Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, JANUARY 1515

It was no joyful Christmas for us as newlyweds for we were surrounded by an army led by the Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, who chose me to be his king’s wife, danced at my proxy wedding and received his title when I was crowned. Now we are enemies and he has to set a siege against me in midwinter, constantly undermined by Albany, who refuses to come from France unless his ancestral home is guaranteed for him, and his title, and his lands.

“Can they not see that he will fleece them like sheep?” I demand of Archibald. He shakes his head. He is playing with James, setting up a line of nodding toys for him to move the first so that they all tumble down. They do this over and over again, while I sit at the table and read impossible demands from the lords’ council and want to scream at the distracting chatter between the two of them, and then the clatter of the toys as they fall.

There is the noise of marching feet, and a quick exchange of passwords. I jump up, always afraid now. I thought that the Douglas family would own me and keep me safe, but all I find is that their enemies are added to mine. A messenger comes in with a packet of letters.

“Will you read these?” I ask Archibald.

“If you wish,” he says unwillingly. “But shouldn’t it be you? They’re from your brother. Shall James and I go and play in the nursery tower?”

“For God’s sake, open them,” John Drummond says grimly from the shadowy corner. He has been quiet for so long that I thought he was asleep, lulled by James and Archibald’s repetitive game. “Open them and see the news. God knows it can’t get worse.”

This is no way for a lord to speak to a co-regent, but I try to nod cheerfully, and I sit on the floor beside James. “I will play with you while your lord father reads the letters,” I say.

“No,” he whines at once, and I look around for Davy Lyndsay to take him away. I can’t set up the little game to James’s liking and he starts to whimper in disappointment and asks for Ard to come back and play.

“Here, see this,” says Davy, and shows him some hand-carved skittles and a little round ball.

“Oh, go and play with that,” I say impatiently.

“Good God,” Archibald says, reading the messages. “Louis of France has died. Weakened and died.”

“Poison?” John Drummond asks.

“They’re saying exhaustion,” Archibald says, reading intently, a quiver of laughter in his voice. “Because of his beautiful young wife. The King of England writes that Francis will take the throne, and he is no friend to England. Your brother says we cannot let Albany come, he will deliver the keys of the North of England to the French.”

He reads slowly, his smooth brow furrowed. “Your brother says he will do what he can to delay Albany. But you have to reverse the council’s decision and forbid him to come.”

“How?” I say flatly. “I have spent all the gold and goods in the treasury on this siege. There is no money, and no army and no power. Your men slip away every day, we can’t hold out.”

“Write and tell your brother,” Drummond recommends. “Tell the king that you will do his bidding but if he does not want a French governor for Scotland then he has to send us money. We will hold the country independent, or as an English fief—we don’t care which—but he has to send us the money. Look! This is the best thing that could happen for us. Now he needs us. Make it clear that he has to pay us to hold Scotland for him. We can name our price.”

“But what about Mary?” I ask, as I take my place and pick up my pen to write my begging letter. “What does he say about her?”

“He says nothing.” Archibald looks through the secretary’s careful handwriting. “Oh, he says that he is sending the Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, to France to bring her home, if she is not carrying the French king’s child.”

“He’s sending Brandon?” I can hardly believe my brother’s folly. He might as well give his little sister to this nobody as throw them together in the first month of her widowhood. Who did he imagine that Mary wanted when she forged the agreement that she should be free to choose a second husband? He cannot have been thinking at all.