Three Sisters, Three Queens

HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN 1509

James has ambassadors at Harry’s new court and they report that, just as I feared, the young couple are spending lavishly on clothes, celebrations, jousts, and music. There is dancing every night and apparently Henry composes songs for his own choristers, and poetry. My pregnancy is not an easy one, and the nausea that comes with my condition is worsened, I swear, by the reports of Katherine dancing in gowns of cloth of gold, the curtains in her box at the joust sewn all over with little gold letters of K and H, her pomegranate crest carved on every stone boss, her barge with silk curtains, her fantastic horses, her beautiful wardrobe, her greedy purchases of jewels.

I am so avid for reports of the most extravagantly beautiful court in Europe that people think I love to hear of my brother’s happiness. I show them a weak smile, I say “yes.” All this is troubling enough, but news of my sister Mary’s wealth and freedom is even worse for me. She will be completely unsupervised—for Katherine will never command her—and Harry will just drown her in jewels and fine gowns to show her off. Everyone tells me she is the most beautiful princess in all of Europe. Harry will use her as a puppet to show the crown jewels; he will have her portrait painted and send it all round Christendom to flaunt how beautiful she is. I imagine bets are already being taken on the likelihood of her jilting Charles of Castile and marrying another applicant, if they can find anyone grander. I really don’t think I can bear to see another picture of another betrothal. I can’t bear to get another letter from Mary boasting of her betrothal gifts—that ruby! And they will not make her return it, I am sure.

Katherine herself writes to me. It is her first letter adorned with the royal seal on the bottom. I find it unspeakably irritating:

We have always been sisters and now I am your sister and a sister-queen. Your brother and I have mourned your dear father and your good grandmother and we are very happy together. We should be so glad if you could make a visit to court next summer when the roads are good.

You will want to have news of your little sister. She lives with us at court and I think every day she grows more beautiful. I am so happy that she is betrothed to my family and so when she leaves us she will go to my former home and I know how they will delight in her fair skin and golden hair and the beauty of her sweet nature. She shares my wardrobe and my jewels and sometimes we dance together in the evenings, and people exclaim at the picture that we make: they call us Grace and Beauty—so silly. She will write to you next. I am trying to keep her to her studies—but you know how playful and naughty she is.

I hope soon that you two will be royal aunts to a little prince. Yes, I am with child! I will be so glad to give your brother a son and heir. How blessed we are! I pray for you daily, and I know that you think of me and our sister Mary and my dear husband, your brother the king. I know that you must feel, as we all do, that our dark years are behind us and we three must pray for our blessings to continue. God bless you, Sister.

Katherine

I grit my teeth. I write in reply. I say how pleased I am for her. I explain that I am sick in the mornings but some people say that this proves it is to be a boy. I say that they give me broth of beef. I am not afraid of childbirth, having faced it before, and also I am so young, only nineteen. It is so much safer to have babies when you are a young mother, everyone says so. And how is Katherine feeling? How is she at the age of twenty-three? Carrying her first child at twenty-three?

She does not reply to this, and first I laugh up my sleeve at the thought of taunting her with her age, and reminding her of the long years when she was waiting as a widow, the years when she should have been married to Harry and conceiving a child, and then—when her silence continues—I take offense, thinking that she believes herself too grand to be obliged to reply promptly. Also, she said that Mary would write to me and she does the child no favors if she allows her to be negligent and lazy. She should remember that I am her sister-in-law, and a queen in my own right. She should remember that my friendship is valuable, the perpetual peace is of my making, we are royal neighbors and my husband is a great king. Certainly, she should reply promptly to me when I have taken the trouble to write to her.

In October, not having had a single word from either of my so-called sisters, I write from my childbed to tell them that I have birthed a boy. I know that I write as if it is my triumph. I cannot moderate my tone—but it is my triumph. I have given my lusty husband a boy and whatever Katherine achieves in her future confinement, I have already done this, and I have done it before her, and they can know that in London. I have given my husband a son and an heir, and this boy is the son and the heir of England too—until Katherine does her duty as I have done mine. Until then, it is I who have the heir to the crowns of Scotland and England in my golden cradle, it is I who have the first Tudor of the third royal generation. We are no dynasty without grandchildren to follow my father, we are nothing without sons, and it is I—not Mary and not Katherine—who has a Tudor prince in my nursery tonight.