Three Sisters, Three Queens

EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1510

But the next news we have from England is not amusing scandal but good news: the best. Katherine is with child again. I cross myself when they tell me, for I am worried about my son, Arthur. Katherine and I have been so turn and turn about for good fortune—my betrothal coinciding with her widowhood, the death of my father meant her marriage and coronation—that I fear that the birth of an heir to the Tudor throne in England will be the death of the present heir in Scotland.

James does not laugh at my fears, but sends for his best physician to come to Edinburgh Castle and go to the nursery where everyone is on tiptoe around the rocker who strips the little linen shirt off my son and swears that he is getting hotter and hotter every hour, that he is burning up.

He is only nine months old, he is tiny. It does not seem as if there is enough baby to fight the fever that makes his skin so hot to the touch and makes his eyes sink into his face. They soak his sheets in cold water, they close the shutters against the sun, but they cannot make the fever break. And though they cup him, draining blood from his rosy little heel, and purge him so that he vomits and cries in pain, nothing makes him better. While I am kneeling on the floor beside his chief nursemaid, watching her pat his sweating skin with a cool towel, he closes his eyes and he stops crying. He turns his head away as if he just wants to sleep and then he is still, and she says, her voice filled with horror: “He’s gone.”

Dear Sister, I am so unhappy at his loss. I cannot write more. Pray for his little soul and pray for me, your sister, in this time of my trouble. I have been guilty of pride and envy but surely this terrible blow cannot be to teach me humility? I am so sorry if I have ever sinned against you. I pray you to forgive me for anything that I have ever said or done against you. Forgive my unkind and unsisterly thoughts that I have never even voiced. Give Mary my love, I miss you both so much. I am brought so very low. I have never known pain like this. Margaret.