Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  We have a great feast that night: haunches of venison, pies of songbirds, slices of roast goose, fish in plenty, roast boar, and tray after tray of sweetmeats at the end of the dinner. Everyone knows that the papal messenger has brought good news and that I am free of Archibald and someone is certain to have slipped away to Edinburgh already to tell Archibald that he has finally lost and I am free. Margaret is not to be named as a bastard and I shall demand that she lives with me.

  I laugh at the thought that I am a free woman. I can hardly believe that it is true after so many years of waiting, after so many terrible letters from England. I think that they will soon hear of this, and I think of my sister-in-law, on her knees for my soul and the soul of her husband. I think I am sorry for her, for Katherine, the wife who will be left behind; and I am glad and proud of myself who will be married again, and to a young man who loves me for myself. I think I am a young woman like that slut Anne Boleyn who dares to look the old rules in the face and choose her own future. I think that Katherine, and all the old people who would keep women where they are, under the rule of men, are my enemy. The world is changing and I am in the forefront of change.

  “What news of my brother, the King of England?” I ask the papal messenger as the groom of the servery pours him another glass of wine.

  “The Holy Father has received an application,” the messenger says. “He is sending a papal legate to London to hear the evidence.”

  I am so surprised that I drop my spoon. “What evidence? I thought the legate was coming to reconcile them, or to talk with the queen?”

  “He is hearing evidence for an annulment,” the man replies, as if the matter is simple. “The Holy Father is making a full inquiry.”

  I should have foreseen this, but Harry’s ability to say one thing and do another continues to amaze me. “My brother has sought to annul his marriage?”

  “Your Grace did not know?”

  “I knew that he had doubts. I thought that the papal legate was coming to London to resolve those doubts. I did not know that there was to be an inquiry. I did not know that there was any evidence. I thought that my brother the king was opposed to the dissolution of marriage.”

  A small, hidden smile suggests that the messenger has been told this too. “It is not a question of dissolution of a valid marriage,” he says carefully. “I understand that the king believes that a valid marriage to the queen never took place. He has produced proofs. And of course, he has no heir.”

  “He has had no male heir for eighteen years,” I say tartly. “And he has a princess. Why would he apply for an annulment now?”

  “Apparently, it is not to marry another lady,” the messenger says carefully. “It is to ensure that he is not living in a state of sin. He is not self-serving; he believes that God has not blessed the marriage as it was no marriage. It was never a marriage.”

  I glance at Henry, who is seated at the head of the table of lords, not beside me, since he is not yet my husband. “Even here in Scotland we have heard of Anne Boleyn,” I remark.

  The papal messenger shakes his head slowly, enjoying the twisting diplomatic denial of the obvious. “But not in the Vatican. The curia has not heard of the lady,” he lies beautifully. “Her name is not mentioned in any documents. Her presence at the court in London is not material to the evidence. Your brother is seeking the annulment of his marriage on clerical grounds, not for his personal feelings. He has doubts. He does not have desires.”

  STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1528

  Henry and I are married in the little castle chapel at Stirling. It’s one of the oldest buildings on the steep side of the castle bailey and so the stone-flagged floor slopes upwards to the altar and climbs in a series of worn stone steps. As Henry and I go hand in hand towards my confessor it is an uphill walk, and indeed, I feel that is how our shared life has been.

  We have witnesses—never again will I let someone claim that I had no marriage at all but a private handfasting; the priest brings a choirboy to sing the anthem, but it is a private ceremony. Henry gives me the ring of his clan, with the pelican insignia of his family crest. He gives me a purse of gold. We go to bed that afternoon and so the marriage is made, unbreakably. At last I am married to a good man in the safety of my own castle in Scotland. As I doze in his arms and the cold spring afternoon turns dark outside, I think of Katherine and the chilly comforts of her faith. I think that she was so emphatic that she knew what was right, she knew what was God’s will. But here am I, her much less clever sister-in-law, less devout, less educated, poorer and with fewer jewels, inferior in every way, yet it is I who am married to a handsome young husband with our lives before us, and that while the court dances in the great hall, she is alone praying, abandoned by the king who tells her that she is the finest wife he could have, but alas, never his wife at all.

  We do not have a peaceful honeymoon at Stirling. Only weeks after our marriage the guards on the castle walls sound the alarm. As soon as the tocsin rings out the animals grazing in the woods outside the castle are driven into the yard, the drawbridge is cranked up and the portcullis slams down. People outside the castle visiting friends or family in the little town at the foot of the hill are exiled, locked out until danger is over, and some of the villagers who have come in to work in the kitchens or serve in the castle are trapped inside with us. We are in a state of siege within moments and I run, from my privy chamber where I was praying, to the captain of the castle at the sentry post above the main gate. To my left I can see them rolling out the big guns on the grand battery, aiming them down the hill where any attacking army has to approach, exposed to our fire on their flanks. Behind me they are arming the palace gate, and bowmen with handguns are running across the guardroom square to line the walls that look down the only road to the castle.

  “What is it?” I demand shortly. “Is it the Douglases?”

  “An advance guard. I can’t see who.”

  I see a herald ride up the road, two men behind him, looking as nervous as any man will be under the gaze of forty cannon. Standards ripple before and behind him.

  “Stand!” bellows the captain of the castle. “Identify yourselves!”

  “A warrant of arrest.” The herald raises a piece of paper but it is too far to see if it is a forgery.

  “For who?”

  This is extraordinary. Who can they want?

  “A known traitor, Henry Stewart, for marrying the queen regent without permission from her son, the king.”

  The captain glances sideways at me and sees my aghast face. This is the very last thing that I expected. I had thought that Archibald and I were agreed that I should be free. I thought it was Harry’s order. I thought Ard was satisfied with the power he had seized and the use he has had of my lands.

  “Open the gate in the name of the King of Scotland,” the herald shouts.

  It is an irresistible password. We cannot resist the name of the King of Scotland without being declared traitors ourselves. I bite my lip as the captain looks at me for a command.

  “I have to open it,” he says.

  “I know you do,” I say. “But first send someone out to make sure that it is the royal seal.”

  I am playing for time, but I have no plan for the extra ten minutes. Henry comes up behind me and watches with the captain as our master of horse goes out and examines the seal. We see his gesture to the captain to acknowledge that it is genuine, and the captain bellows at his men and the portcullis slowly creeps upwards.

  “Can you ride out of one of the sally ports, as they are coming in the main gate?” Desperately I hold Henry’s hands and scan his white face.

  “They’d capture him on the road down to the village,” the captain advises. “They’ll have a guard waiting, and pickets all around.”

  “Can we hide him?”

  “Then we’d be guilty of treason too.”

  “I didn’t think! I never dreamed!”

  “I’ll demand safe conduct,” Henry says quiet