Three Sisters, Three Queens

GREENWICH PALACE, ENGLAND, MAY 1516

The joust to celebrate my arrival in England is to take place at Greenwich, and I travel in the queen’s barge downriver to the most beautiful of all our London palaces. I so wish that Archibald was with me to hear how the people of Greenwich cheer as our barges go by, to hear the sound of the musicians playing and the roar of the cannons welcoming me home again.

The new Tudor baby, Princess Mary, is in the arms of her nurse, on our barge. Katherine keeps her close and watches her all the time. My little Margaret, just a few months older, is so much brighter and more alert; her color is rosy and she looks around her and smiles when she sees me or her nursemaid. But to see Katherine or Henry dote on their baby you would think that no other child had ever been born.

Privately, I swear to myself that my Margaret will be acknowledged as the prettier girl. I will see that she is dressed to perfection; I will ensure that she marries well. She may not be a princess, and her father could not give her a crown, but she is every inch royal and she is half a Tudor. Who knows what the future will be for these two babies? I swear that my child will never suffer for the comparison. Nobody is going to send her to a foreign country and then fail to support her. Nobody is going to praise Mary over her. Nobody is going to neglect her and praise the other to her little face.

I cannot say that I am neglected now. I am dressed beautifully from the royal wardrobe, in cloth-of-gold gowns, and though I follow the Queen of England, everyone else follows me. I am addressed as Queen Regent of Scotland, and Thomas Wolsey pays my debts from the royal treasury without hesitation or query. As I follow Katherine off the royal barge and smile at the royal household drawn up on either side of the carpet that leads us to the wide open doors of the royal palace, I have no complaints. I might wish that Archibald were here to see me, in the place of greatest honor, I might wish that everyone could see my handsome husband, that he might ride in the joust, but I myself am where I should be. It’s all that I’ve always wanted.

“We’ll go to the wardrobe rooms,” Katherine rules. She smiles at me. “I hope that Mary will be there already, choosing her gown.”

At last I am to see her again. Mary, my darling little sister, has come from her country house for my joust. Charles Brandon is to do what he does best—perhaps his only skill other than whoring and spending money; he and Harry will take on all comers.

“She’s here already?” I am so impatient to see her, and I also hope that we get there before she has chosen the best of the gowns for herself. I hope that Katherine has ordered the groom of the wardrobe to make sure that we three queens have gowns of equal quality. It would spoil everything if Mary’s is French cut or more richly embroidered, or more fashionable. She has become used to the very best; but she should not be allowed to outshine the queen. It is a disservice to all the royal ladies if Mary is encouraged to exceed her situation. She may be Dowager Queen of France but she is married to a commoner, not a nobleman like Archibald. I don’t want her to stand out, or put herself forward. I don’t want people to shout her name and throw flowers and encourage her to show off before everyone, just as she did when we were little girls.

The yeomen of the guard, standing either side of the door, salute us and swing the doors open to the shaded rooms where the royal gowns of state hang in great linen pouches, lavender heads stuffed into sleeves to ward off moths, gorse prickles at the wainscoting to deter rats. In the half-light of the shuttered room I see the little elfin face under the elegant French hood and I have the illusion that my sister is unchanged from the girl that I left behind thirteen years ago, my little pet, my little sister, my little pretty doll.

At once I forget everything about her getting the best gown, everything about her being overdressed, everything about precedence. “Oh, Mary,” I say simply. I stretch out my arms and she falls into them and clings to me.

“Oh, Margaret! Oh, my dear! Oh, Maggie! And I was so sorry about your boy Alexander!”

I gasp at his name. Nobody has spoken of him since I left Morpeth. No one has even mentioned him. They have all offered me condolences for the death of the king, but no one has spoken of my child. It is as if Alexander never was. And all at once I am crying for him, my lost little boy; and Mary—a little girl no longer, but a woman who has known loneliness and heartbreak like me—embraces me, unpins my hood, pulls my head to her shoulder and rocks with me, whispering like a mother soothing a hurt child. “Hush,” she says. “Ah, Maggie. Hush. God bless him, God bless him in heaven.”

