Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  “Back to Stirling?” James asks. “I won’t look as if I am afraid. I won’t run away.”

  “Stirling to regroup,” I advise. “Archibald cannot take Stirling Castle, and if he sets a siege before it, against the royal standard, then he is a self-declared traitor and no one should support him. Let’s go there, till we know if he is going to surrender to you and hand over his castles.”

  James turns to the other lords. “Would this be your advice?” he asks with careful courtesy.

  “Aye,” one of them says. “And we need to know what Harry of England is going to do for us, now we have put his nephew on the throne and his sister is married to another lord.”

  They all turn to look at me, and I am ashamed that I cannot promise that I have my brother’s support.

  “The King of England has always favored the Earl of Angus,” someone says bluntly.

  “He cannot do so now!”

  “Over his own sister?” someone else asks.

  I turn my head away so they cannot see my grimace. He might.

  EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN 1528

  Parliament meets, and since Archibald did not come to the council of lords, nor swear loyalty to James, nor surrender his castles and lands as he was ordered to do, they confirm him as a traitor under sentence of death.

  But even now, against the will of the Scots lords, against the rights of a king, against the wishes of a sister, my brother still supports Archibald, though he has taken arms against me and my son together. Incredibly, within weeks of James’s escape, there is a letter from England written by a clerk, addressed to James as king, advising him to restore Archibald to his power and his property as the best and wisest advisor that Scotland can offer.

  “He says nothing of you,” James observes.

  “No,” I say. “Perhaps he is not writing any personal letters. They are very ill in England.”

  The Sweat—the terrible sickness that some people call the Tudor disease—is rife, and Harry has had a terror of it ever since our grandmother swore that he and Arthur should never be near anyone who was ill. The Tudor boys were such rarities that they could not be near disease. While his subjects die in their shops, behind the counters, in the churches at prayer, in the streets on their way home, Harry takes off for a breakneck tour of England, going from one great house to another and only staying if they swear that there is no disease behind their high walls. Anne Boleyn herself is taken ill and has gone off to Hever. If Katherine’s God is merciful to the queen who prays to Him with such fervor, Anne Boleyn will die there.

  James defies Harry’s command that he must restore Archibald, and says on the contrary he will bring his former stepfather to justice. He and a small army of loyal lords ride to Tantallon Castle and set a siege. I think of the little castle that overlooks the sea, the white-crowned rock behind it, the seas breaking at the foot of the cliffs. I am in terror for my daughter Margaret, and James offers a reward for her as Archibald holds out for weeks, and then breaks out on a lightning raid on our army, and captures our cannon. He rides through the lands that have been devastated by his orders, and sends raiding parties to burn the autumn bracken on the hills to the south of Edinburgh so that we can smell the smoke in the streets like a threat of arson. For months he demands a pardon and a return to power, and in the meantime makes the lives of the people around his castle a misery by raiding and burning. Finally, he takes the great road south to England, settles my daughter at Norham Castle, and—amazingly enough—sets himself up in London as peacemaker: as the still small voice of calm among the whirlwind of my sin.

  An adulterer, a fraudster, and a traitor, he is greeted warmly by people who should be my friends, and my sisters. He refuses to reply to my demands for my daughter. I don’t know how I will ever get her home again. Is she to be raised as if she had no mother? Does he think he can take her as if I were dead? I cannot make myself understand the injustice. Archibald has deserted me and my cause, taken my lands, kidnapped both my children, and made war on his own people for his own ambition, and yet he is regarded as an injured husband and an exiled hero. As night follows day a letter from my sister Mary follows his arrival in London, but it is obvious where her attention lies.

  Cardinal Campeggio, the papal legate, has arrived and has met with both Cardinal Wolsey and our brother the king. Harry has been persuaded to doubt the validity of his marriage (not hard to imagine who by) and no one can deny that he is very troubled. Mademoiselle Boleyn has unluckily recovered from her illness and is now in hiding at Hever so that no one can suggest there is any question of selfish desire.

  Actually, I hope that Cardinal Campeggio will end this terrible uncertainty. Katherine has shown him the old letter of dispensation from Pope Julius which says that she and Harry were free to marry whether or not her marriage with Arthur was consummated, so there is no basis in law for any inquiry, and she has made it clear that she will not attend any court.

  Oh, Maggie—I was there when the cardinal asked her would she consider retiring to a nunnery and leaving Harry. She was so quiet and so dignified. She said that God had called her to the state of matrimony and that she had been a good wife. She told the cardinal to his face that she had received Harry’s friends (she meant his whores, it is shameful how she has been forced to live with them) as if they were her own friends—and it is true. She says that she has never failed him, except that God saw fit to take the babies to His own. She won’t retire, and Campeggio will never persuade her. I think Mademoiselle Boleyn is going to have to settle for being a mistress—she can reach no higher, there is no place higher for one like her. Katherine holds firm and everyone admires her. It is costing her health and her happiness and her beauty, but she does not flinch. She says that marriage is for life, and no one can deny the truth of that.

  Your husband, the Earl of Angus, is at court and is handsome and well. He speaks so lovingly of you and the terrible consequences of your betrayal of him. He believes that your marriage with Henry Stewart is invalid, your son is badly advised and you are in a state of sin. Margaret, I pray that you will resolve this unhappiness, and invite Archibald home. Katherine shows us how a wife should be. She told me to tell you that it is not too late. She asked me to beg you to restore the earl to his place at court. Margaret, please think about this—if you continue like this we will never see each other again. Think of that, think of Katherine, and think of your boy. Think of your daughter too, you will never see her again unless you can reconcile with your true husband. I am so unhappy for you and for Katherine, I cannot bear to see our family being torn apart, I cannot bear to see you making a fool of yourself before the world. M.

  EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, WINTER 1528

  For the first time, my brother writes to me as he should have done before, to tell me of his fears about his marriage. He explains that he has no other lady in mind, though I know that Anne Boleyn is occupying beautiful rooms provided by Thomas Wolsey and all the court troops to see her every day, that she writes postscripts to my brother’s letters, that even this letter may have been composed with her hanging over his shoulder and turning the smooth phrases.

  Even so, I cannot help but feel for him. He is my little brother. He thinks—and God knows that he has good reason to think—that his marriage has been cursed from the first day. I think of the bitter vitriol of our lady grandmother and how she swore that Katherine should never marry Harry and I think—what if she was right? What if there was no true dispensation? What if Katherine was Harry’s sister-in-law all along and never his wife? What else could explain the terrible procession of dead babies? What else in the world could explain that grief?

  He writes:

  If our marriage was against God’s law and clearly void, then I shall not only sorrow the departing from so good a lady and loving companion, but much more lament and bewail my unfortunate chance that I have so long lived in adultery to God’s great displeasure, and have no true heir of my body to inherit this realm. These are the sor