Three Sisters, Three Queens

HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, CHRISTMAS 1507

I am with child again by Christmas and it is only this triumph that helps me to be serene, as serene as a madonna, when I hear the news that Mary my sister is officially betrothed to Charles of Castile. She is to have a dowry of two hundred fifty golden crowns, and his grandfather the emperor sent her a ruby so big that some fool wrote a poem about it. She was betrothed by proxy and made a speech in perfect French, and she takes the title Princess of Castile.

She writes to me herself to boast of her triumph, in a letter so ill written and spelled so wildly that I take nearly an hour to understand it.

I will be married when the prince is fourteen, seven years from now, and I don’t mind waiting at all, though it is a lifetime, because I am to stay at home and learn Spanish. It’s a tremendously difficult language but Katherine says that she will teach me, I think I should pay her for being my tutor as she lives very humbly at court, her parents don’t support her and we won’t pay her widow’s dower until they have paid her dowry. But I am not allowed to see her very often or give her anything.

I am to have a very grand wedding but, until then, I will stay at home. I shall have my title at once, I have it now! I am Princess of Castile and they are sewing my coronet onto all my things. I shall precede my lady grandmother and of course Katherine on every occasion—you can imagine how my lady grandmother likes that! She gave me a tremendous talk about false pride and told me to look at Katherine who is a dowager princess and yet is humbled to dust every day. When you come on a visit you can see my ruby. It is the biggest stone I have ever seen in my life, you could drown a cat with it.

My love, Mary

It is hardly worth the effort of spelling out this combination of triumphing over her sister-in-law and bragging of her own wealth, but I do not let it disturb me. My comfort is that I am a queen, and will continue to outrank her for years; but it is very hard to remember to be as serene as a madonna when she sends me the poem about her ruby, and a drawing of my father and my brother Prince Harry witnessing her triumph, standing on a dais under an awning of cloth of gold. The English ambassador told James that everyone ate off gold plate. Gold plate for Mary! The idea is quite ridiculous.