WOLSEY. What if I send you along the river, to Sir Thomas More’s house? (Wagging the book.) He specialises in this kind of thing. Yes, you will have a little talk with Sir Thomas.

ROCHFORD. No, please, please…

WOLSEY. Sloop, arrange for a boat to go to Chelsea.

ROCHFORD. No!

WOLSEY. Tell me who gave you the book!

ROCHFORD. I… It… I…

Enter ANNE, followed by JANE. ANNE sweeps up to WOLSEY.

ANNE. You have my book, Your Grace. Please return it.

She holds out her hand. A silence, all dead still.

WOLSEY. Lady Rochford, you and your women, please leave us. (Holds out his hand.)

LADY ROCHFORD looks to ANNE, who nods her approval.

ROCHFORD. Your Grace. (Curtsies. Kisses his hand.)

WOLSEY (close to her). You have come close to fire, you know that?

ROCHFORD. Th… thank you, Your Grace.

CELIA. Your Grace. (Curtsies, kisses his hand.)

JANE. Your Grace. (Curtsies, kisses his hand.)

LADY ROCHFORD, CELIA and JANE exit. LADY ROCHFORD sneaks back to try to listen.

WOLSEY. Your book?

ANNE. Yes. Return it.

WOLSEY. What are you, madam?

ANNE. I am your next Queen.

The MEN present are startled.

WOLSEY. Madam, in your remarks, be advised to keep to good form.

ANNE. ‘Good form’? Oh yes, we must have ‘good form’. You work day and night to find a way His Majesty can divorce that woman from Aragon. And marry the future Queen, the Queen of his heart. Me. But we must not say that because of ‘form’.

WOLSEY. His Majesty, sadly, because of certain passages of Holy Scripture, feels his conscience dictates that he must divorce his wife. But whether he marries you is not a scriptural matter. Nor one of conscience. More of lust.

ANNE. Now you offend ‘good form’…

WOLSEY. Lust! Inflamed, perhaps, by practices.

ANNE. ‘Practices’?

WOLSEY. There is still, on Earth, a decayed old religion. Christ by his birth drove it into dark corners, where it lives on in the minds of ignorant women.

ANNE. Your Grace, are you accusing me of witchcraft?

WOLSEY. I am asking: what are you?

ANNE. Fertile. (A moment.) I am fertile! Are you? (Laughs.) What a pity you don’t have a womb, Cardinal. Then you could give the King a son and heir!

WOLSEY. How dare you!

ANNE. Give me my book.

WOLSEY. I will not. It is heretical. I will tell the King you had it.

ANNE. Telltale all you want.

WOLSEY. Need I remind you how hotly the King wrote as Defender of the Faith, against Luther and the Protestants?

ANNE. In the past, yes. Though Sir Thomas More wrote most of that book, and wasn’t it your idea anyway?

WOLSEY. God may have had me prompt the royal quill…