Three Sisters, Three Queens

BRINKBURN PRIORY, ENGLAND, NOVEMBER 1515

The priory is a poor, small little place with half a dozen monks who are supposed to be Augustinians but keep up a halfhearted practice. They have a stone wall around their buildings and a great bell to sound the alarm, but they are rarely robbed as the local people know that there is not much here to take, and, besides, it is helpful to them all if the monks are there, feeding the poor, housing travelers, and nursing the sick.

They are flustered by my arrival and the prior suggests that my bed be put in the hall of the little guesthouse. They can barely get it through the door and, when it is in, it completely fills the space of the cell-like chamber. But the floor is swept and clean, and when they bring me something to eat it is well-stewed mutton and I am glad of it. They serve a thin red wine and the prior himself comes to bless the food and pray for my recovery. I see from his anxious face that I look desperately sick, and when he says that they will pray for my health and for the life of my baby I whisper: “Please do.”

I rest for another two days and then Dacre’s men take up the poles again, and, with my bed swaying and jolting between them, we set off again. This is the longest journey that we have made; it will take all day, from dawn to dusk, before we get to Morpeth. At midday, Dacre orders a halt and the soldiers make a circle around us, with their halberds facing outward, while I and my ladies eat some bread and drink some ale, and then the men stand and eat, watching the road behind us and the way that we have to go, always ready for a raid, fearful of any passing band of brigands. Lord Dacre’s face is set in a grimace of constant resentment.

I think of Archibald telling me that Lord Dacre has paid brigands to ride this border and make it unsafe, stir it up so that it is impossible for a Scots king to govern. I wonder how he is feeling now, unsafe in a desert of his own making, knowing that the men he has paid to be lawless may turn on him.

The sun is setting when I see the massive gatehouse of Morpeth Castle and Lord Dacre reins back his horse and says: “Here, Your Grace. You will be safe here.”

I cry with relief as we go under the huge gateway. It is a triumph to get here, I am safe at last. But I tell no one, as they hurry to greet me, that I wish with all my heart this was Windsor Castle and not Morpeth, and that the gate was opening and my two sisters were coming out to welcome me.