“Quite right,” he says. “And only the learned and the thoughtful should study and discourse. Holy things should be considered in quiet and holy places, and only by those fit to understand them under the guidance of the church. Cards are for the taproom; the Bible is only for those who can read and understand it.”

Princess Mary nods, and he smiles at her. “I take it that you are not one for the wayside sermon, bawled out by any fool perched on a milestone, my Mary?”

She curtseys before she speaks to him. “I think the church must teach the people,” she says. “They cannot teach themselves.”

“That’s what I think,” Henry says. “That’s just what I think.”

* * *

The king takes this careless talk at the card table and uses it as the basis for his speech to Parliament. He goes to them on Christmas Eve, as the members are thinking about calling for their horses and going to their homes for the season. He makes a grand entrance, as the nation’s father, coming to address his people on the very night before the birth of Christ, like a fat lame herald angel, to tell them how Christ is to be served by them, here on earth. Everyone knows that this is to be a great statement of the king’s belief, perhaps the last that he ever makes, and that whether they agree or not, they had better be there. The kingdom knows what I believe—they have read the liturgy that I translated with Thomas Cranmer. They see me as temperate, traditional, but with a focus on personal belief, personal prayer. Some may suspect me of leaning towards reform, but everything I have publicly authored has been approved by the king and cannot be heretical. They have seen Stephen Gardiner’s beliefs in the uncompromising King’s Book, which defines hundreds of true believers as heretics, so they feel the tide is against reform. But always, until now, they have had to guess at the king’s beliefs. He has written books and banned them, he has given people the Bible and taken it away again, he has told them that he is the Supreme Head of the church, but never before has he told them what he believes. Never before has the king gone to his Parliament in person, and told them directly what they are to think about God.