Three Sisters, Three Queens

LINLITHGOW PALACE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1512

The king cannot possibly go on crusade without an heir to succeed him. Even his religious advisors know that, but as I am with child again, and getting near my time, he goes on constant pilgrimages to holy shrines in his own country, dispensing justice and praying for mercy for himself at the same time. He has done all he can to prepare for a crusade as soon as a son is born to us; so we, a little country, have one of the greatest fleets in Europe. He has ideas about the way ships can be used in battle—no one has ever waged a sea battle as my husband thinks it should be done. He designs a mighty, beautiful ship, the Great Michael; and he oversees the building of it himself, stripped down to his shirt, working alongside the artisans: the blacksmiths and the carpenters, the shipwrights and the sailmakers. He tries, constantly, to persuade the Pope to make an alliance with the King of France, Louis XII, so that all the princes of Europe can unite in one powerful attack against the infidels who have captured the holy places and defiled the birthplace of Christ.

But the Pope has other plans and makes an alliance between Spain and the Venetians, and then my foolish young brother—completely under the sway of his Spanish wife, Katherine of Arrogant—joins what they are calling the Holy League, which will break the unity of the Christian kings. She makes Harry serve his Spanish father-in-law and drags him into war against France, just as James was hoping that all of Europe would go on crusade.

Everything that James hoped for is overthrown, Europe is divided again, and all so that my brother can pursue his dream of winning Aquitaine back for England, as if he were the heroic Henry V and not a king from a quite different family in a quite different time. I blame Harry for vanity and a foolish young man’s lust for war, but I know that he is under the influence of Katherine and I think of her as absolutely wicked to lead Harry—and England—into a war that we cannot possibly win, which will plunge all of Christendom into an internal battle when we should be fighting the infidel.

How is my husband going to organize his crusade if the Christian kings are fighting among themselves? But all that Katherine thinks of is pleasing her father and giving him an English army for his use. My brother is completely ruled by his cunning wife. I see again the boy who was my mother’s pet, a slave to our grandmother. Once again, he has found a woman who will tell him what to think. She should be ashamed of herself—rescued from poverty by the King of England, but encouraging him to endanger himself. She is thinking only of her own importance. Her mother was a queen who ruled in her own right; Katherine wants to do the same. She hopes to be a royal partner, a queen who is equal to a king. She wants to send Harry to war on a wild goose chase and be regent in his place. I know her. I know her secret ambition is to be like her mother: the greatest woman in Christendom. That is why she married Arthur, so that she could rule England through him. This is why she married Harry, and now she is getting her way.

I think I will write to Katherine and tell her how wrong she is to advise Harry to go to war in alliance with his father-in-law. But before I start my letter, a messenger comes from England with a package for me. When I open it I find inside, carefully wrapped in silk and parchment, a sacred relic: the holy girdle of the Virgin Herself, and a short letter from Katherine.

Dear Sister,

Knowing that your time is at hand I send you this, the most precious thing that I own, that helped me both in my time and in my loss. It is the sacred girdle of Our Lady, which she wore when she gave birth to Our Lord. It comes to you with Her sanctity and my deep affection and hopes for you and your new child. I pray that it is a strong boy. God bless you,

Katherine

My justifiable irritation with Katherine’s meddling with the governance of England melts away as I hold in my hands this most sacred relic. I know her devotion—this will be more to her than all the silver in Spain. She could not give me anything more precious, and if it grants me a safe delivery of a healthy son, she has given me my heart’s desire.

Dearest Sister, I give you deepest thanks for the loan of this precious girdle. You could not give me a greater gift. I am fearful as I approach my time, we seem to be so unlucky with our babies. My husband has a painfully uneasy conscience and is afraid that his sins fall on me and our unborn children.

This is why the girdle will comfort me as I go into confinement and bear me up in my time, and bring, I hope, an heir safely into my arms and to his throne. God grant us all forgiveness for our sins and let His mercy fall on us. God bless you for giving me this, you are a true sister. Ask Mary to pray for me too as I know that you do. Margaret.

Louis of France, alarmed by the allies massing against him, promises my husband that he shall have anything he wants if he will keep the “Auld Alliance” between France and Scotland. I am preparing to go into confinement when James comes to find me in the tiny room at the top of the tower, looking out over the water meadows and the loch.

“I thought I would find you here,” he says. “I am surprised you can make it up these steep stairs with that good belly on you.”

“I am breathing the air and taking the sun before I have to go into confinement,” I say.

