Three Sisters, Three Queens

HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, MARCH 1507

There is no doubt in my mind who is now the foremost of the three princesses, my sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon, my sister Mary, or myself: it is obviously me. Katherine failed to conceive a child with Arthur and then told everyone, “Alas, it never happened for us,” and now her marriage is never mentioned and she is a poor relation, an unwanted hanger-on. People may praise Mary’s beauty and her talents, but her betrothal to Charles of Castile is still only a plan, and he is nothing more than a child himself. His father has died so he is now heir to the Holy Roman Emperor. But still, he is a little boy and she won’t be able to marry or present the Habsburgs with a son any time in the next eight years. But I have conceived, carried and birthed a boy. It nearly cost me my life. I was deathly ill, everyone thought that they would lose me. But my husband went on pilgrimage, on foot for hundreds of miles, at least a hundred, to Saint Ninian at Whithorn and at the very moment that he knelt before the altar, I recovered. It is a miracle, a son and heir for Scotland, and a message from God that he blesses my queenship and our marriage.

Our child is an heir for England too. If anything were to happen to Harry (which God forbid, of course) it is my baby who would be heir to the throne of England through me. Katherine and Mary cannot dream of that for themselves, whereas I could be My Lady the King’s Mother, and as great as our grandmother, who runs the English court through her son and has done so ever since he came to the throne, married or widowed.

We hold a magnificent joust to celebrate the birth and the undeniable champion is a mystery knight called “the wild man.” He jousts with the white knight—the Sieur de la Bastie, the handsome French-born knight who fought before me at my wedding. Once again, Antoine delights the crowd and all the ladies with his ice-white armor and the white scarf streaming on his lance. He and James have a bet about the proper treatment of a charger’s feet, and James loses and gives the chevalier a cask of wine to wash his horse’s hooves. The greatest joust of the tournament is when the white knight comes against the wild man. There’s a wonderful series of broken lances and then we all scream with excitement when the wild man challenger takes off his helmet and throws down his disguise—and it is my husband, who has fought all comers and defeated everyone! He is delighted with himself, with me, and with our son, who is named James, Prince of Scotland and the Isles and Duke of Rothesay, so Marion Boyd’s Alexander can step back into half-bred obscurity and play at being archbishop and the bastard James can settle for being an earl.

Everything should be perfect since our marriage is visibly blessed by God, except that my husband doubts, or says that he doubts, my father’s good faith. Scottish reivers raid the lands of the English farmers, stealing sheep and cows and sometimes robbing travelers, and my father rightly complains that this is a breach of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace. James counters with my father’s treatment of Scots merchant shipping, and both of them endlessly write claim and counterclaim about the unreliable justice and constant warring of the borderlands.

My father expected my marriage to bring a peace that would last forever between England and Scotland, but I don’t know how I am supposed to bring it about. James is not a boy to become besotted with an older experienced king, as Mary tells me Harry was with Philip of Castile. James is a grown man, an older man, who will not submit himself to the authority of my father. He would never dream of asking for my advice, and when I offer it—even though I am a princess of England—he takes no notice. I say with great dignity that as a princess of England, Queen of Scotland, and mother of the next King of Scotland, I have thoughts on this, and many matters, and I expect them to be regarded.

And he bows low and says: “God save the Queen!”