Three Sisters, Three Queens

ON PROGRESS, YORK TO EDINBURGH, JULY 1503

I head for the borderlands of England and Scotland with little regret for what I am leaving behind. So much of my childhood has already gone. In the past year I have lost my adored brother and then my mother, and a little newborn sister with her. But I find that I don’t miss them so much, in this new life that I am entering. Oddly, it is Katherine that I miss as I travel north. I want to tell her about the magnificent greetings that welcome me to every town, and I want to ask about the awkwardness of a long ride and needing the garderobe. I copy her beautiful way of holding her head, I even practice her little roll of the shoulders. I try to say “ridiculous” with a Spanish accent. I think that she will be Queen of England and I will be Queen of Scotland and people will compare us one with another, and that I will learn to be as elegant as she is.

I have daily opportunities for practicing her poise, for I am beginning to discover that one of the greatest features of being royal is being able to think quietly about interesting things while people pray for you or talk at you, or even sing anthems about you. It would be rude to yawn when someone is thanking God for your arrival, so I have learned the trick of drifting off without falling asleep. I sit like Katherine, with my back very straight and my head raised high to lengthen my neck. Most often I lift my gown a tiny fraction of an inch and look at my shoes. I have ordered slippers with the toes embroidered in fanciful designs so that these pious meditations can be yet more interesting.

I look at my toes a lot at every long boring stopping point, while noblemen make speeches at me, all the way northward. My father has ordered that my journey shall be a magnificent procession, and my part in it is to look beautiful in a series of wonderful gowns, and to cast down my eyes in modesty when people thank God for the coming of the Tudors and, in particular, for my passing through their plague-infested, dirty little town. That’s when I look at my toes and think that soon I will be in my own country, Scotland. And then I will be queen. And then I shall be the one to decide where I go, and how long the speeches will take.

I am amazed by the countryside as we ride north. It is almost as if the sky opens up over us, like the lid off a chest. Suddenly the horizon gets farther and farther away, receding as we climb up and down rolling green hills and see more and more hills ahead of us, as if all of England is billowing under our feet. Above us arches the great Northern sky. The air is watery and clear, as if we were submerged. I feel as if we are tiny people, a little train of shrimps crawling along a huge world, and the buzzards that wheel above us, and the occasional eagle even higher than they, see rightly that we are specks on the side of giant rolling hills.

I had no idea it was so far to go, no idea that so much of Northern England is empty of all people: not hedged, not ditched, not farmed, nor worked at all. It is just empty country, wasteland, not even mapped.

Of course, there are people who scrape a living from this untouched landscape. Every now and then we see in the distance a rough stone tower and sometimes we hear the ringing of a warning bell when their watchmen have seen us. These are the wild Northern men who ride these lands, stealing each other’s crops and horses, rounding up each other’s cattle, scraping a living from their tenants and then robbing others. We don’t go near their outposts and we are too numerous and too well armed for them to attack us; but the leader of my escort, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, grinds his old yellow teeth at the very thought of them. He has fought up and down this country and burned out these poor forts to punish these people for their wildness, for their poverty, for their hatred of everything Southern and wealthy and easy.

It is he who prevents me ordering matters as I would like, for everything is commanded by him and his equally disagreeable wife, Agnes. For some reason my father likes and trusts Thomas Howard, and has appointed him to the task of conveying me to Edinburgh, and keeping me to the behavior suitable for a Queen of Scotland. I should think that by now I could be trusted without a Howard at my elbow to give me advice. He’s also here as a spy, since he has fought against the Scots more than once, and he meets with the Northern lords in a little huddle at every town where we halt, to learn of the mood of the Scots border lords, and whether any more of them can be bribed to take our side. He promises our lords that they shall have weapons and money to maintain the defenses of England against Scotland, though the mere fact that I am here will bring a perpetual peace.

Howard does not seem to understand what a change in the world has been made by my marriage to the King of Scotland. He treats me with every outward respect, doffs his hat, bows his knee, accepts dishes from my table, but there is something about his manner that I don’t like. It is as if he does not realize the God-given nature of kingship. It is as if he thinks that he saw my father stumble through the mud of Bosworth Field to pick up his crown, and that he might one day drop it again.

Howard fought against us then, but he persuaded my father that this was commendable loyalty, not treason. He says he was loyal to the crown on that day, he is loyal to the crown now. If the coronet of England were on the head of a baboon from Afric he would be loyal to it then. It is the crown, and the wealth that flows from it, that inspires Howard loyalty. I don’t believe he loves my father and me at all. If he was not such a brilliant general I don’t think I would have to put up with his company. If my mother were alive she would have appointed one of her family. If my brother were alive then my lady grandmother would not be tied at court to guard the only heir we have left. But everything has gone wrong since Katherine came to court and took Arthur away, and these Howards are just an example of how my interests do not come first as they should.

