Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, WINTER 1514

Mary is crowned Queen of France in November, and I hear that her husband gives her a massive jewel every morning. Her coronation robe was gold brocade, she processed through Paris in an open carriage under arches of lilies of France and roses for Tudor England. The king has gout and can barely stand; but everyone praises the composure and beauty of his bride. He sends Harry a gift of harness, thanking him for sending such a mount. Those are his very words. They make me feel quite sick when our ambassador tells me; this is what it is to be a princess married for her country. We cannot all have the happiness that I have won with Archibald.

He gives me such joy! Even though we are entrapped by our own strategy, locked up in our own castle, it does not feel like defeat while Ard is with me. I long for the nights when he comes to my room—and he comes every night through feast day and fast, and he laughs with me and says he will have to confess lust, passion, love, and even idolatry. These are the words he says as he kisses my eyelids, the achingly hard tips of my breasts, my belly button, even my hidden sex. He loves me without hesitation, as if I am his kingdom and he is coming into his own. And I, sprawled like a whore, longing for his touch, let him say and do whatever he would like, as long as his mouth is against mine. I have become shameless, I am entranced. I had no idea that pleasure was like this, that a man could inspire such sensuality that I am hardly conscious, hardly queen, hardly a mother. I am all nerves and yearning. All day I am damp with desire. I cannot wait for nighttime and his quiet closing of my bedroom door. I cannot wait for his smile that tells me that he will come to me later. I cannot bear dawn, when we have to get up and go to chapel and put on our daytime faces and pretend that we are not wholly absorbed, wholly obsessed, with each other.

During the day I have to be queen, I have to guard like a captain and plan like a Lord Chancellor. The news is bad. Although I gave Archibald’s cousin Gavin Douglas the archbishopric of Saint Andrews, the Scots council opposed him, and, even though Harry supported my choice, the Pope denied the appointment. The Scots lords sent their army to the castle of Saint Andrews, and Gavin Douglas is besieged there, just as we are held in Stirling. It was a bad gift that I gave him as his reward on my wedding day.

Then I have Christmas letters. A long one from Mary telling me of her extraordinary jewels and the glamour of the French court. They have lavished wealth on her wedding and her marriage is a dazzling success. Charles Brandon carried her colors in the wedding joust and gossip says that her husband’s heir, Francis, has fallen in love with her, just as much as the old king Louis. She says it is true; I can almost see her simper.

It is embarrassing, he is so wildly in love with me, he says he would die for love of me. My husband the king says that I must send him away, and that he is jealous.

She writes a long inventory of what Louis has given her and how many people said that she was as beautiful as a painting, how the rich clothes suit her and how the king insists that she receive every honor. Her coronation as queen, the wealth of Paris, her ladies, her amusements . . . she goes on and on, and I turn over two or three pages barely reading the words:

You would be amazed if you could see how I am revered. The French are so silly, they say that I am beautiful as a saint, and the king says that he will have a dozen portraits painted of me but nothing will capture my looks. He says that no country in Christendom has a queen to match me, none is better loved, that every queen is jealous of me.

No, I am not jealous, I think to myself. Don’t count me among the women who wish they had your looks, your jewels, your gowns. I am going to win my country by my merits as a governor, not by being the most beautiful woman. I am a queen regnant, not a pretty doll.

Then I look at the brief note I have from Katherine.

I am sorry to have to tell you that I have lost another child. He came too early and though we thought we might have saved him, he slid away from us. He was a boy. This is my fourth dead child. God have mercy on me and spare me another day like this. Pray for me, Margaret, I beg you, and for his poor little soul. I don’t know that I can bear another loss. I don’t know how to bear this one, after all the others.

I sit by the fire with the letters in my lap, my constant awareness of the rise and fall of these two women stilled for once, my envy at bay. I don’t think I can judge which of us is in the best position: myself married for love but under siege from my own people; Mary sold into a beautiful slavery, as much a whore as any in the bathhouses of Southwark; Katherine bowing her head against the most terrible ill luck, breaking her heart every year with another loss.

A fourth dead baby? Is this possible without a curse? Would God send four tragedies to a queen that He loved? Does God refuse to raise another Tudor boy to the throne of England? Is He showing us this? Or is it Katherine who is cursed? For insisting on the death of my cousin Warwick and the boy we called Perkin, for killing my husband, an ordained monarch?

Ard comes into the room and I know that my face lights up when I see him. “Are you sitting in half darkness?” he asks, smiling. “I think we can still afford candles!” And he goes quickly and gracefully round the room, lighting the expensive wax candles one after another as if he were still my carver and devoted to my service and I were still the most beautiful queen.