Three Sisters, Three Queens

HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1524

I can hardly believe that I have got my way, but it seems that I am lucky again. With English gold and an English guard I snatch my son from his French guardians at Stirling Castle and bring him to Edinburgh. Triumphantly I move him into his rooms in my palace and have his bed hung with cloth of gold, and the two of us dine together under the royal cloth of estate.

The people of Edinburgh are wild to see him. We have to bar the gates of the palace to keep well-wishers out of the gardens and courtyards, and once a day my boy goes to the balcony and waves to the people who gather below. When the midday gun is fired from Edinburgh Castle my boy salutes the crowd as if it is a cannon fired for respect and not to declare noonday. All the bells of the churches ring at once and James smiles and waves as the crowd doff their caps and kiss their hands and call out blessings on him. “And when will ye be king? When crowned?” someone shouts, and I stand behind him and smile and call out: “Soon! Soon as we can! Soon as the lords agree!” and there is a swell of cheers.

Albany has left for France, and in his absence I dominate the council. I have each lord come in, one at a time, to swear loyalty to their little king and everyone does so, except for two, and I imprison them. No longer do I hesitate, thinking that perhaps they will change their minds, perhaps I can persuade them. I have learned to be ruthless. I will take no risks. Henry Stewart, now serving as lieutenant of my son’s guards, smiles at me. “You stoop like a peregrine falcon,” he says. “Sudden and fast.”

“I am flying high like a falcon too.” I smile.

I make the royal court in Holyrood as rich and as beautiful as when my husband James first showed it to me. Around my son I gather a community of people that I want him to study and admire: ladies-in-waiting who are beautiful and elegant, courtiers who are sporting and musical and cultivated. The finest of them all is Henry Stewart, who shines out for his good looks and keen intelligence. I promote him to the post of treasurer of James’s household: he is careful with money and completely trustworthy. He is a cousin of sorts; I can see royalty in him. Even though he is young he is astute: I would take his advice before anyone in the kingdom but James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, who is restored to court as my principal advisor and deputy regent.

My son is at the center of everything, guarded and tutored like the boy he is, and yet a king at the heart of power. Of course he does and says nothing without my advice, but he understands everything—the need to keep the Scots lords on our side, our reliance on the money from England, the risk that the French may return, and yet the advantage of that ever-present danger, for it is only when Scotland is threatened that Harry remembers his sister is holding it for England and for him.

So I am pleased when Harry sends two great gentlemen from his court and they can report to him that Holyroodhouse is as great a palace as Greenwich. Archdeacon Thomas Magnus and Roger Radcliffe come with beautiful gifts for James. He is delighted. They give him a suit of cloth of gold, wonderfully tailored and with exquisite fabric, and—best of all for a twelve-year-old boy—a jeweled sword of just the right size.

“Look, Lady Mother!” He shows me the scabbard, the rubies on the hilt, he takes it with his trained skill, feels its balance, swishes it through the air.

“Take care ye don’t behead me!” Davy Lyndsay warns him, and James beams at his head of household.

To me they bend the knee and present a gift. I peek inside the silk wrapping. It is a long piece of cloth, enough for two gowns or several sleeves. My favorite: cloth of gold, the cloth of kings, woven with gold thread, a treasury on a roll. “Thank you. Please thank my brother,” I say quietly. They need not think that I am going to scream with delight or have it made into gowns and set before me so I can see it all the time and boast that it proves my brother’s love for me. We are all a long, long way now from Morpeth and I am not as easily pleased as I once was.

I beckon the ambassadors to come closer and the musicians play a little louder and my ladies move away so that the men can tell me the news from London without every gossip in the Canongate knowing our business half an hour later.

“We bring a proposal that we think will make Your Grace very happy.” The archdeacon bows. “And also private letters written for you.”

I put out my hand and they hand over the packages. “And the proposals?”

He bows again; he smiles. Clearly, this is going to be worth hearing. Across the room I catch the eye of Henry Stewart. He gives me a naughty wink as if he understands my delight that my star is in the ascendant again, and my brother is treating me as he should, as a monarch in my own right. I long to wink back, but I turn to the ambassador and say quietly, “Yes. The proposal?”

They draw closer, they all but whisper. I have to put my glove up to my face as if I were sniffing the scented leather in order to hide my great beam of delight. They are offering James the hand in marriage of his cousin Mary: Katherine and Harry’s only daughter. They are all but confirming that he is to be named as England’s heir. It is the best resolution for Harry that there could be—his true-born daughter becomes Queen of England, her place ensured by marrying her cousin, my son the King of Scotland and heir to England.

I master my expression and I look at them with pleasant indifference. “Is the princess not betrothed to the Holy Roman Emperor?” I ask.

“At present.” The archdeacon spreads his soft white hands. “Such arrangements are often changed.”

Such arrangements are changed at the mere whisper of my brother’s volatile will. Princess Mary has already been betrothed to France as well as Spain. But if he betroths little Princess Mary to my son it will be with a contract that will hold: I will make it unbreakable.

Henry Stewart comes across the room to my side. I feel my cheeks glow. He bends close to me so that he can speak confidentially in my ear. “Your Grace, guard yourself, I am about to give you bad news. Guard your face.”