My dislike of them grows at every stop, where they watch how I listen to loyal addresses and prompt me when I am to speak in reply, though I know perfectly well that I have to be admiring in York, and enchanted in Berwick, our northernmost town, a little jewel of a castle set in a bend of the river near to the sea. I don’t have to be told to admire the fortifications; I can see how welcoming Berwick is to me, I know how safe I feel inside these great walls. But Thomas Howard practically dictates the speech of thanks I make to the captain of the castle. He prides himself on his knowledge of tradition. By some means or another he is descended from Edward I, and this means that he thinks he can speak to me about sitting straighter in the saddle and not looking around for the dishes coming into the hall when the speeches go on and on before dinner.

By the time we reach the Scots border, just two hours’ ride from Berwick, I am completely sick of the two Howards, and I resolve that the first thing I shall do when I set up my court is send them home with a note to my father to say that they lack the skills that I require in my courtiers. They may be good enough for him, but not for me. They can serve in Katherine’s court and she can see what joy Thomas Howard brings her. She can see if she likes knowing that he is so loyal to the crown that he does not care whose head it is on. His grimly ambitious presence can remind her that she too married one Prince of Wales but is now determined to be the wife of another; it is always the crown for the Howards and the crown for Katherine.

But none of this matters when we finally cross the border and are in Scotland at last, and the lady of Dalkeith Castle, the Countess of Morton, whispers to me: “The king is coming!”

It has been such a long journey that I had almost forgotten that at the end of it is this: the throne of Scotland, the thistle crown, but also a man, a real man, not just one who sends gifts and flowery compliments through ambassadors—but a real man who is on his way to see me.

The arrangement was that he would meet me as I entered Edinburgh, but there is a stupid tradition that the bridegroom—like a fairy-tale prince—is supposed to be unable to contain his impatience, and rides out early, like a “parfit gentil knight” in a romance, to meet his bride. This reminds me of Arthur again, who rode in the rain to Dogmersfield to meet a reluctant Katherine, and makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time, remembering the poor reception that he got, and his embarrassment. But it shows at least that the King of Scots knows how things should be done, and is demonstrating a flattering interest in me.

We all get into a panic of readiness and even my chief lady-in-waiting Agnes Howard shows a little excitement when she comes to my room. I am dressed in a gown of deep green with cloth-of-gold sleeves and my best pearls, and we all sit as if we were posing for an artist, listening to music and trying to look as if we are not waiting. Thomas Howard comes in and looks around the room as if he were placing sentries. He leans over my shoulder and whispers in my ear that I should look as if I am completely surprised by the arrival of the king. I should not look like I am waiting. I tell him that I know this, and then we all wait. Hours go by before finally there is a clatter at the gate, and a shout of acclaim, a rattle at the main door, quick steps in noisy riding boots up the stairs, then the sentries throw open the door and in he comes: my husband.

I nearly scream at the sight of him. He has the most enormous ridiculous beard, as red as a fox, almost the size of a fox. I jump to my feet and I let out a little gasp. Agnes Howard gives me a sharp look and if she were nearer I think she would have pinched me to remind me of my manners. But it doesn’t matter, for the king is taking me by the hand and bowing, apologizing for startling me. He takes my wide-eyed, jaw-dropped gape as a compliment at his unexpected arrival, and he laughs at himself for being a troubadour of love, then he greets all my ladies with a smiling confidence, bows over Agnes Howard’s hand, and greets Thomas Howard as if they will be the best of friends and he has quite forgotten that Thomas has invaded Scotland twice already.

He is beautifully dressed, like a European prince, in red velvet edged with cloth of gold, and he remarks that we have both chosen velvet. The jacket is cut like a riding jacket but the material is priceless, and instead of a crossbow over his back, as if he were hunting, he is carrying a lyre. I say, a little faintly, that he is a troubadour indeed if he carries his lyre everywhere, and he tells me that he loves music, and poetry and dance, and that he hopes I do too.

I say that I do and he urges me to dance. Agnes Howard stands up with me and the musicians play a pavane, which I know I perform very gracefully. They serve supper and we sit beside each other and now, while he talks to Thomas Howard, I am able to look at him properly.

