Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1529

Of course, my son James turns against any idea that he might marry his cousin, Princess Mary. If there is any chance at all that her mother is merely a dowager princess and the girl a royal bastard, then she is completely unsuitable as a wife for a king. We are completely agreed on this, and then we hear a rumor that Archibald is advising Harry in favor of the marriage and a peace with Scotland. James flares up and says that he needs neither unreliable peace nor a doubtful princess. He says that he wants to ally with France and marry a French princess.

“James, please,” I say to him. “You can’t suddenly decide things like this. Nobody knows what will happen in England.”

“I know that my uncle has never honored you or me,” he says tersely. “I know that he has always preferred Archibald Earl of Angus to you and to me, and he is doing so now.”

“I am sure he will honor both the peace and the betrothal,” I say.

James, a boy who looks like a man, a boy with a man’s task to do, blames me, whenever it is Archibald causing trouble. “So you say! But when has he honored his word, to a country or to a woman? Your brother the king does exactly as he wants and then glozes it with sanctity. You wait and see what he will do with the cardinals at his court. He will get his way and then make out that it is God’s will. Well, he does not gloze over me.”