamber that I don’t wait for the arrival of my maids-in-waiting; I get up, pull my robe over my nakedness and open the door to look out. There are half a dozen women outside, three of them holding gowns from the royal wardrobe. They are oddly silent, and when I open my door and stand wordlessly, looking at them, they don’t exclaim good morning and smile. They drop into silent curtseys and when they rise up they keep their eyes on the floor. They will not look at me.
‘What’s the matter?’ I demand. I scan the half-dozen of them, and then I ask, more impatiently, ‘Where is Nan? Where is my sister?’
Nobody answers, but Anne Seymour steps reluctantly forward. ‘Please allow me to speak with you alone, Your Majesty,’ she says.
‘What is it?’ I say, stepping back into my bedroom and beckoning her in. ‘What’s the matter?’
She closes the door behind her. In the silence I can hear the ticking of my new clock.
‘Where is Nan?’
‘I have some bad news.’
‘Is it Anne Askew?’
At once I think that they are going to execute her. That they have done the thing that we were sure they would not do. That they have taken her to trial, and rushed through a guilty verdict, and they are going to burn her. ‘Tell me it’s not Anne? Has Nan gone to the Tower to pray with her?’
Anne shakes her head. ‘No, it’s your ladies,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s your own sister. In the night, after you had left the king, the Privy Council sat in judgement, and they have arrested your sister Nan Herbert, your kinswoman Lady Elizabeth Tyrwhit, and your cousin Lady Maud Lane.’
I cannot even hear her. ‘What did you say? Who is arrested?’
‘The ladies-in-waiting who are your kinswomen. Your sister, and your cousins.’
‘For what?’ I ask stupidly. ‘On what charge?’
‘They have not been charged yet. They were questioned all through the night; they are still being interrogated now. And the yeomen of the guard have entered their rooms, their private family rooms that they share with their husbands, and into their chambers here, in your quarters, and taken their papers away: all their boxes, all their books.’
‘They are looking at papers?’
‘They are looking for papers and books,’ Anne confirms. ‘It is an inquiry about heresy.’
‘The Privy Council is accusing my ladies, my cousins, my own sister, Nan, of heresy?’
Anne nods, her face impassive.
There is a long silence. I feel my knees are weak beneath me and I sink down to a stool by the grate where a little fire flickers.
‘What can I do?’
She is as frightened as I am. ‘Your Majesty, I don’t know. All your papers are gone from your rooms?’ She glances at the desk where I used to write notes with such pleasure, where I used to study with such excitement.
‘All gone. Yours?’
‘Edward took them to Wulf Hall when he left for France. He warned me – but I did not think it would be this bad. He never thought it would get this bad. If he were here . . . I have written to him to come home. I have told him that Bishop Gardiner is dominating the Privy Council and that nobody is safe. I have told him that I fear for you, that I fear for myself.’
‘Nobody is safe,’ I repeat.
‘Your Majesty, if they can arrest your own sister then they can arrest any one of us.’
I suddenly rouse myself, my temper flares. ‘The bishop dares to advise the Privy Council to arrest my sister, Nan? My chief lady-in-waiting? Sir William Herbert’s wife? Get my gown. I shall dress and see the king.’
She puts out a hand to detain me. ‘Your Majesty . . . think . . . It’s not the bishop who has done this alone. It is the king. He must have signed the warrant for your sister’s arrest. This must all be with his knowledge. It may even be at his request.’
I lead my ladies to chapel. We put a brave face on it but two maids-in-waiting are missing and three ladies are absent and the court knows, like a pack of anxious hounds, that something is wrong.
Devoutly, we bow our heads to pray. Fervently we take the bread. Quietly we whisper: ‘Amen! Amen!’ as if to declare there is not a thought in our silly heads as to what this really is: wafer or meat, bread or God. We finger our rosaries; I am wearing a crucifix at my neck. Princess Mary kneels beside me but her gown does not touch the hem of mine. Princess Elizabeth kneels on the other side and her cold hand creeps into my shaking grasp. She does not know what is happening but she knows that something is very badly wrong.
After chapel we take our breakfast in the great hall, and the court is subdued, men talking quietly among themselves and everyone glancing towards me to see how I am taking the absence of my sister, of my two other missing ladies. I smile as if I am completely untroubled. I bow my head for the grace as the king’s chaplain reads it in Latin. I eat a little meat, bread, I sip ale; I mime appetite, as if I am not sick with fear. I smile at my ladies and I glance at the Seymour table. I long to see Thomas as if he were a ship with reefed sails waiting at a quayside, ready to sail away to safety. I long to see him as if the sight of him would make me safe. But he is not here, I don’t expect him, and I can’t send for him.
