Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1528

Henry and I are married in the little castle chapel at Stirling. It’s one of the oldest buildings on the steep side of the castle bailey and so the stone-flagged floor slopes upwards to the altar and climbs in a series of worn stone steps. As Henry and I go hand in hand towards my confessor it is an uphill walk, and indeed, I feel that is how our shared life has been.

We have witnesses—never again will I let someone claim that I had no marriage at all but a private handfasting; the priest brings a choirboy to sing the anthem, but it is a private ceremony. Henry gives me the ring of his clan, with the pelican insignia of his family crest. He gives me a purse of gold. We go to bed that afternoon and so the marriage is made, unbreakably. At last I am married to a good man in the safety of my own castle in Scotland. As I doze in his arms and the cold spring afternoon turns dark outside, I think of Katherine and the chilly comforts of her faith. I think that she was so emphatic that she knew what was right, she knew what was God’s will. But here am I, her much less clever sister-in-law, less devout, less educated, poorer and with fewer jewels, inferior in every way, yet it is I who am married to a handsome young husband with our lives before us, and that while the court dances in the great hall, she is alone praying, abandoned by the king who tells her that she is the finest wife he could have, but alas, never his wife at all.

We do not have a peaceful honeymoon at Stirling. Only weeks after our marriage the guards on the castle walls sound the alarm. As soon as the tocsin rings out the animals grazing in the woods outside the castle are driven into the yard, the drawbridge is cranked up and the portcullis slams down. People outside the castle visiting friends or family in the little town at the foot of the hill are exiled, locked out until danger is over, and some of the villagers who have come in to work in the kitchens or serve in the castle are trapped inside with us. We are in a state of siege within moments and I run, from my privy chamber where I was praying, to the captain of the castle at the sentry post above the main gate. To my left I can see them rolling out the big guns on the grand battery, aiming them down the hill where any attacking army has to approach, exposed to our fire on their flanks. Behind me they are arming the palace gate, and bowmen with handguns are running across the guardroom square to line the walls that look down the only road to the castle.

“What is it?” I demand shortly. “Is it the Douglases?”

“An advance guard. I can’t see who.”

I see a herald ride up the road, two men behind him, looking as nervous as any man will be under the gaze of forty cannon. Standards ripple before and behind him.

“Stand!” bellows the captain of the castle. “Identify yourselves!”

“A warrant of arrest.” The herald raises a piece of paper but it is too far to see if it is a forgery.

“For who?”

This is extraordinary. Who can they want?

“A known traitor, Henry Stewart, for marrying the queen regent without permission from her son, the king.”

The captain glances sideways at me and sees my aghast face. This is the very last thing that I expected. I had thought that Archibald and I were agreed that I should be free. I thought it was Harry’s order. I thought Ard was satisfied with the power he had seized and the use he has had of my lands.

“Open the gate in the name of the King of Scotland,” the herald shouts.

It is an irresistible password. We cannot resist the name of the King of Scotland without being declared traitors ourselves. I bite my lip as the captain looks at me for a command.

“I have to open it,” he says.

“I know you do,” I say. “But first send someone out to make sure that it is the royal seal.”

I am playing for time, but I have no plan for the extra ten minutes. Henry comes up behind me and watches with the captain as our master of horse goes out and examines the seal. We see his gesture to the captain to acknowledge that it is genuine, and the captain bellows at his men and the portcullis slowly creeps upwards.

“Can you ride out of one of the sally ports, as they are coming in the main gate?” Desperately I hold Henry’s hands and scan his white face.

“They’d capture him on the road down to the village,” the captain advises. “They’ll have a guard waiting, and pickets all around.”

“Can we hide him?”

“Then we’d be guilty of treason too.”

“I didn’t think! I never dreamed!”

“I’ll demand safe conduct,” Henry says quietly. “I’ll demand a trial. If I go out publicly with some of my own people, and you write to the lords of the council, they’ll try me for treason but perhaps forgive me. Nobody would blame me for marrying you. Nobody can blame you. You are legally divorced.”

“It’s no worse than Charles Brandon did with Mary,” I say. “All they got was a fine that they never paid.”

“At any rate, not even Archibald will dare execute me for it,” Henry says wryly.

“He’s just trying to frighten me,” I say. My shaking hands show his success.

“I’ll go,” Henry says. “I’d rather volunteer than be captured.”

I want to pull him back, but I let him go down the stone stairs and greet the messenger in the guardroom square. Slowly I follow him as the gate to the inner castle opens and Henry orders his household and his horses to come with him to Edinburgh. He speaks to the herald and I see him repeat a question and then shake his head.

“I’ll follow you,” I say to him quietly. “And I’ll get hold of Archibald. He won’t refuse me if I’m there in front of him, arguing for you.”

“It’s not Archibald,” he says, his face shocked. “It’s a genuine warrant from your son James himself. And he is acting on the advice of the King of England. Your brother wants me tried for treason, and your son wants me dead.”