ACCORDING TO FOXE, ‘In the time of his sickness, he (Henry) had left his accustomed manner of coming, and visiting his Queen: and therefore she would come to visit him, either after dinner or after supper.’ This surely dates this part of the story to March–April 1546 (though most authorities put it months later); as this was the only period before the autumn when Henry was so seriously indisposed. Foxe tells us that Catherine took to lecturing the King on religion, and one night was careless enough to do so in the presence of Bishop Stephen Gardiner, the leading conservative, who, again in that crucial month of March, had returned from a long foreign embassy and quickly gained the King’s ear. Gardiner, according to Foxe, subsequently told the King:

. . . how dangerous and perilous a matter it is, and ever hath been, for a Prince to suffer such insolent words at his subjects’ hands: the religion by the Queen, so stiffly maintained, did not only disallow and dissolve the policy and politic government of Princes, but also taught the people that all things ought to be in common; so that what colour soever they pretended, their opinions were indeed so odious, and to the Princes estates so perilous . . . (that they) by law deserved death.

Then, according to Foxe, Gardiner persuaded the King to begin an investigation into radical religion, in the Queen’s household as well as elsewhere – having frightened Henry, among other things, with the mention of people who wished to hold all goods in common, in other words the Anabaptist creed, although Catherine’s (and indeed Foxe’s) beliefs were very far from Anabaptism.

If I am right and this happened in March–April when the King was convalescing, that fits with the records of arrests and enquiries which began in April and went on till July. But why, some have asked, should the religious conservatives focus on Queen Catherine Parr? It seems to me that she was the obvious target – she was the centre of a group of highborn ladies who, certainly during Lent in 1546, met together to hear sermons and discuss religion. They included her sister Anne (wife of Sir William Herbert), Lady Denny (wife of the chief gentleman of Henry’s household, Sir Anthony Denny) and potentially most important of all, Anne Stanhope, wife of Lord Hertford. If heresy was proved against Catherine, not only would Henry’s sense of betrayal by a woman he still loved be terrible (there is no evidence at all that he wanted rid of Catherine Parr in 1546, rather the reverse), but likely all the women in her circle would fall too, and with them, crucially, their husbands. Catherine Parr, therefore, was the keystone in the arch; knock her out and the whole reformist edifice faced total collapse.