He is a handsome man. He is very old of course, being thirty, but he has none of the stiffness or solemnity of an old man. He has a beautiful face: high-arched eyebrows and warm intelligent eyes. All the quickness of his thoughts and the intensity of his feeling seem to shine out of his dark eyes, and his mouth is strongly shaped and, for some reason, it makes me think of kissing. Except for the beard, of course. There is no getting away from the beard. I doubt there is any way to get past the beard. At least he is combed and washed and scented; it is not a beard that might have a mouse nesting in it. But I would have preferred him clean-shaven and I cannot help but wonder if I can mention this. Surely it is bad enough for me to have to marry a man who is old enough to be my father, and with a smaller kingdom than my home, without him bringing a fox’s brush to bed with him?

He leaves at dusk and I remark to Agnes Howard that perhaps she might tell her husband that I would prefer the king clean-shaven. Typically, she tells him at once as if my preferences are ridiculous, and so before I go to bed I have a lecture from them both that I am fortunate to become a queen, and that no husband, especially an ordained king, is going to take advice on his appearance from a young woman.

“Man is made in the image of God; no woman, who was made after God had completed his finest creation, is fit to criticize,” Thomas Howard tells me as if he were pope.

“Oh, amen,” I say sulkily.

In the next four days before the wedding my new husband comes to visit every day, but mostly he talks to Thomas Howard rather than to me. The old man has fought the Scots up and down the borders, but instead of being enemies for life, as anyone would expect, they are inseparable, sharing stories of campaigns and battles. My betrothed, who should be courting me, reruns old wars with my escort, and Thomas Howard, who should be attending to my comfort, forgets I am there and tells the king of his long years of campaigning. They are never happier than when they are drawing a map of ground where they have fought, or when James the king is describing the weaponry he is designing and having built for his castles. Both of them behave, as soldiers together always do, as if women are completely irrelevant to the work of the world, as if the only interesting work is invading someone else’s lands and killing him. Even when I am seated with my ladies and the king comes in with Thomas, he wastes only a few moments on being charming to me, and then asks Thomas if he has seen the new guns, the Dardanelles gun, the new light cannon, if he knows of the famous Scottish cannon Mons, the largest in Europe—which was given to James’s grandfather by the Duke of Burgundy. It is most irritating. I am sure that Katherine would not stand for it.

The day of our entry into Edinburgh is my last day as a Tudor princess before I am crowned in my new kingdom, and the king takes me up behind him on his horse, as if I were a simple lady and he my master of horse, or as if he had captured me and was bringing me home. We enter Edinburgh with me seated behind him, pressed against his back, my arms wrapped around his waist, like a peasant girl coming home from a fair. It pleases everyone. They like the romance of the picture that we make, like a woodcut of a knight and a rescued lady; they like an English princess being brought into their capital city like a trophy. They are an informal, affectionate people, these Scots. I can’t understand a single word that anyone says, but the beaming faces and the kissed waving hands and the cheers show their delight at the sight of the handsome wild-looking king with his long red hair and beard, and the golden princess seated behind him on his horse.

The city is walled with fine gates, and behind them the houses are a mixture of shanties and hovels, some good-sized ones with plastered walls under thick thatched roofs, and a few newly built of stone. There is a castle perched on the very top of an incredibly steep hill at one end of the city, sheer cliffs all around it and only a narrow road to the summit; but there is a new-built palace in the valley at the other end, and outside the tight fortified walls of the town are high hills and forests. Running steeply downhill from castle to palace is a broad cobbled road, a mile long, and the best houses of the tradesmen and guildsmen front this street and their upper stories jut over it. Behind them are pretty courtyards and the dark wynds that lead to inner hidden houses and big gardens, orchards, enclosures, and more houses behind them with secret alleyways that run down the hill.

At every street corner there is a tableau or a masque, with angels, goddesses, and saints praying for love and fertility for me. It is a pretty little city, built as high as it is broad, the castle standing like a mountain above it, the turrets scraping the sky, the flags fluttering among the clouds. It is a jumble of a city, being rebuilt from hovels to houses, from wood to stone, gray slate roofs replacing thatch. But every window, whether open to the cold air, shuttered, or glazed, shows a standard, or colors, and between the overhanging balconies they have strung scarves and chains of flowers. Every poky little doorway is crammed with the family clustered together to wave at me, and where the stone houses have an oriel window or an upper story and a balcony children are leaning out to cheer. The noise of all the people crammed into the little streets and the shouting as our guard push their way through is overwhelming. Ahead and behind us there must be at least a thousand horses with Scots and English lords intermingled to show the new unity that I have brought to Scotland, and we all wind our way through the narrow cobbled streets and then down the hill to the palace of Holyroodhouse.