I turn to Catherine Brandon, the most senior of my ladies at breakfast. ‘Your Grace, would you inquire if His Majesty the king is well enough to see me this morning?’
She rises from the table without a word. We all watch her walk down the length of the great hall, everyone praying that she will return with an invitation to visit the king’s rooms and that we will find ourselves suddenly high in his volatile favour. But she is not gone long.
‘His Majesty is in pain with the injury from his leg.’ She speaks calmly but her face is white. ‘His doctor is with him, he is resting. He says that he will send for you later and that he wishes you a very good day.’
Everyone hears it. It is like a blast from the horns of the hunt. It is open season on heretics at court and everyone knows that the greatest prey, the one who carries the greatest bounty on her head, is me.
I smile. ‘Then we’ll go to my rooms for an hour or two and ride out later.’ I turn to my master of horse. ‘We’ll all ride,’ I say.
He bows and gives me his hand as I step down from the dais and walk through the silently bowing court. I smile and nod from left to right. Nobody shall say that I looked afraid.
When we get to my rooms Nan, Maud Lane and Elizabeth Tyrwhit are there, waiting for us to come back from breakfast. Nan is seated in her favourite spot in the window seat, her hands folded in her lap, the picture of womanly patience. Something about her powerful rigidity warns me that she has not returned to safety. I walk into the room and I stop myself running to her. I don’t fling m
‘None at all,’ Nan says without a quaver in her voice, without the flicker of an expression on her blank face. ‘There is no heresy here and there never has been. The councillors questioned myself and two of your ladies and were satisfied that nothing had been said or written by us, either in your presence or in your absence, that could ever be construed as heresy.’
I hesitate. I can’t think what more can be said for the listening court. ‘Have they cleared your names and discharged you?’
‘Yes,’ she says, and the other two nod. ‘Completely.’
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘I will change my gown and we will go out riding. You can help me.’
We go into my room together, Catherine Brandon comes in too, and the moment that the door is shut behind us we clutch each other.
‘Nan! Nan!’
She holds me with a fierce strength, as if we were little girls in Kendal once more and she had to keep me from jumping out of a tree in the orchard. ‘Oh, Kat! Oh, Kat!’
‘What did they ask you? Did they keep you awake all night?’
‘Hush,’ she says. ‘Hush.’
I find I am choking with frightened sobs and I put my hand to my throat and pull back from her grasp. ‘I am all right,’ I say. ‘I won’t cry. I won’t go out there with red eyes. I don’t want anyone to see . . .’
‘You’re all right,’ she confirms. Gently she takes a handkerchief from her sleeve and touches my wet eyes and then dabs at her own. ‘Nobody must think that you’re distressed.’
‘What did they say to you?’
‘They’ve been questioning Anne Askew,’ she says bluntly. ‘They have tortured her.’
I am so appalled I cannot speak. ‘Tortured her? The daughter of a gentleman of the realm? Nan, they can’t have done so!’
‘They’ve lost their minds. They were authorised by the king to question her. He told them that they could take her out of Newgate Prison and frighten her into confession, but they took her to the Tower and they put her on the rack.’
The terrible pictures of my dream come back to me. The woman with the feet turned outwards, with a hollow where her shoulders should be. ‘Don’t say it.’
‘I’m afraid it’s true. I think they must have shown her the rack and then her courage enraged them and they couldn’t resist it. When she wouldn’t say anything they went on and on; they couldn’t stop themselves. The constable of the Tower was so appalled that he left them to it and reported it to the king. He said that they had thrown off their jackets in the torture room and racked her themselves. They pushed aside the hangman to do it. One at her head, one at her feet, they turned the wheels. They didn’t want the hangman to do it, it wasn’t enough for them to watch, they wanted to hurt her. When the king heard that from the constable he commanded that they stop.’
‘He has pardoned her? He had her released?’
‘Not him,’ she says bitterly. ‘He only said that they might not rack her. But, Kat, by the time the constable had got back to the Tower, they had been working on her all night. They carried on while the constable rode to see the king. They did not stop till he came back and told them.’
I am silent. ‘Hours?’
‘It must have been hours. She’ll never walk again. All the bones in her feet and hands will be broken, her shoulders, her knees her hips will be dislocated. They will have broken her spine or pulled it apart.’
Again I see the image from my dream of the woman with her wrists pulled from her arms, her arms detached at the elbow, the strange hollow where her shoulders should have been, her strange poise trying to hold her dislocated neck. I can hardly speak.
‘But they have released her now?’
‘No. They pulled her off the rack and dropped her on the floor.’
‘She’s still there? In the Tower? With her arms and legs torn from their sockets?’
Nan nods, looking blankly at me.