Katherine comes closer. “It’s her son,” Mary says over my shoulder. “She’s crying for Alexander.”

“God bless and keep him and take him to His own,” Katherine says instantly, and I feel her arm around my shoulder as she and Mary and I hold each other, our heads pressed together, and I remember that Katherine, too, has lost a boy, more than one. Katherine’s losses are never mentioned either. She too has buried little coffins and is required to forget them. Nothing in the world is worse than the death of a child, and we share that too, in a sisterhood of loss.

We three stand together, clinging to each other in silence in the darkened room, for a long time, and then the storm of grief passes me, and I glance up and say: “I must look a fright.” I know that my hair is all tumbled and my nose will be red. My face and neck will be flushed and blotchy and my eyelids swollen. Katherine looks ten years older, ugly from grief. Two tears balance like pearls on Mary’s thick eyelashes, her rosy lips tremble, and there is a flush like a sunrise in her cheeks. “Me too.” She smiles.

The jousting arena at Greenwich is as fine as any in Europe. The queen’s box is set opposite the king’s, and my sisters and I, with our ladies, sit in the center of the stand, curtains billowing in the warm winds, facing the tilt rail. Harry and his friends are never in their box, of course; they are challengers, not spectators. There are long rippling flags flying all around the arena. The ground is sifted sand, white as snow. The seats in the stands are packed with people in their very best clothes. Only the nobility and their favorites are invited—you cannot buy a ticket, this is a diversion for the very cream of the country. The merchants of London and the country people come to this great spectacle, wait behind the half walls of the arena and jostle one another for room. The younger ones, the bolder ones, climb the sides to get a better view and are cuffed and pushed down when they bob up alongside the nobility. Everyone laughs as they tumble down.

The poorer people cannot even get into the palace, but they line the riverbank where they can watch the ceaseless coming and going of the barges of the noble houses, bringing the guests. They stand along the lane that runs from the gates of the walled palace to Greenwich and the docks. This is where the horses are brought in, and they see the magnificent saddles and the beautiful jousting costumes as the big chargers, sidling and snorting, come down the road ridden by the squires, or led by the grooms.

The smell of a tournament is instantly recognizable. There is a hint of woodsmoke from where the people are frying bacon on little fires, to eat when the joust is over, and the tang of the black smoke from the forge where horses are being quickly reshod and the sharp ends of lances hammered down to make them blunt. Everywhere, there is the smell of the horses, a mixture of sweat and dung and excitement like a hunt or a race, and over it all the perfume of the flower garlands that hang around the boxes. The orchards have been stripped of apple blossom for our pleasure; the costly pink and white flowers have made the queen’s box into a bower. At every corner the buds of early roses are in posies that we will throw to the bravest challenger. Over all the blossoms, threaded through them, are the starry flowers of honeysuckle in rose pink and yellow and cream, with their haunting heady scent, as sweet as honey. The queen and I and all the ladies have bathed in rosewater and our linen has been sprinkled with lavender water. The bees buzz into the royal box, dazed by perfume, as if they were in an orchard.

I have a sudden memory, unexpected as summer lightning, of my husband James the king in his strength and beauty when he rode as the wild man in green, and the Sieur de la Bastie was all in white, and I was the queen of the joust that celebrated the birth of my first son, when I thought that I would be happy and triumphant and the first in the land forever.

“What is it?” Mary asks me gently.

I shake away the flood of grief. “Nothing. Nothing.”

Everyone is waiting for the entry of the king into the arena. The sand is raked flat, as if a retreating sea has lapped it clean; the squires in their bright liveries stand at every doorway. There is a buzz of excitement and laughter that becomes louder and louder and louder until there is a sudden blast of trumpets and a gasp, then silence as the great doors roll open, and Harry rides into the arena.

