ANNE.… Protect me, by Your Grace, tonight…

CROMWELL / ANNE. I put myself in Your care, body and soul and all that I have. Be with me, Lord, so that the evil enemy will not gain power over me. Amen.

CROMWELL. Good. Let’s go and tear down a Cardinal.

CROMWELL exits. ANNE stays onstage for…

Scene Fifteen

Enter HENRY. Enter lurking COURTIERS.

HENRY. At your devotions?

ANNE. Yes.

HENRY. And he snatched it from you?

ANNE. Yes.

HENRY. While you were kneeling, praying? He snatched your prayer book from you? I won’t have this! (To a COURTIER.) Get the Cardinal Wolsey from his dinner, now.

The COURTIER rushes off.

What, was the book valuable? Illustrated, gold leaf, that he envied?

ANNE. Not exactly.

HENRY. His greed outstrips his sense. He eats, he piles up houses, horses, land, rare books and does nothing for my great matter! Now he spends time frightening you, my sweet.

ANNE. It wasn’t a prayer book.

HENRY. A Gospel? Worse! To tear Holy Scripture from a kneeling woman’s hands? (Shouts off.) Get that fat man here!

ANNE. The book was written by William Tyndale.

A pause.

HENRY. My love, did you say…

ANNE. The book is by William Tyndale. It is called The Obedience of a Christian Man.

HENRY. Sweet heart of mine, that is… that is a book that is proscribed. On a list that I proscribed.

ANNE. Drawn up by His Grace the Cardinal.

HENRY. Yes, but all the same, William Tyndale is… The man is close to Luther.

ANNE. It is a most sensible book. Which the Cardinal banned for a reason.

HENRY. Many reasons, I imagine.

ANNE. But one above all. It argues that kings are responsible directly to God. Not to the Pope.

HENRY. How does it argue that?

ANNE. From Scripture.

HENRY. Argues that from Scripture?

ANNE. Master Tyndale writes that England should be an independent, sovereign nation state, under God but no longer under the power of the Pope.

HENRY. Independent… sovereign… state. But what of the Church?

ANNE. God anointed Your Majesty King. Therefore it is His Will that you be Head of His Church.

HENRY. This is in Scripture?

ANNE. Yes, My Lord. The book exposes the falsity of all prelates and popes, arguing directly from God’s Word. (Curtsies low to him and stays down.)

HENRY. But if I were Head of the Church of England, to whom would I appeal for my divorce? (Laughs.) To myself?

ANNE is silent and still. He realises the full import of the argument and stares at her. She is looking down.

ANNE. My Sovereign Lord, it is the way to all your desires.

HENRY (pauses, wags his finger at her, slowly). You, you… think dangerously.

Enter WOLSEY followed by CROMWELL, SLOOP and SIMPKIN, LADY ROCHFORD and COURTIERS.

WOLSEY is holding the book up. He sees ANNE bowed and hesitates for a moment.