Part 3, How Many Wives Will He Have?: Chapter 15 Summary and Analysis

"Archbishop Cranmer," the author writes, "was not a cruel man, but he was determined that the Queen should be sacrificed in the cause of [religious] reform. If she was allowed to live, there was always the possibility that the King might relent and take her back". So, the author continues, a charge of adultery had to be brought against her and proved, meaning that she would be executed. She was only

sixteen.

The author then describes, in considerable detail, the process by which Cranmer accumulated his evidence—torturing Dereham and Culpeper, questioning Joan Bulmer and other ladies of Katherine's household, and repeatedly interrogating the Duchess of Norfolk (with whom Katherine lived when she was a child) and Lady Rochford (Katherine's chief lady-in-waiting). Soon, the author writes...