This is so sudden and so intimate from a young man who has proved himself such a good friend that immediately I raise my gloves to my nose again and glance down, veiling my eyes to hide my alarm. “What?” I ask tersely.

“Your husband, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, is in the city.”

I turn to the ambassadors, feeling, like the brush of an angel’s wing, Henry Stewart’s finger at the back of my shoulder, giving me strength, as if this young man is willing me not to falter.

“I hear that the Earl of Angus has returned to Scotland,” I say coolly; there is not a tremor in my voice. Henry Stewart steps back and narrows his eyes in a hidden smile at me as if I am everything that he hoped for.

The ambassadors bow their heads, and exchange embarrassed glances.

“He is,” Radcliffe finally says. “And we hope that it is no inconvenience to Your Grace. But they failed to hold him in France, and we had no grounds to arrest him in England. Your Grace’s brother the king did not wish him to disturb you, but the earl is a free man—he may come and go where he wishes. We could hardly imprison him.”

“We did not want it to trouble you . . .” the archdeacon adds.

“He will not trouble Her Grace,” Henry suddenly interrupts, forgetting the caution that he preached to me. “Nothing should trouble her. She is dowager queen in her own kingdom, she is regent. What should trouble her here? Did you actually bring him with you? Did you travel together as friends?”

He gives me the confidence to be queenly where I feel most hurt. “My brother should think about my rights as a queen before he considers Archibald’s rights as an earl,” I say. “His lordship forfeited any rights over me when he failed me as a husband. You can tell him that I will receive no letters from him, that he may not keep an entourage of more than forty men, and he is not to come within ten miles of the court.”

My two advisors, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and Henry Stewart, nod at this. It is only a matter of our own safety. Nobody will forget what Archibald did when he had his clan inside the city walls. James Hamilton doesn’t want to go for a gallop on a coalman’s pony again, and Henry Stewart has the fierce pride of a devoted young man: he would rather die than see me in danger.

I take my letters into the quiet of my chapel where I will not be disturbed, not by my son, not by my chattering daughter, not by the quiet smile of James’s handsome treasurer. There is only one personal letter, from my sister Mary. Katherine is silent, and it is the missing letter from the queen that tells me as much as the three pages from my sister. The clue is on Mary’s last page. She says:

Lady Carey (who was a nicer girl when she was Mary Boleyn) has taken to her bed and had a little girl. Of course, everyone knows Harry is the father, and the Boleyn family have grants of land and titles and lord knows what else. Very good for a family from nowhere. Harry, God bless him, is delighted that another child of his making is safely born and thriving, and Charles says that we should all understand that he is a man and he has his pride. Charles says that I am a fool to be troubled by this, it is of no matter, but if you could see our sister’s hurt, you would feel as I do. Charles says that no one cares: a bastard child here or there makes no difference to anyone, but everyone knows—though no one says—that the queen’s childbearing years are over. Harry dines with her, his manners to her are quite beautiful, and sometimes he stays the night in her rooms, but it is for courtesy; she is no longer his lover, she is only his wife in name, and their lack of a son is so marked while Bessie Blount’s boy grows strong and healthy and Mary Boleyn’s daughter coos when she sees her father. What if he has another bastard boy? Another after that?

Katherine has taken to fasting and wearing a hair shirt under her beautiful gowns as if she were at fault. But she makes no complaint; she says nothing. Nothing at all. I think Harry feels awkward, and it makes him boisterous and loud and the whole court has become a little wild. Charles says I am becoming a grumpy old lady, but if you could see Katherine when she withdraws from court early to pray, while they dance till all hours, you would understand what I mean. Everyone is drinking the new baby’s health as if it were a little princess born. People were discreet about Henry Fitzroy but this Boleyn bastard is openly celebrated. Everyone is aware of Henry Fitzroy growing bigger and stronger every day and served in a nursery which is as good as any of ours. Harry is king, of course, he must do as he wishes. But, oh! Maggie! if you could see Katherine you would feel as I do that our happy times are over.

Yes, I think. And how the world turns, especially for women. The young princess from Spain who married my beautiful older brother, Arthur, entranced my father, seduced my young brother and then preached the unbending laws of marriage to me, now watches her husband walk past her to a younger woman. Now she sees a young woman go into confinement and bring out a red-headed Tudor baby. Katherine always got her own way through a combination of intense charm and fierce opinion. Katherine always had God and the law on her side. Now her charms are fading and nobody is listening to her opinion at all. All she has left is God and the law. I think we will see her cling to them.

Of course I am sorry for her, of course I know that vows must be kept, especially by kings and queens, but I also think that this is my opportunity. I have publicly declared that Archibald cannot come near the court, is banished from my presence. I will not be swayed from that. And now I think the chance has come for me to go further. I will get my son on the throne of Scotland and I will get my divorce. While Harry is falling in love with a married woman and owning his bastards he cannot forbid my freedom, he could not be such a hypocrite. Katherine’s decline—sad though it is, a pity though it is—is my opportunity. The world is not as she commands. We do not have to live as she thinks is right. I shall not be sacrificed to prove her point. I will be free, whatever she thinks of me. I will dare to end my marriage vows just as my brother dares to break his.