“Your father thought, no doubt, that he was telling the truth,” I say carefully, conscious of Nan’s bright eyes and hidden smile. “But we know that God’s Word comes equally to men and women and so men and women can equally speak of it.”

She does not understand. I can see by her glazed eyes that she only wants to know if she should let this odd being—a woman preacher—into my rooms; or have the stable boys throw her back into the cobbled streets that circle the palace.

“Can you speak, Miss Mary?” I ask her.

She dips a curtsey. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Can you read?”

“I can read a little, if it is writ plain.”

“Then if the Bible is writ plain, you could read God’s Word. And then you could tell others of it.”

She drops her head. We make out from her embarrassed mutter that the Bible is not for the likes of her, she knows only what the priest tells her, and he only speaks loud enough for them to hear at the back at Christmas and Easter.

“It is for you,” I insist. “The Bible is written into English for you to read. And Our Savior came from heaven for you and for everyone, as He makes it plain in the Bible that He gave us.”

Slowly her head comes up. “I could read the Bible?” she asks me directly.

“You could,” I promise her. “You should.”

“And a woman could understand it?”

“She can.”

“And so this woman can preach?”

“Why not?”

This silences her again. Centuries of male priests and men teachers, monk scholars and bullying fathers, have told her and me—told every woman in England—that a woman cannot preach. But under my hand I have the Bible in English, given by my husband to the people of England, which says that Jesus came for everyone—not just for male priests and men teachers, monk scholars and bullying fathers.

“Yes, she can,” I say to conclude the lesson. “And you can show her in. What is her name?”

“Mistress Anne Askew.”

* * *