Three Sisters, Three Queens

LINLITHGOW PALACE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1510

In May, when we are at our lakeside palace, I get a short handwritten letter from Katherine saying that, after all, there does not seem to be another baby. She writes in a tiny crabbed hand, as if she wishes she were not writing at all.

I have begged my father not to reproach me. I did nothing that was careless or wrong. They told me that I had lost a baby but kept her twin, and I did not know that there was nothing there until my belly went down again as if from a bloat, and my courses started. How should I know? Nobody told me. How should I know?

She says that her husband has been kindness itself, but that she cannot stop herself crying all the time. I push the letter away and I cannot bring myself to reply for irritation at them both. The idea of Harry being kind to his wife—my little brother who never had a thought in his head but for himself!—and the idea of Katherine of Arrogant humbling herself to apologize for something that she could not help sends me into a little fury. The idea of her unable to stop crying fills me with disdain. How would I be if I could not stop crying when I lost a child? I would never have made another. Why should Katherine revel in grief and publish it to the world? Should she not show queenly courage, as I did?

I have to concede, also, that my husband may have been right about her seeing a physician. How could people have told her that she was with child when she had just miscarried a baby? How could the wise women be so foolish? How could she have been so stupid as to listen?

I suppose it is just everyone trying to please Harry as usual. People cannot bear to tell him bad news, as he has no tolerance for anything that denies his own will. Just like my lady grandmother, he has an idea of how things should be, and he will not listen when someone says that the world is not like that. He has always been completely spoiled. I suppose that when they told him Katherine had lost a baby girl, he looked at them as if such a disappointment was simply impossible, and then they all felt they must assure him that she was still pregnant, probably with a boy. Now that lie has been revealed and Katherine will feel worse than ever. But who is to blame?

I go to the royal nursery and see my own baby, the heir of Scotland and England, plump and strong, in the arms of his rocker. “He is well?” I ask. They smile and tell me he is very well, eating well and growing daily.

I go back to my rooms and write to Katherine:

Praise God, my son is strong and very healthy. We are blessed indeed to have him. I am so sorry to hear of your mistake. I pray for you in your sorrow and your embarrassment.

“Don’t write that,” my husband says, looking over my shoulder and rudely reading my private letter.

I scatter it with sand to dry the ink, and I wave it in the air so he cannot read my sympathetic words. “It’s just a sisterly letter,” I say.

“Don’t send it. She has enough trouble without you adding your sympathy to her burdens.”

“Sympathy is hardly a burden.”

“It’s one of the worst.”

“Anyway, what is a woman like her troubled with?” I demand. “She has everything that she ever dreamed of but a child, and surely one will come.”

I see him look away as if he has a secret. “James! Tell me! What have you heard?”

He pulls forward a stool and sits on it, smiling up at me. “You must not rejoice in the misfortune of others,” he instructs me.

I cannot hide my smile. “You know that I would not be so unkind. Is it Katherine’s misfortune?”

“You will rewrite the letter.”

“I will. If you will tell me what you know.”

“Well, for all his gentle upbringing, your sainted brother Harry is no better than a mere sinner like me,” he says. “For all that you reproach me for the bairns and send them away from their little nursery, your brother Harry is no better a husband than I; he is no better than the rest of us. While his wife was in confinement he was caught in bed with one of her ladies-in-waiting.”

“Oh! No! Which one? Who?” I gasp. “Actually in bed with her?”

“Anne Hastings,” he says. “So now there is a great row between her brother the Duke of Buckingham, the whole Stafford family, and the king.”

I sigh as if he has just given me a rich gift. “How very dreadful,” I say delightedly. “How unfortunate. I am very shocked.”

“And the Staffords are very great,” he reminds me. “And of royal blood from Edward III. They won’t like to be held up for shame, nor to have Henry dallying with one of theirs. He’s a fool to make enemies of his lords.”

“I suppose you never do.”

“I don’t,” he says with quiet pride. “If I make an enemy, then I kill him or imprison him, I don’t upset him and let him go off to his own lands to cause trouble against me. I know what I have to do to hold this kingdom together. Your brother is new to the throne and careless.”

“Anne Hastings,” I say lingeringly. “Katherine’s own lady-in-waiting. She must be absolutely furious. She must be spitting with rage. She must be sick with disappointment. After her great wedding! After her marriage for love! All those ridiculous madrigals!”

He lifts a finger as if to warn me. “Never again scold me for having a mistress,” he says. “You always say that your father never looked at another woman and that your brother married for love. Now you see. It is perfectly normal for a man to take a mistress, especially when his wife is confined. It is perfectly normal for a king to have his pick of the court. Never reproach me again.”

“It is neither normal nor moral,” I retort. “It is against the laws of God and of man.” I can’t maintain my grandmother’s tone. “Oh, James, tell me more! Is Katherine going to have to keep Lady Anne as her lady-in-waiting? Is she going to have to turn a blind eye to it all? Will Harry keep Anne as his whore?” I gasp. “He’ll never set her up as his mistress, like a French king, will he? He’ll never let her run his court and send Katherine away?”

“I don’t know,” he says, chucking me under the chin. “What a very vulgar child you are to want to know all the details! Shall I tell my ambassador to report at once?”

“Oh yes,” I say. “I want to know everything!”