The king decides to order a Rogation, a day of processions with prayers. Everyone must call on the help of God to save England, at this time of her need. There are to be nationwide pilgrimages of faith, and a service in every church in the land. The day is made known from every pulpit, and every congregation is commanded to process around their parish, praying and singing psalms. Only if every parish in England prays for all the people of England will the plague leave us. But instead of an outpouring of faith and hope, the occasion is a complete failure. Hardly anyone attends and nobody gives alms. It’s not like it used to be. There are no monks and no choirs to lead the processions, no one has any sacred relics to parade, the gold and silver holy vessels have been taken away and melted down, the abbeys and monasteries are all closed, their hospitals closed too. As a demonstration of national faith all it shows is that nobody cares anymore.

“The people won’t pray for their own country?” Henry demands of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester, as if it is all his fault. We are on the royal barge, taking the air on the river, when Bishop Gardiner remarks that he would have to walk on water to convince the people of Watford to say their prayers. “Have they run mad? Do they think they can get eternal life by arguing for it?”

He shrugs. “They have lost their faith,” he says. “All they want to do now is dispute the Bible. I would have them sing the old psalms, observe the old ways, and leave understanding to their betters. After we took the English Bible from the churches I thought that they would pray in the words we allowed them.”

“It is those very words that fail to speak to them,” Thomas Cranmer disagrees. “They don’t understand what they mean. They can’t read Latin. Sometimes they can’t even hear the priest. People don’t want empty ritual anymore. They don’t want to process singing a hymn that they can’t understand. If they could pray in English, they would do so. You gave them an English Bible, Your Majesty, and then took it away again. Restore it to them, let them have a reason for their faith. Let us do more! Let us give them an English liturgy too.”

The king is silent and glances towards me to show that I can speak. “You think that people don’t like the Latin prayers anymore?” I ask Archbishop Cranmer. “Do you really think they would be devout if they were allowed to pray in their own language?”

“The language of the sewers,” Bishop Gardiner remarks quietly to Henry. “Shall every potboy write his own Ave Maria? Shall the street sweepers compose their own blessings?”