Three Sisters, Three Queens

EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1504

In January, just at the end of the Christmas feast, they bring us the news that James’s younger brother, the Duke of Ross, has died. This should be a sad event for my husband, though nothing compared with the loss of Arthur for me; but he hides his grief so well that I think he feels none.

“He was a trouble to me as well as a brother,” he explains, and he takes my hand under his arm as we walk down the gallery, past the dark gloomy pictures of the many other Jameses, as the courtiers chatter among themselves and secretly watch us.

“Brothers are like that,” I agree, thinking of Harry. “Sisters, too.”

“I feared that my father preferred him to me, and part of my quarrel with my father was that he was going to put my brother in my place, name him as heir and put him on the throne.”

“That’s a sin,” I say sanctimoniously. “The elder child should be honored before the others. God has chosen the order of the family, and it should not be overthrown.”

“Spoken like an older sister!” he says, with his quick rueful smile.

“It’s just the truth,” I say, on my dignity. “It was very wrong at home when they let Mary put herself forward, and even worse when Katherine of Aragon tried to take precedence over me when she was a Tudor princess by marriage and I was a true-born one. God has put everyone in their station in life and they should stay there.”

“Well, my brother’s death leaves me with another difficulty. I am sorry if you dislike this, but I will have to name my heir,” he says, without preamble, direct as ever.

“Why?” I ask.

“My dear, I know you are not yet fifteen; but think like a queen! My brother was my heir, of course, and now that he is dead, I have none.”

“You will name an heir?” I ask. At once I am breathless with hope.

“I have to.”

“Will you name me?” I ask.

The crack of laughter that he cannot contain makes everyone turn and look at us. “Oh! God bless you! No!” he says. “It can’t be you, my dear. You would be running to the border in your petticoat in a month! In a day! The only reason that we are safe on our throne is because I go constantly—constantly—from one end of the country to the other, forcing my will on those lords who would have their own way, begging the friendship of others, pacifying those who are angry by nature, soothing those who are aggrieved. I am building ships! I am forging guns! Only a peace-loving man with an army behind him can keep this country together: only a wise man with an unbeatable army. No woman could do it. I am making this into a country of peace and prosperity after years of struggle. God guard us against a ruling queen. That would ruin everything.”

I am so offended that I can hardly speak. “As you wish, Your Grace,” I say, very cold, and dignified. “I am sorry that you think so little of me.”

“Not of you, sweetheart,” he says, and he squeezes my hand under his elbow. “No woman can rule. And you have not been taught statecraft, you love the title of queen but you don’t understand that it is a constant labor.”

“You speak as if you were a blacksmith,” I say stiffly.

“I am,” he says. “I am forging a kingdom from a country of clans. I am bringing them into one body. Even now, I have to fight to keep the loyalty of the Isles, I have to watch the borders, I even have to demand the ownership of the debatable lands. Your father had to do the same when he took his throne, and his task was even harder, for everyone knew him as nothing more than the exiled Earl of Richmond. At least I was born and bred a king. Your father struggles with his lords and so do I. I have to teach them loyalty and fidelity and constancy.” He looks at me, smiling. “I have to teach you, too.”

“But who will you name as your heir?” I ask. My belly plunges in fright as I suddenly think that he might honor my brother, Harry. I could not bear for Harry to have a title that bettered mine, and how terrible it would be if it were given to him by my own husband. “Not Harry?”

“Harry? No,” he says. “Don’t you listen at all? The Scots lords would never accept an English king. We have to have our own. The next in line after me is John Stuart, the Duke of Albany, my cousin.”

I blink. This is worse than Harry. “I don’t even know who you mean. Who is he?”

“You’ve not met him. He lives in France, he was raised there, and he was no favorite of my father’s. But, like it or not, he will be my heir until you give me a son. In the meantime, I will make my son James legitimate. I wish to God that you would learn to love my bastards. If you would bring up James as your own I would name him as my heir. At least I can publicly acknowledge him.”

This is a worse humiliation for me than if he had chosen Harry. “Who doesn’t know about him already? Everyone knows about all of them! You can’t foist a bastard on me! You would not dishonor the throne.”

“It’s no dishonor,” he says. “He’s been known as mine since he was made, and all the others who came before and after him. I mean no offense to you, little wife, but until we have a son together I want a boy to bear my name and my blessing. I am going to legitimize James.”

“Which one is he?” I ask coldly. “For there were so many tumbling out of the walls of Stirling that I could not tell one apart from the other.”

“James is Janet Kennedy’s boy. I think you observed him well enough to demand his absence. Alexander and his half brother James will study in Italy and their sister Catherine will live in Edinburgh Castle. I will have my children around me, my dear. So far, you have given me none to put in their place.”

I pull my hand from his arm. “I will never see one of your bastard children at my dinner table or even near the throne,” I say furiously. “And I will not dine tonight. I am unwell. You can go to dinner without me.”

He does not even blink. “Very well,” he says. “I will come to your room after dinner. I will spend the night with you.”

The words “You will not” are on the tip of my tongue but the set of his mouth warns me not to defy him.

“Very well,” I say, sweeping him a curtsey, and as he walks away, calling to his lords that he is sterving for his dinner, I whisper “Peasant” at his broad back, but not so loud that he can hear.

I do not dare show my bad temper to my husband but I have no restraint before my ladies, and I cuff the dogs and whip my horses, they all have to bear it without complaint. James nominates his boy Alexander to the see of Saint Andrews, his late brother’s benefice, and collects the massive fees. The ten-year-old is sent to Italy to study with no less a scholar than Erasmus. Erasmus! Who visited my brother Harry and was impressed by his learning. Thomas More brought him. That Erasmus! For a pair of little Scots bastards! The philosopher visited the royal English court and came to us in our nursery at Eltham and exchanged poetry with my brother Harry. We were suitable pupils for such a great man. But James is blind to rank and blind to merit. He insists that his bastards go to Padua to study and nothing will persuade him that this is to raise them too high.

I know he is mistaken. For all that he calls me unfit to rule, I know some things. I have seen my father haunted by boys, Plantagenet boys; one even called himself a Plantagenet prince. My father paid a fortune on spies to find him, and then bribes to all the liars in Flanders to say that they knew him as a boatman’s son in Tournai. I saw the struggle that my father had to be rid of him when he was captured. I saw him lingering at our court, half prince and half pretender. The only thing to do with a rival is to put him to death, at once. Now James is educating two boys to be the rivals to my son, even saying he will name the oldest as his heir. I know that this is folly. Every prince, every princess, wants to be the only one.