Three Sisters, Three Queens by Philippa Gregory
Finding a messenger to take my letter and smuggling him out of the sally port at night is like getting a spy out of a castle under siege. The lords of the council have come in force and are barracked in the houses of the town at the foot of the hill. We keep the portcullis down and the gate closed and nobody comes in or goes out without Ard’s express permission. It is his clan who man the lookouts and guard me. I love their fierce undying loyalty to him; they served his grandfather, they served his father, now he has only to call for them and they are his. This is strange and moving for me, for I belong to a family new-come to the throne. We have no one sworn to our service through centuries.
“This is what it is to be a Scots lord,” Archibald tells me. “I am born and bred here and so are my men. I cannot help myself but I must lead them. They cannot help themselves but they must follow me. We are kin, we are sworn to one another, we are of the clan.”
“It’s wonderful,” I say. “It is the greatest of loves.”
Of course people say that this proves I am not a queen for Scotland, I am not queen for every lord, raising my son to be a king for every man. They say it shows I am in the Douglas camp but what else can I do? The parliament have fulfilled their threats, denied my regency and sent for the Duke of Albany to come from France. All very well for the French king to write to me with such careful courtesy and promise that he will not send Albany to Scotland unless I ask for him, the Scots lords are demanding him to replace me.
The Lord Chancellor, James Beaton, comes to see me, bearing the seal that stamps every law. I say that he should leave it with me; he says that he is to hold it. Laws must be made when the king commands parliament, not when a woman, a mere mother of a king, takes some whim into her head. I am beyond fury that he should speak to me like this. I exchange a glance with Archibald and I see him go white around the mouth.
“You dare insult me,” I say. “I am regent. Don’t forget who makes the laws in this land.”
“Don’t forget who holds the seal,” he says. “I am lord chancellor.”
Like a boastful fool he holds it up in my face. It is a big silver thing, the size of a dinner plate, carved and grooved to be filled with the hot wax. He holds it before me as if it were a looking glass and I see my furious face distorted in the carving.
“That’s easily mended,” Archibald says and, like a child, snatches it from the lord chancellor’s hand and darts to the other side of the room.
I breathe “Archibald!” in absolute horror, and his grandfather shouts: “Angus! No!” But before anyone can say anything he has dashed from the room, the great seal of Scotland in his hands, as if he were rushing a trencher to a table. The lord chancellor looks at me, his mouth agape, as if he is gasping for air like a landed carp.
I can say nothing. It is so funny and so naughty, so powerful and yet so childish. I exchange one horrified glance with Archibald’s grandfather and then I take up my skirts and I swirl from the room before anyone can say anything to me. I burst into my privy chamber and find Ard dancing around, waving the seal over his head, a beam of triumph on his face. I cannot scold him.
“We’ll have to give it back,” I say.
“Never!” he shouts like a pirate in a play.
“We will, and we will be in terrible trouble.”
“What can they do? What dare they to do to us?”
“They have stopped all my rents, I have no money; they can demand that Albany comes; they can insist that my son goes into their keeping . . .” I volunteer the list. “That’s just the start of it.”
“They can do nothing,” he declares. “You are Queen of Scotland, I am your husband. You are the mother of the king. They can come on their knees to you. They are nothing but rebels and traitors, and now we have the great seal we can pass any law that we want.”
I long for him to be right, and his grandfather and all his kinsmen, both Drummonds and Douglases, agree with him. They say we can defy the lords who disagree with us. When we take this bold position of power, other lords come over to our side. Lord Dacre says that the lords who oppose me and would send for the French heir, Albany, are my enemies, pure and simple, and that I must use the power of the Douglas clan to impose my will on them. England will support me if I make war on them. Archibald says we have to appoint our own government, and so I name his uncle, Bishop Gavin Douglas, as a rival Lord Chancellor and summon a parliament—a rival parliament—to meet under our command at Perth.
I think this may be a great gamble, a powerful, courageous gamble. For the very lords who have sworn to reduce me are obliged to send me a message from the Duke of Albany, who has ruined their treasonous game by the chivalrous fairness of his response. He will only agree to come to Scotland as an advisor; he will not be my enemy, he will not usurp my son’s power. He will not come at their bidding but only at mine.