I see him as others see him, not as my little brother, but as a great king and a magnificent man. He is on a huge warhorse, a black brute of an animal, broad at the shoulder, powerful in the haunches. Harry has ordered it to be shod with silver and the nails sparkle on the black hooves. His saddle and bridle, the breastplate and the stirrup leathers, are a gorgeous deep blue, the best leather dyed as dark as indigo, and the shine on the horse’s black coat is as bright as if it has been polished. It is wearing a trapper of cloth of gold, set with golden bells that tinkle at each great bouncing stride. Harry himself is wearing deep blue velvet embroidered all over with golden thread in bursts of honeysuckle flowers, so that he sparkles as he rides the full circle of the arena, one hand holding his magnificent horse on a tight blue rein, the other holding his tall lance, couched in gold-inlaid leather at his dark blue leather boot.

Like a warm summer breeze, the crowd sighs in awe at this appearance: a knight from a storybook, a god from a tapestry. Harry is so tall, so handsome, his horse is so toweringly big, his velvets so deep and iridescent, he is more like a portrait of a king, a great king, than the real presence. But then he halts the great horse at the queen’s box and pulls off his hat, set with sapphires, and his bright smile at Katherine tells us all that this is a man, the most handsome man in England, the most loving husband in the world.

Everyone cheers. Even the people outside the arena, on the banks of the river, on the roads leading to the port, hear the deep-throated roar of approval and they cheer too. Harry glows like an actor welcomed to the stage, and then turns and beckons his companions.

There are four challengers, dressed to match the king, Charles Brandon among them, his handsome face turning this way and that to acknowledge the applause. Behind them come eighteen knights, also in blue velvet on their great horses, behind them their attendants on foot, wearing satin of so deep a blue that it shines with color, and after them all the grooms and the knights, the trumpeters, the saddlers, the servants, the water-carriers, the runners of errands, dozens and dozens of them, all in blue damask.

They all draw up before the royal box and Katherine, in her blue gown which suddenly looks dull and dowdy beside the blaze of peacock blue from her husband’s livery, stands to take the salute from the challengers.

“Let the tournament begin!” bellows the herald. There is a blast of sound from the trumpets so all the warhorses sidle and trample in their excitement and Harry rides slowly towards his end of the list while his squire waits with his helmet and gold-inlaid gauntlets.

When he is ready, strapped into his beautiful suit of armor, helmet on his head, visor lowered, horse sidling slightly from nerves on one side of the brightly painted tilt rail, his opponent waiting at the other end, on the opposite side, Katherine rises to her feet, holding her white napkin in her bare hand. Her glove is tucked inside Harry’s breastplate, over his heart. He is meticulous in these chivalric signs of devotion. She holds the napkin high, and then she lets it fall.

The minute it is released Harry has spurred his horse and the beast leaps from its powerful haunches and thunders down the long list. His opponent starts at the same time and the lances thunder closer and closer. Harry’s reach is longer, his stance low in the saddle but thrusting forward. There is a terrific clang of noise as his lance crashes against his opponent’s breastplate, and Harry wrenches it back, so that he does not overbalance and come down. A few seconds later and the opponent’s lance, off balance and reeling from the impact, has struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder. But Harry is already riding by, regaining his balance, heaving the long lance back towards him as his opponent rocks in the saddle, grabs the pommel and horse’s neck with his mailed hand, is falling, is going, and reels backwards off his horse, flung to the ground with the ringing crash of metal armor. The horse bucks, its trappings flapping, its reins trailing; the knight lies still, obviously winded, perhaps worse. Grooms in their blue damask catch the horse, squires in their blue satin run to the knight. They open his visor, his head lolls.

“Is his neck broken?” my little sister asks anxiously.

“No,” I say, as I always used to say to her when she was a little princess, afraid for every horse, for every knight. “He’s probably just shaken.”

The physician comes running, and the barber surgeon. The hurdle comes, carried by four squires. Carefully they lift the knight on. Harry, down from his horse, his helmet under his arms, goes stiff-legged in his armor to see his opponent. Smiling, he says a few words to the fallen knight. We see them touch gauntlets as if shaking hands.

“There,” I tell Mary. “He’s fine.”

