Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1518

  I receive merry news from the court in England. I wonder if they realize that it is like a physical pain to me to hear that they are well and happy and prosperous, making confident plans for the future, secure in their loves and their fortunes? I wonder if Mary ever stops to think that her breathless scribble about dresses, or the plans for a glorious betrothal of little Princess Mary to the French king’s son, makes me feel miserably excluded? She writes page after page and I decipher the excited crisscrossed script and picture the plans for the masque and the dancing and the joust, the dresses that must be ordered, the shoes that must be made, the tirewomen coming and going with gold wire and woven flowers and little diamonds, Harry’s laughter, Harry’s joy, Harry’s triumph at making peace with France and sealing it with the betrothal of his daughter, a baby of little more than two years old. At the very end of it she writes:

  And I have saved the best news of all—our dear sister Katherine is with child again, Our Lady of Walsingham has answered our prayers. God willing, the baby will be born in the Christmas season. Think what a Christmas we will have this year, with a new Tudor in the royal cradle!

  She commands me to think of their joy—she need not! I cannot stop myself thinking. I am haunted by their happiness. I know only too well what sort of a Christmas there will be at court, and I not there, and never even mentioned. While I am abandoned by my husband, shamed before my council, with my brother conspiring against me, Katherine will go into her confinement and Mary will be unchallenged queen, the leader in all the dances, the prizewinner in all the games, the mistress of the wealthiest court in Europe. Then when Katherine comes out with a baby in her arms, there will be a tremendous christening to honor the precious new child, the parties will begin all over again. If she has a boy there will be an enormous tournament and the celebrations will last for days and spread all over the kingdom. If she has a boy Harry will give her the key to the treasury of England and she can wear a new crown every day of the year, and my son will be disinherited.

  I look out of my window at the driving rain, at the gray mountains, shrouded in cloud, and the gray sky above them. I can hardly believe that such a world of joy and music and happiness still exists somewhere, and that once that world was mine. I don’t even begrudge their happiness without me. I cannot really blame them for forgetting about me. Myself, I can barely remember their faces.

  HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1519

  Christmas comes and goes and I have no news of my husband. It is hard to make merry without him carving the meat, or dancing with the ladies. Nobody speaks of him, but I hear that he is snowed-in with Janet Stewart at Newark Castle. The council do not consult me. I give no advice to Lord Dacre. It is as if I have stepped away from the regency, from my marriage, from life itself.

  My poor brother has lost a child, again. All their high hopes came to nothing and I am truly sad for him, and for her too. I hear late, long after their grief; the letter from Thomas Lord Dacre comes through only when the first spring thaw clears the road from the south. Bundled in his letter comes a note from Katherine.

  God did not grant us the happiness of her birth. Blessed is His Holy Name, and who can doubt His will? She was a little girl and she came early. I hoped it would not be too early, we had physicians and midwives ready when I thought she was coming and I tried to hold her into this unsteady life . . . but Our Father knew better, and I bow to His will, though I cannot understand it.

  I know that your life is not easy but I urge you to spend your time with your son, who is such a gift from heaven to a queen and a mother. This was my sixth child and yet I have only one in the nursery, and she is not the prince that I prayed for. God’s will be done, I tell myself this: God’s will be done. I say the words over and over, all through the night when I cannot sleep for crying.

  Our sister Mary is with child again, thank God, and in my own sorrow I cannot do too much for her. I can hardly bear to let her out of my sight and I pray for her safety in her ordeal that is to come. I wish I felt better able to help her, but I am weary and exhausted by disappointment. You will understand how low I feel when I tell you that my maid in-waiting, little Bessie Blount, has left court to give birth. I cannot write more. The ways of God are mysterious indeed. I hope you will pray for me that I learn to resign myself gladly to His will.

  Oh, dear Margaret, I feel that I am ready to die with grief . . .

  Katherine

  I cannot face the spring weather with the courage that I should. Every day is Tudor green, every day the snow melts away and the sun shines a little more strongly. In front of the church the snowdrops are lifting their heads above the whiteness of the frost under the silver birch trees. The birds are starting to sing in the mornings, and the smell of new buds and of the turned earth comes in through the open windows and makes me feel that renewal is possible, that I might recover from this long winter of disappointment.

  The council does not let me see my son more than once a week but this much at least they allow. I send no message to Archibald, I think that I will never see him again and it is as if I am a widow. I wish I could grieve for the loss of him; once again I am a widow with no body to bury. He sends me neither messages nor money. He keeps all my rents and all my fees are paid to him. To get through these cold days I have been forced to pawn all the gifts that I brought from England. My last two gold cups I sent to Lord Dacre as a pledge for a loan. Now, as we come to the end of the winter quarter, I dismiss my household staff so that I am served by no more than a handful of people. I lend my horses to private stables, I send my ladies back to their homes. I live as if I were a private gentlewoman of scant means. The council are full of sympathy but they can do nothing. Archibald collects all my rents as my husband, and he lives like a lord in Newark Castle, with the woman who calls herself his wife. She has given birth to a child—a daughter. They live well, the castle fortified, the household staffed. They are rich, on the fees that are paid by my tenants. Undeniably, he is my husband and he has a legal right to my fortune. He is the lord and master of my houses and he can live where he pleases; his treatment of me does not amount to grounds for divorce. He is a bad husband: but the Church does not concern itself with that. He is still my husband, he still has my fortune.

  The only way I could defend myself would be to declare that he is indeed Lady Janet’s husband; she is the Countess of Angus, our marriage is bigamous, our daughter is a bastard, and I am an adulterous whore. The question of whether I should regard myself as a betrayed wife or a sinful adulteress wakes me in the early hours of the morning, and haunts me all the day.

  I have lost my position as a wife, and also my authority as a queen. Another woman makes merry in my house and revels in the love of her husband who was once mine. I can see no one and go nowhere; I shall become like my dead husband—a ghost that people say still lives, but one that is never seen. They will write ballads about us and say that one day we will return to bring peace to Scotland and set our boy on the throne. People will see us in mists and tell stories about us when they are drunk.

  I know that I should fight this half death, this nonlife. I have to surrender all my hopes of Archibald and give him up. I must take the shame of being a whore and declare him my enemy. I must forget that I ever loved him. I must go to England and throw myself into my brother’s arms, and call on him to help me get a divorce from Archibald.

  Now I think wistfully: if only I had taken the advice of the good Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey I would be the Dowager Empress of the Holy Roman Empire, with a treasure house of jewels and a wardrobe full of gowns. No one would be powerful enough to refuse my command that my son lives with me. I would be called “Her Majesty” and I would create an imperial court in Scotland. I was such a fool to tell Thomas Wolsey and my brother that I would be true to Archibald. Wolsey is a papal legate now, he could win me a divorce from Archibald with one letter. I should never have spoken