Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1513

But nothing will stop my brother from invading France. He will not even cancel his plans for fear of a war with my husband on his Northern border. I am insulted at the suggestion that the perpetual peace created in honor of my marriage could be broken; Harry just sends an emissary to my husband to order James not to invade England while Harry is hell-bent on invading France.

There is no point in sending a man to speak so to us. James would never stoop to act against the rules of chivalry, he would never take up arms first, but he is in alliance with the French and they have promised to pay him the cost of any punitive raid and, even more, to finance an entire crusade when they have finished with Harry. My brother is a fool to make war on the French—of course the first thing that they are going to do is suborn his neighbors to rise up against him. Why can he not see that the future of these islands is to live in peace, one with another? My baby son is his heir! Is he going to risk war with his heir’s father? Is he going to make war on his own sister’s country and on her husband?

James spends all of Lent in the monastery. Unlike my brother—who is so ostentatious in his theology studies—or Katherine, his wife, always draped in crucifixes, my husband is a genuinely spiritual man. So Doctor Nicholas West, hailed as a peacemaker and a cunning diplomat, makes the long journey from London and finds that my devout husband is missing, and he has to deal with me instead.

All dinner, which is lean fare, for this is the very last day of Lent, he speaks of how wonderfully tall Harry has grown and how handsome he has become. He almost makes the slip of saying that he takes after our mother’s family, the famously beautiful Plantagenets, but he manages to stop himself in time and refer to Tudor physique. This is ridiculous, as my father and grandmother were both dark and spare, mean with their smiles and hopelessly lacking in charm. Katherine, too, is apparently beyond beautiful and now she is blooming. I wonder if she is with child again, but I cannot ask Doctor West. Privately, I wonder if she will carry any baby to full term. Doctor West tells me that everyone praises her beauty and her health, her certain fertility. I nod; they always do. It means nothing.

Doctor West boasts that Henry is taking an interest in governing, as if this should not be his principal duty. I roll my eyes and don’t say that my husband lives for his country. He too is a composer and poet and a great prince, but he does not waste his time like my brother does. Then Doctor West praises the ships that Harry is building. Now I do interrupt, and I tell him about those my husband has designed and planned, and that the Great Michael is the biggest ship at sea.

I am afraid that we bicker then, a little, as if he thinks I am boasting of the greatness of my own country of Scotland. As it is Lent and there is no music or dancing I tell him that we are a devout court and that we go to chapel after dinner, and we part company with very little joy.

It is no better when we have the feast of Easter, though it is good to be able to eat meat again. And on the second day of Eastertide we almost come to blows as Doctor West tells me bluntly that Harry is depending upon me to honor my birthright as an English princess by ensuring that James keeps the peace.

“You owe him this loyalty,” he says pompously. “You owe the love of a sister to him and to your sister-queen.”

“And what about what England owes me?” I demand. “Have you brought my jewels? My inheritance?”

He looks a little embarrassed. “These are matters of state,” he says. “Not for discussion between me and a royal lady.”

“These are personal matters,” I correct him. “My father left me an inheritance, and my lady grandmother left me jewels of equal value to those that she gave to Katherine and Mary. Have they had theirs? For I have had nothing from England though I have reminded my brother and my husband has written to his ambassador. These are mine by right. They cannot be withheld.”

Doctor West shifts in his chair as if he has a little tiara pricking him in his pockets. “You will have them,” he assures me. “There can be no doubt of that.”

“I have no doubt of that,” I say. “For they are mine, left to me by my beloved father and my grandmother. My own brother would not stoop to withhold them and defy the wishes of his own father, of his own grandmother! If he has given Katherine and Mary their inheritance, then I should have mine.”

“No, he does not withhold it,” Doctor West stutters. He has flushed red with embarrassment and he is looking around as if someone might come and help him out of this trap. He can look all he likes; this is a Scots court and the English are not and never have been great favorites. They make an exception for me because James shows that he loves me and I have given them a Scots prince.

“Then why have you not brought it?”

“You will receive all your inheritance when the king is assured that your husband will keep the peace.”

“But he does keep the peace!” I burst out. “He has been working for peace all this time while the rest of them have been arming for war.”

“He is arming . . .” Doctor West interrupts, “his weapons, his huge guns . . .”

At once I see that this is a spy as well as an emissary, and I am sorry that I boasted about Great Michael.

“Will I not get my jewels without my husband’s assurance of peace?”

“No,” he says, finally finding his voice. “His Grace your brother commands me to say that if your husband makes war on him he will not only keep your jewels, but he will take from your husband the best towns that he has.”

I jump to my feet, my hand closing on my goblet, really thinking that I will fling my wine into Doctor West’s startled face, when the door behind the high table opens and James emerges, composed and smiling as ever, returned from the monastery, shining from his bath, and perfectly informed of this conversation. I would guess that he has probably been quietly listening at the door for all of this time.

Down goes Doctor West on his knee, as James greets me sweetly with a kiss and with a little gift of a golden brooch. I make much of it. Doctor West can see that I have many jewels already, I don’t need anything from Harry; but I will never consent to Katherine flaunting herself in my grandmother’s jewels. She probably has taken my legacy as well as her own. I go to whisper in James’s ear that the emissary is part spy and part enemy and he puts me gently to one side. He knows this already. He knows everything.

Not one word can Doctor West get from him that evening nor for the remaining days of Easter week. James has returned from his vigil to enjoy himself. The best of the meats and the finest of the wines are brought to him, and he begs me and my ladies to dance. I pass Doctor West with a scornful turn of my head, as if to say: See here! This, my husband, is a king! Not some fool who steals someone else’s jewels, and goes to war against a mighty power like France as his father-in-law bids him. This is a king and I am his chosen wife, and Harry can keep his stupid jewels. My husband will give me more, I have no need of them, and Scotland has no need of the friendship of England; they need not threaten us with taking our towns because we can just as easily take theirs. And we will do so if we so decide. And the French will pay for our army and pay our navy. So Harry had better think of that before he threatens us. And Katherine need not think that because we are sisters she can ride roughshod over me and my rights. She may call herself my dear sister but that does not earn her my inheritance. She may not wear my mother’s jewels.