There is a roar as they carry him out of the arena and Harry turns all around the circle, taking in the applause, his bright smile gleaming, his red hair dark with sweat. He puts his mailed fist to his breastplate as he bows to Katherine and then he walks off. He passes Charles Brandon, high on a bay charger, who acknowledges his king with a comradely salute and a bow of his head as he trots around the arena and stops before our box to salute his queen, me, and then his wife.

“Does he not have your glove?” I ask Mary, seeing that she is wearing a pair.

She makes a little face. “He forgot,” she says. “And I didn’t feel like running after him to remind him.”

“He doesn’t carry your favor?”

“I can’t afford to throw away a pair of gloves every time he jousts,” she says in an irritable undertone. “The king pays for his armor and trappings, the wardrobe gives me a gown. But my gloves and my linen I have to find myself, and we are as poor as mice, Maggie. Really we are.”

I don’t say anything but I squeeze her hand. That a Tudor princess should be brought so low as to worry about the price of a pair of gloves is quite shocking. Harry should be generous to Mary; he should be generous to me. Our father would have paid my debts earlier; he would not have fined Mary for marrying the man of her choice. Harry should remember that we are all Tudors, even though he is the only surviving boy. We are all heirs of England.

All day fresh incomers ride against the challengers, and the sand is churned and dirty, and the beautiful harness and livery are torn and dulled by the time the sun starts to set over the arena and the king’s team are declared the victors, and the greatest of them is Harry.

Katherine stands in the box as he comes and bows before her, and I think that she looks like our mother did when she was weary but making the effort to respond to Harry’s constant need for praise. She smiles as warmly as our mother did, handing down the prize of a gold belt of sapphires, giving a fortune to the young man who already owns everything. She clasps her hands together as if she is overwhelmed by joy at his victory, and then, when she has done everything he could hope for, she turns and we follow her back into the palace for the lengthy tournament dinner. There will be speeches, there will be masques, there will be dancing late into the night. I see her sideways glance at her baby, Mary, who has been brought to the box to witness her father’s triumph and to be shown to the cheering crowd, and I know that she would far rather be in the nursery watching her baby feed, and then going to bed herself.

I have no sympathy for her. She is Queen of England, the wealthiest woman in England, the greatest woman in the kingdom. Her husband has just beaten all comers. I would expect her to be beside herself with joy. Lord knows, if I were in her place, I would be.

I am to meet with the Scots lords who have come to England to persuade Harry to peace. They will ask him to keep me in exile, they will ask him to allow the Duke of Albany to rule my country, they will remind him that my husband is an outlaw and suggest that he should stay that way, to be hunted like a beast till they catch and kill him. They must be sick with anxiety, for I am a Tudor princess again, in prime place in my brother’s fickle attention. He will not even see them.

“They shall attend you before me,” Harry promises me at dinner at Greenwich Palace. I am seated on his left side, Katherine is on his right, my sister is beside me, exquisite in a gown of the palest yellow, her thick blond hair hidden by a pale yellow hood studded with diamonds, undoubtedly the most beautiful of the three of us—but she is two seats away from the throne, not adjacent as I am. “You shall state your demands. They shall make their explanations to you.”

“And will you see them after?” I ask.

He nods. “You can tell me what they have said to you. We’ll talk with Wolsey. We’ll bring them to heel, Margaret, never doubt it.”

“When will they come?” I am not nervous; I know that I can persuade them. I know that I can be a good queen regent. Scotland is a mass of warring loyalties; but so is England, so is France. Any throne attracts rivals—James taught me that—and now I am ready to learn his lessons and be the great Queen of Scotland that he said I should be.

“In a few days” time. But I want you to move house. Guess where.”

For a moment I wonder if I am to go into one of the royal palaces, and for a moment I hope for Richmond. But then I know where I should be. “The Palace of Scotland,” I say.

Harry laughs at my quickness and clinks his golden goblet against mine. “You’re right,” he says. “I want them to see you in the London palace of the kings of Scotland. It can remind them that you own it as much as Edinburgh Castle.”