The Virgin’s Lover. Philippa Gregory

of Christ at the magical moment of transubstantiation.

      A clear voice rang out from the royal pew. ‘Bishop! Lower the pyx.’

      It was as if he had not heard her. Indeed, since his eyes were closed and his lips moving in prayer, perhaps he had not heard her. The bishop believed with all his heart that God was coming down to earth, that he held the real presence of the living God between his hands, that he was holding it up for the faithful to worship, as they must, as faithful Christians, do.

      ‘Bishop! I said, Bishop! Lower that pyx.’

      The wooden fretwork shutter of the royal pew banged open like a thunderclap. Bishop Oglethorpe turned slightly from the altar, and glanced over his shoulder to meet the furious gaze of his queen, leaning out from the royal pew like a fishwife over a market stall, her cheeks flaming red with temper, her eyes black as an angry cat’s. He took in her stance – up from her knees, standing at her full height, her finger pointing at him, her voice commanding.

      ‘This is my own chapel. You are serving as my chaplain. I am the queen. You will do as I order. Lower that pyx.’

      As if she did not matter at all, he turned back to the altar, closed his eyes again and gave himself up to his God.

      He felt, as much as he heard the swish of her gown as she strode out of the door of the pew and the bang as she slammed it shut, like a child running from a room in temper. His shoulders prickled, his arms burned; but still he kept his back resolutely turned to the congregation, celebrating the Mass not with them, but for them: a process private between the priest and his God, which the faithful might observe, but could not join. The bishop put the pyx gently down on the altar and folded his hands together in the gesture for prayer, secretly pressing them hard against his thudding heart, as the queen stormed from her own chapel, on Christmas Day; driven from the place of God on His very day, by her own muddled, heretical thinking.

      Two days later, Cecil, still not home for Christmas, faced with a royal temper tantrum on one hand and a stubborn bishop on the other, was forced to issue a royal proclamation that the litany, Lord’s Prayer, lessons and the ten commandments would all be read in English, in every church of the land, and the Host would not be raised. This was the new law of the land. Elizabeth had declared war on her church before she was even crowned.

      ‘So who is going to crown her?’ Dudley asked him. It was the day before Twelfth Night. Neither Cecil nor Dudley had yet managed to get home to their wives for so much as a single night during the Christmas season.

      — Does he not have enough to do in planning the Twelfth Night feast, that now he must devise religious policy? — Cecil demanded of himself irritably, as he got down from his horse in the stable yard and tossed the reins to a waiting groom. He saw Dudley’s eyes run over the animal and felt a second pang of irritation at the knowledge that the younger man would see at once that it was too short in the back.

      ‘I thank you for your concern but why do you wish to know, Sir Robert?’ The politeness of Cecil’s tone almost took the ice from his reply.

      Dudley’s smile was placatory. ‘Because she will worry, and this is a woman who is capable of worrying herself sick. She will ask me for my advice, and I want to be able to reassure her. You’ll have a plan, sir, you always do. I am only asking you what it is. You can tell me to mind my horses and leave policy to you, if you wish. But if you want her mind at rest you should tell me what answer I should give her. You know she will consult me.’

      Cecil sighed. ‘No-one has offered to crown her,’ he said heavily. ‘And between you and me, no-one will crown her. They are all opposed, I swear that they are in collusion. I cannot trace a conspiracy but they all know that if they do not crown her, she is not queen. They think they can force her to restore the Mass. It’s a desperate position. The Queen of England, and not one bishop recognises her! Winchester is under house arrest for his sermon at the late queen’s funeral, Oglethorpe in all but the same case for his ridiculous defiance on Christmas Day. He says he will go to the stake before he gives way to her. She wouldn’t let Bishop Bonner so much as touch her hand when she came into London, so he is her sworn enemy too. The Archbishop of York told her to her face that he regards her as a heretic damned. She’s got the Bishop of Chichester under house arrest, although he is sick as a dog. They are all unanimously against her, not a shadow of doubt among them. Not even a tiny crack where one might seed division.’

      ‘Surely a scattering of bribes?’

      Cecil shook his head. ‘They have become amazingly principled,’ he said. ‘They will not have Protestantism restored to England. They will not have a Protestant queen.’

      Dudley’s face darkened. ‘Sir, if we do not have a care, they will make a rebellion against the queen from inside the church itself. It is a very small step from calling her a heretic to open treason, and a rebellion by the princes of the church would hardly be a rebellion at all. They are the Prince Bishops, they can make her look like a usurper. There are enough Catholic candidates for the throne who would be quick to take her place. If they declare war on her, she is finished.’

      ‘Yes, I know that,’ Cecil said, keeping his irritation in check with some difficulty. ‘I am aware of the danger she is in. It’s never been worse. No-one can ever remember a monarch in such uncertainty. King Henry never had more than one bishop openly against him, the late queen, at her very worst of times, had two; but Princess Elizabeth has every single one of them as her open and declared enemy. I know things are as bad as they can be, and the princess clinging to her prospects by her fingertips. What I don’t know is how to make an absolutely solid Roman Catholic church crown a Protestant princess.’

      ‘Queen,’ Dudley prompted.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Queen Elizabeth. You said “princess”.’

      ‘She’s on the throne but not anointed,’ Cecil said grimly. ‘I pray that the day comes when I can say “queen” and know it is nothing more nor less than the truth. But how can I get her anointed, if no-one will do it?’

      ‘She can hardly behead them all,’ Dudley said with unwarranted cheerfulness.

      ‘Quite so.’

      ‘But what if they thought she might convert?’

      ‘They’ll hardly believe that, after she stormed out of her own chapel on Christmas Day.’

      ‘If they thought that she would marry Philip of Spain, they would crown her,’ Dudley suggested slyly. ‘They would trust him to forge a compromise. They saw him handle Queen Mary. They’d trust Elizabeth under his control.’

      Cecil hesitated. ‘Actually, they might.’

      ‘You could tell three men, in the strictest confidence, that she is considering him,’ Dudley advised. ‘That’s the best way to make sure everyone hears it. Suggest that he will come over for the wedding and create a new settlement for the church in England. He liked her before, and she encouraged him enough, God knows. Everyone thought they would make a match of it as soon as her sister was cold. You could say they are all but betrothed. She’s attended Mass almost every day for the last five years, they all know that well enough. She is accommodating when she has to be. Remind them of it.’

      ‘You want me to use the old scandals of the princess as a mask for policy?’ Cecil demanded sarcastically. ‘Hold her up to shame as a woman who bedded her brother-in-law as her own sister lay dying?’

      ‘Elizabeth? Shame?’ Dudley laughed in Cecil’s face. ‘She’s not been troubled by shame since she was a girl. She learned then that you can ride out shame if you keep your nerve and admit nothing. And she’s not troubled by lust either. Her “scandals” as you call them excepting the one with Thomas Seymour, which got out of hand are never accidental. Since her romping with Seymour led him to