Three Sisters, Three Queens

METHVEN CASTLE, PERTH, SCOTLAND, JUNE 1514

“Oh, marry neither,” Archibald Douglas says, laughing. He has come on a picnic to carve the cold venison, but is serving also as the groom of the ewery, handing me the linen and the wine. I am reveling in the fact that we are a family at play, practically alone—this attentive young man, and my children and their nurses. James is running around on the grass, his arms windmilling, his nurse chasing him till he drops down laughing so much that he cannot stand. His Lord Chamberlain Davy Lyndsay is calling “Run, laddie! Run!” as the baby, Alexander, sleeps in his crib in the shade of the trees, his rocker beside him, his wet nurse dozing on a pillow in the shade.

“No, I have to marry,” I say. “It’s lovely now, with the children here and the court at play in summertime, and it feels as if there is nothing to worry about and it will be summer forever. But you know what it will be like when the autumn comes and the winter follows: the lords will plot together and against each other, and the French will try to make war on England through us, and my brother will make demands that I cannot meet, and the cursed Lord Dacre will raid the border and the people will starve and riot.” My voice is trembling at the end of this list. “I can’t face it. I can’t face another winter alone.”

Archibald’s quick sympathy shines in his face. “I would lay down my life for you. We all would,” he says. “All the border lords are my friends. Just say the word and we will put down the reivers, summon the council, insist that they work together. You know I am from a great family, one of the greatest. I have influence. My grandfather John Drummond is clan chieftain of the Drummonds, my late grandfather was Bell the Cat, my father died at Flodden, so now I am head of the Douglas house. These are the mightiest families in Scotland. Say the word and we will protect you.”

“I know you would,” I say. “And when it is summer and all the lords are at court and happy to be here, or safely on their own lands, and the hunting is good and there is dancing every night, I think that I am safe and will be safe forever. But I have to prepare. I have to find someone to face this beside me.”

He hands me some fruit and a glass of wine. He has such a fluid grace that when he does some small act of service he makes it look as if it is a move in a dance. He never drops or spills anything or swears at his own clumsiness, and he’s always so beautifully dressed. Among the Scots lords who please themselves, ride hard, fight hard, and don’t always trouble to bathe, he is always beautifully barbered and shaved, his hands are always clean, and he smells of clean linen and a musky scent that is all his own. Lord knows he is handsome—half the ladies of my court are in love with him—but he wears his fresh good looks as if they were a jacket he has had forever; he does not know how well he looks. He is betrothed to a girl who lives near his home, one of these Scots family betrothals from the cradle, I suppose. But he does not act like a man betrothed. John Drummond parades his handsome grandson like a prize cock, with his long legs, his slim, lithe strength, the broadness of his shoulders, and that surprisingly dainty Celtic face, hair the color of autumn leaves, dark eyes, and a fascinating smile.

“Janet Stewart of Traquair is a lucky girl,” I say, referring to the young woman he will marry.

He bows his head and flushes. But his eyes come up and meet mine. “It is I who am lucky,” he says. “For I am promised to one of the prettiest girls in Scotland, but I serve the most beautiful queen.”

“Oh, there can be no comparison between us,” I say instantly. “I am a mother of two and an old widow of twenty-four.”

“Not old,” he says. “I’m the same age as you. And widowed like you. And I am Earl of Angus, the head of a great family, the leader of a great house. I know what it feels like to have everyone look to you.”

“Janet Stewart is a young girl, is she not, a maid?”

“She’s nearly thirteen.”

“Oh! A child,” I say disdainfully. “I didn’t know. Everyone spoke of her prettiness; I thought she was a young woman. I am surprised that you didn’t want a woman of your own age.”

“She is my little sweetheart. We have been promised since she was in her cradle. I have watched her grow and never seen a fault in her. I will marry her when she comes of age. But you are my queen, now and forever.”

