Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  I walk home up the steep hill with dragging feet. Even knowing all this—I cannot live with Archibald again, I cannot bear to be with the man I married for love, that I gifted with everything I owned, and who preferred someone else. I cannot return to a man with blood on his hands. But I do see what Katherine and Mary are saying—marriage vows must last forever. A royal marriage is indissoluble.

  I don’t reply to Mary, but I write a painful letter to Cardinal Wolsey, knowing that he will write an accurate synopsis and set it before Harry, when Harry can take the time from his love affair to listen.

  I must tell you that the French have promised me a safe haven in Paris if ever Archibald returns to Scotland. I solemnly swear that I will never live with him again, but I understand that I should not pursue my divorce. I beg you to make sure that Archibald never comes back to Scotland, that the king my brother does not grant him safe conduct, that he is advised to live in exile. The Duke of Albany is going to France soon, before the winter storms make the seas too dangerous, and in his absence I will try to see my son safely on the throne. I hope to take James away from Stirling Castle and the guards who are paid by the French. I hope to take him to Edinburgh and make him king. I believe I can do this with the lords of the council and with the help of James Hamilton, as long as the Douglas clan remain quiet and Archibald in exile. For I am not fickle, and I am not faithless, and your great friend Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus, is both.

  God and Scotland would be best served if he stayed away forever. I too.

  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 E