“By dominating it,” he answers easily. “By being the greatest trader with the most to deal in; by being the master of everyone, whether they know it or not.”

* * *

Two things save Anne Askew: her own keen intelligence, and my protection. She confesses to nothing but believing the scriptures, and when they try to trap her with details of the liturgy she says that she does not know, that she is a simple woman, that all she does is read her Bible, the king’s own Bible, and try to follow its precepts. Anything else is too complex for a faithful God-fearing woman like herself. The Lord Mayor tries to trap her with questions of theology and she keeps her head and says that she cannot speak of such things. She irritates Edmund Bonner, the Bishop of London, almost beyond speaking, but he can do nothing against her when he hears from the people of his household that Anne Askew preaches to the queen and her ladies, and that the queen and her friends and companions—the greatest ladies in the land—heard no heresy. The queen—so high in favor with the king that he stayed all last night in her rooms—cannot be denied. She has not yet spoken to the king in favor of her court preacher, but clearly, she can do so. In a frightened hurry, they release Anne Askew, and send her home to her husband. As bullies and men this is the only way they can devise to control a woman. I laugh when they tell me. I believe it will be more of a punishment for him than for her.

WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,

EARLY SUMMER 1545

The Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, who clung to the doomed cause of Princess Mary’s poor mother, Queen Katherine, who called Anne Boleyn “The Lady” with such a sneer that everyone knew he meant “the whore,” has grown old in the service of Princess Mary and her mother and is going home to Spain. He is as lame as the king, crippled with gout, and can walk only if he leans on his sticks, his old face crumpled with pain. He comes to Whitehall Palace to say good-bye to the king on a fine day in early May, a day so warm, with winds carrying the scent of blossom from the apple orchards, that we go out into the garden to catch him before he goes in to his royal audience and I tell him that he should stay—England will be as hot as Spain come June.

He tries to bow and I gesture that he should sit in his chair.

“I need the Spanish sun on my old bones, Your Majesty,” he says. “It has been a long, long time since I saw my home. I want to sit in the sun and write my memoirs.”

“You will write your memoirs?”