I lean towards him just a little. “So will you not leave me, Archibald, when you marry your child bride?”

“Call me Ard,” he whispers. “My lovers call me Ard.”

He loves me. I know that he does. I know that his pulse is racing like mine and that he feels the same dizzy elation that I do. I want a man to love me, I need a man to love me, and the young Earl of Angus—Ard, as I secretly name him to myself—clearly does so. And he will never leave me, he will always be in my service, at my side at dinner, riding with me when the court goes out, playing so sweetly with my little boy, admiring my baby. Of course, I will have to marry a great man, the King of France or the emperor, for the sake of my country and my own fortune, but I will always keep Ard at my side. He will be my knight errant, my chevalier. I will be like the lady in the fables, in troubadour songs: adored and forever unattainable. And I really think he shall not marry Janet Stewart of Traquair. I really think that I will allow myself to forbid the wedding, even if the little girl cries into her pillow for a month. I can do this. I am queen; I can do it without explanation.

I receive a letter from my sister Mary, eighteen years old this year and still at home, unmarried. She writes news of the court on their summer progress. They are all well, the Sweat has not come to court, and they are traveling informally in the South of England, sometimes going by barge on the river with musicians accompanying them so that people crowd to the banks to cheer and to wave and to throw rushes and flowers as they go by. Sometimes they go on horseback, with the royal standards ahead, and at every town a delegation comes out to praise Henry for his military might, his victories against France and Scotland, and to give him purses of gold.

I have a wardrobe filled with new gowns paid for by the Spanish, they say that nothing is too good for the bride of Castile. They have demanded yet another portrait and the artist swears that I am the most beautiful princess in Christendom!

She says that she is to marry little Charles next year and already they are planning an enormous series of feasts and jousts to celebrate her departure to Spain. Charles Brandon is certain to joust and certain to triumph. Henry has made him a duke, an honor quite beyond anyone’s imagining. Some people think he has been elevated so far above his station so that he can propose marriage to the Archduchess Margaret, but Mary knows better. She tells me so, her handwriting sprawling, misspelled in her excitement, with added scribbled remarks in the margin.

He is not in love with Archduchess Margaret though she adores him; he tells me he is not in love with her at all, he has no eyes for her. He says he has lost his heart to quite another.

Mary believes that he has been given ducal honors—the greatest honor in the kingdom, short only of royal status—because Harry loves him so much.

Now he is acknowledged as one of the truly great men of England, honored as he should be. He is Harry’s best friend, he loves him like a brother.

This gives me pause. Harry had a brother, a finer young man than Charles Brandon can ever be. Can he have forgotten Arthur? Can Mary have forgotten who Harry’s real brother was? Can she use the word “brother” to me and not know who it means? Have they forgotten Arthur, and me as well?

Without doubt he is the most handsome man at court, everyone admires him. I will tell you a secret, Margaret, but you must not breathe a word of it. He has asked to carry my favor at my wedding joust! It will be the finest joust in Christendom and he is certain to win. He says he will wear it next to his heart and he would happily die with it there!

At the end of her letter she remembers that I am a widow with two babies, fighting to rule a difficult country, and that all her talk of gowns and love affairs may grate on me, so she adopts a more personal note. She has studied to be charming, she knows well enough how to be endearing:

I am so sorry that you cannot be with us. I should have so loved you to be here. I want to show you my jewels and my gowns. I wish you could come. It won’t be the same without you, Katherine says so too.

Brandon is not the only scoundrel dragged into the nobility in this prodigal scattering of titles. Thomas Howard, the victor of Flodden, finally regains the title he lost at Bosworth—he is to be Duke of Norfolk and his son will be named Earl of Surrey as a reward for the billhook that smashed my husband’s crowned head, for the arrow that pierced his anointed side. Perhaps he gets his title for the bloodstained jacket that he sent to France? Perhaps for the corpse in lead, which remains, unburied, somewhere in London?