‘Who was it?’ I spit. ‘Name them.’
‘I don’t know for sure. Richard Rich was one. And Wriothesley.’
‘The Lord Chancellor of England racked a lady, in the Tower? With his own hands?’
At my appalled face she only nods.
‘Has he gone mad? Have they all run mad?’
‘I think they must be.’
‘No woman has ever been racked! No gentlewoman!’
‘They were determined to know.’
‘About her faith?’
‘No, she speaks of that quite willingly. They had everything they needed about her beliefs. Enough to find her guilty ten times over. God forgive them, God help us, they wanted to know about you. They racked her to make her name you.’
We are both silent and, though I am ashamed, I have to ask my next question. ‘Do you know what she said? Did she name us as heretics? Did she name me? Did she speak of my books? She must have done. Nobody could stand that. She must have done.’
Nan’s smile contrasts with her red eyes. It is the old smile of gritty courage that all women show who have gone through hard nights and come out without betrayal. ‘No. She can’t have done. For see? They released us. We were there when the constable came from London and said what they were doing. They took him in to the king but the door between the council chamber and the privy chamber was open a crack and we could hear His Majesty bellow at them. Then they came out and questioned us some more. They must have hoped that she would betray us or we would betray her – that at least one of us would name you. But she stayed silent, and we said nothing and then they released us. They have dismembered her, God be with her. They have torn her apart like a boned chicken, but she has not said your name.’
I give one sob, like a cough, and then I am quiet. ‘We have to send her a doctor,’ I say. ‘And food and drink and some comfort.
We have to get her released.’
‘We can’t,’ Nan says with a long shuddering sigh. ‘I thought of this. But she has gone through all this to deny her sisterhood with us. We can’t incriminate ourselves. We have to leave her alone.’
‘She will be in agony!’
‘Let it be worthwhile.’
‘For God’s sake, Nan! Is the Privy Council going to release her?’
‘I don’t know. I think—’
There is a gentle tap on the bedroom door. Catherine Brandon exclaims in irritation and opens it a crack. We hear her say, ‘Yes, what is it?’ and then reluctantly hold it wider. ‘It’s Doctor Wendy,’ she says. ‘He insists.’
The plump form of the doctor appears in the doorway. ‘What now?’ I demand. ‘Is the king ill?’
He waits till Catherine closes the door, then he bows over my hand. ‘I have to speak to you in confidence,’ he says.
‘Doctor Wendy, this is not the time. I am distressed . . .’
‘It’s urgent.’
I nod to Catherine and Nan to step back to the doorway. ‘You can speak.’
He draws a paper from the inside of his jacket. ‘There is worse than you know,’ he says. ‘Worse than these ladies know. The king told me himself, just now. I am so sorry. So sorry to have to tell you. He has issued a warrant for your arrest. This is a copy.’
Now that it has happened, now that the worse thing possible has happened, I do not scream and cry. I am completely still. ‘The king has ordered my arrest?’
‘I regret to say so,’ he says formally.
I hold out my hand and he gives me the paper. We move slowly, as if we are in a dream. I think of Anne Askew, stretched on the rack. I think of Anne Boleyn taking off her pearl necklace for the French swordsman. I think of Kitty Howard asking them to bring the block to her r
Blindly, I unfold the paper. I can see Henry’s scrawled signature as I have seen it a dozen times. Without doubt it is my husband’s hand. Above it in a clerk’s script is the warrant for my arrest. It is so. It is here. It is here at last. My own husband has ordered my arrest on a charge of heresy. My own husband has signed it.
The enormity of this almost overcomes me. He does not want to send me back to widowed obscurity – though he could do that, he has the power to do that. Or he could exile me from court and I could do nothing but obey. He could treat me as he did Anne of Cleves and order me to live elsewhere and I would have to go. He could do that, he is head of the church, he can rule which marriages are valid and which should be dissolved. He did that to Katherine of Aragon though she was a princess of Spain and the pope himself said it could not be done; but Henry did it.
But he does not want me out of his sight or out of his palaces, he does not want me to hand back the jewels and return the gowns of the other queens, he does not want me to leave his children and be forgotten by them. It is not enough for me to surrender the regency and lose my power. That is not enough for him. He wants me dead. The only reason to charge me with a crime that carries a sentence of death is to kill me. Henry, who has executed two wives and waited for news of the deaths of two others, now wants me dead like them.
I can’t understand it, I can’t think why. I can’t see why he should not send me into exile if he has come to hate me, after loving me so much. But it is not so. He wants me dead.
I turn to Nan, standing white-faced with Catherine at the door. ‘See this,’ I say wonderingly. ‘Nan, see what he has done now. See what he wants to do to me.’ I hand it to her.