He sits beside me. There is barely room for the two of us on the circular stone bench that lines the round room, but the unglazed windows show the countryside all around the castle and the swallows weave around this highest point. I can see for miles and miles in every direction and the huge sky arches over the tower as if it were the highest point in the world.

“I will work for peace while you are bringing us joy,” James says. He takes my hand and holds it to his chest, against his heart. “And when you next come up here we will carry our boy and let him see his kingdom.”

We get to our feet and step outside the little room, leaning on the parapet and looking down at the loch below where it ripples with the wind, blue under a blue sky. “If I am in alliance with the French, your brother will not invade them. He will not dare, for fear that I might invade the Northern lands while he is away.”

“You can’t do that! Our marriage sealed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace.”

“I won’t do that, but your brother is young and foolish and needs to fear a danger near home to keep him from seeking other dangers far away.”

“It’s her,” I say miserably. “It’s her. She wants him in alliance with her father, and her father is the most untrustworthy man in Christendom. My own father never liked him.”

James laughs shortly. “You’re right about that,” he says. “But you go to your work and be sure that I am keeping this country and even England safe for the boy that you may give us. Who knows? He might be heir to both kingdoms.”

I find my mouth trembles a little as I try to ask him if he has given up thoughts of a curse. “You don’t think . . . ?”

He knows at once what I mean, and with a quick gesture he draws me to his side and kisses my downturned head. “Hush,” he urges me. “I have the whole of the Church in Scotland in my keeping, and they are every one of them praying for you, for your boy, and for us. Go with a glad heart, Margaret, and do your work. Come on, I’ll take you down to it.”

He goes before me down the tight curves of the winding stone stair and makes me walk with one hand on his shoulder so that I cannot stumble. We enter my presence chamber, and all of my household is waiting to say farewell and wish me well. The two bastards, James and Alexander, kneel to me and wish me good health. At the doorway of my bedchamber, shrouded in darkness, my chamberlain gives me a cup of ale and my husband gives me a kiss on the mouth.

“God speed, my love,” he says. “Be of good heart. I will be waiting out here for news.”

I try to smile but I go into the darkened room with my head down, and my shoulders hunched. I am afraid; I am afraid that my family is under a curse for what we did to get the throne of England, and that the curse will fall on me and the baby that I have got to bring into the world.

I have a boy. Perhaps it is the blessing of the Virgin’s girdle, which we tie around my straining belly, perhaps it is the prayers of we three sister-queens; but I, Margaret, Queen of Scotland and Princess of England, have a strong, healthy boy. As soon as James is told he goes silently through the crowded presence chamber to the chapel and down on his knees in thanks for our good health, and puts his forehead to the stone floor to pray that it continues. Then he rises up and comes to the screen in my privy chamber.

“Go away,” I say. “You know you’re not allowed here.”

“Let me see him. Let me see you.”

I rise up from my great state bed, for the little one I used in childbirth is cleared away, and now I rest under curtains of cloth of gold and sleep on pillows under a headboard carved and gilded with the thistle and the rose. I beckon the rocker to bring the baby to the screen and I stand beside her, in my beautifully embroidered robe, and spread the lace on the baby’s gown for his father to admire. James’s dark intent face is bent to his small son; he does not notice the Mechlin lace at all, though it cost a small fortune. The baby is asleep, his dark eyelashes laid on pale cheeks. He is tiny. I had forgotten how tiny a newborn baby is. He would fit into one of his father’s broad hands; he is like a little pearl in a sea of the finest silk.

“He is well.” James says it like a command.

“He is.”

“We will name him James.”

I bow my head.

“And you are in no pain?”

I think I would have died after my first birth if James had not interceded with the saint. This time too was a hard birth but the most sacred girdle of Our Lady helped me in my ordeal. I will never forget that Katherine shared it with me, that she thought of me and trusted me with her greatest treasure to help me to this joy. “There is pain, but the relic eased the worst of it.”

He crosses himself. “I shall stay up all night praying; but you must drink some birth ale and sleep.”

I nod.

“And when he is christened we will have days of jousting and feasting to celebrate his birth.”

“A joust as good as . . . ?”

He knows I am thinking of the tournament they had at Westminster when Harry’s son Henry was born. “Better,” he says. “And I will get them to send your inheritance from England so you can wear your jewels. So sleep well, and get well soon, my dear.”

I go back to my bed. I take one fold of the curtain in my hand so that I can feel the threads of gold and I close my eyes and imagine the jewels of my inheritance as I go to sleep.