Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1527

I go to Stirling, and at once someone tells Harry that I have been banned from my own son’s court and that I am living adulterously with a lover. Someone has told him that my son pleaded with me to amend my ways and turn away from sin and that when I would not, he rightly sent me away. Harry sends me an outraged letter in which he threatens me with eternal damnation if I will not give up my adultery. He writes to James too and tells him that he also must reform. He must stop drinking, stop whoring, and commit himself to knightly practice and noble sports. I am baffled by this stern new morality until I get a scribbled note from Mary:

Mademoiselle Anne will not yield to the king. They talk a great deal about her virtue and how she is storm-tossed. I have never seen a seduction like it, we are all to ponder her chastity while she wears her gowns cut low and her hoods pushed back. She pretends to a French accent and reads heretical books. This is a modern young woman indeed. We have become fervently chaste while dancing like whores. The queen is ill; I really don’t know how she manages to get through dinner while the rich dishes go out to the young women and they lick their spoons.

I can hardly bear court. I would not go at all if Charles did not make me. Katherine asks you to assure her that you will do nothing to undermine the state of marriage. She has heard that you have left your son’s court in order to live with your lover. I told her that this must be a lie. I know you would not do such a thing. Not for your own sake, not for ours. You would not, would you? Swear to me that you would not.