Apparently, my brother thinks that he should reward a murderer before burying his victim, and Thomas Howard wears ducal strawberry leaves while my husband is stored—half forgotten—uncoffined, waiting for the moment when the Pope says that his poor body, excommunicated at Harry’s request, shall be forgiven and his soul may start its journey to heaven.

Mary does not describe Norfolk’s honors, but I know that his ducal crest is a lion: the lion of Scotland, James’s lion, with an arrow through its jaw to represent the billhook cutting off my husband’s face, the arrow in his side. Noble indeed, a beautiful crest to choose. I hope my brother does not rue the day that he honors a king killer.

I hold Mary’s silly vain letter on my lap and I note her facile regrets that I cannot come to her wedding. But I think: perhaps I could attend? I could take a small court, a small guard in new livery. I could make it a state visit: the queen traveling in grandeur, and then I could visit towns, and people could come out and recite poems to me. I think Ard could ride at my side and make me laugh and see how people in England love me, their first and best Tudor princess. I would like him to see me in England, to see the welcome that they would give me, that I am a great woman in England, a princess in my own right. And on the journey he would lift me down from the saddle and hold me close every day. Nobody would notice that moment. He would stand beside me while I dined every night, and we would dance together. I would have new gowns and my portrait painted, and perhaps I would have him painted beside me, as a favored member of my household. Mary is so spoiled and stupid that she does not invite me, merely assuming that I cannot come; but perhaps I will come—and surprise them all.

It is a daydream—as false and beguiling as Ard’s whispered promises of love. I don’t have the money to make a great trip to London, I don’t have the gowns to outshine my little sister, I don’t have better jewels than the Queen of England, I don’t even have the royal jewels that my father left me—and they have not invited me to attend.

Mary says that Katherine is traveling on the summer progress in a litter and at once I turn the page and read it again. Yes, she clearly says it. I know there can be only one reason that Katherine would be in a litter and not on horseback trying to keep up with Harry: she must be with child and praying with all her heart that this time she can keep the baby.

I put the letter in my empty jewel box, and look out of the small arched window at the rolling hills that go on and on to the horizon beyond. It is so unlike the rich low-lying meadows of the Thames valley. Here there is no succession of beautiful houses and rich abbeys surrounded with bobbing apple trees heavy with new fruit. There are no walled parks, or smooth greens for bowling. There is just the wide arching sky over the climbing hills and the steep ridges and cliffs, the darkness of the ancient mountain forests with the eagles soaring above them.

I have been happy this summer with my boys, reveling in the respectful adoration of Ard, and with the country at peace. But my joy falls away from me at this one piece of news. I imagine Katherine riding in a silk-curtained litter, Queen of England, expecting another baby, and I think: she will be ahead of me forever. Forever she will be at peace when I am troubled. She has a husband who protects her, who is victorious when he goes to war. She has a litter to ride in and a country where she is safe. Now she is with child and if she has a boy then she has an heir to the throne of England and my own prince will only ever inherit Scotland and that is a hard kingdom to hold.

I think: I am always going to be in second place to her. I can’t bear for her to be Queen of England with a Prince of Wales in the cradle, while I endure my life, half forgotten in a distant poor kingdom. And in that minute, I think defiantly: well then! I shall defy her mealymouthed good wishes, her sisterly hints. I shall marry Louis of France and I will have an ally for my country who is strong enough and rich enough to defeat England if it comes to war again. I will be Queen of France and Scotland with two strong boys in Scotland and perhaps more to come, and that is better than being Queen of England, clinging to the sides of a litter and hoping not to miscarry your future.

I write privately to the Scots ambassador in France. I tell him that I have made my choice and he can communicate it to the old king that I called a monster. He can tell him that I am prepared to marry. Louis of France shall make a formal public proposal and I will give him my hand. I will marry him, whatever old beast that he is, and I will be Queen of France, England’s enemy, and Katherine’s superior.