But what am I to do with the lords? They are rebelling against me and I have no money for an army and no men to muster. It is all very well for Ard to say that we shall set a siege and they will never take Stirling. It is no life for us to be cooped up in a castle while the parliament are sending to France for their preferred regent. I write to Harry and say however busy he is with Mary and her beautiful gowns, her magnificent betrothal and her wonderful voyage to France, he must send me an army for I am besieged by my own people. I say that I am in Stirling for my own safety, but now I find I cannot leave. I am imprisoned in my own castle, and the only one who can rescue me is Harry.
Harry sends me messages through Lord Dacre, Warden of the Marches, who I must now consider a true ally and a friend. Clearly, Harry will not help me as he should. He tells me that he cannot send an army to Scotland for me and my husband the co-regent, because he has just heard that we attacked the Lord Lyon King of Arms and snatched the seal from the Lord Chancellor. Harry says that I am not safe in Scotland and that I must get myself and my sons out of the power of these rebel lords. He tells me that I must flee to Lord Dacre, who will bring me to London. He promises that my boys will be raised as English princes and James will be named as his heir. But I have to get out of Stirling and cross the border to England before Albany arrives and imprisons me. Harry says that he has done his very best with his new brother-in-law, the French king, to ensure that Albany will not come—but if the Scots lords have turned against me and invited him, what can anyone do?
I take the letter to Archibald. “He won’t send an army,” I say shortly. “He says we must escape to England. Ard, what shall we do?”
He looks sick with fear, my brave young husband is afraid for the first time in his life. I feel a powerful wave of tenderness towards him. He was counting on my brother to support us with an army. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know.”
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, WINTER 1514
Mary is crowned Queen of France in November, and I hear that her husband gives her a massive jewel every morning. Her coronation robe was gold brocade, she processed through Paris in an open carriage under arches of lilies of France and roses for Tudor England. The king has gout and can barely stand; but everyone praises the composure and beauty of his bride. He sends Harry a gift of harness, thanking him for sending such a mount. Those are his very words. They make me feel quite sick when our ambassador tells me; this is what it is to be a princess married for her country. We cannot all have the happiness that I have won with Archibald.
He gives me such joy! Even though we are entrapped by our own strategy, locked up in our own castle, it does not feel like defeat while Ard is with me. I long for the nights when he comes to my room—and he comes every night through feast day and fast, and he laughs with me and says he will have to confess lust, passion, love, and even idolatry. These are the words he says as he kisses my eyelids, the achingly hard tips of my breasts, my belly button, even my hidden sex. He loves me without hesitation, as if I am his kingdom and he is coming into his own. And I, sprawled like a whore, longing for his touch, let him say and do whatever he would like, as long as his mo
During the day I have to be queen, I have to guard like a captain and plan like a Lord Chancellor. The news is bad. Although I gave Archibald’s cousin Gavin Douglas the archbishopric of Saint Andrews, the Scots council opposed him, and, even though Harry supported my choice, the Pope denied the appointment. The Scots lords sent their army to the castle of Saint Andrews, and Gavin Douglas is besieged there, just as we are held in Stirling. It was a bad gift that I gave him as his reward on my wedding day.
Then I have Christmas letters. A long one from Mary telling me of her extraordinary jewels and the glamour of the French court. They have lavished wealth on her wedding and her marriage is a dazzling success. Charles Brandon carried her colors in the wedding joust and gossip says that her husband’s heir, Francis, has fallen in love with her, just as much as the old king Louis. She says it is true; I can almost see her simper.
It is embarrassing, he is so wildly in love with me, he says he would die for love of me. My husband the king says that I must send him away, and that he is jealous.
She writes a long inventory of what Louis has given her and how many people said that she was as beautiful as a painting, how the rich clothes suit her and how the king insists that she receive every honor. Her coronation as queen, the wealth of Paris, her ladies, her amusements . . . she goes on and on, and I turn over two or three pages barely reading the words:
You would be amazed if you could see how I am revered. The French are so silly, they say that I am beautiful as a saint, and the king says that he will have a dozen portraits painted of me but nothing will capture my looks. He says that no country in Christendom has a queen to match me, none is better loved, that every queen is jealous of me.
No, I am not jealous, I think to myself. Don’t count me among the women who wish they had your looks, your jewels, your gowns. I am going to win my country by my merits as a governor, not by being the most beautiful woman. I am a queen regnant, not a pretty doll.
Then I look at the brief note I have from Katherine.
I am sorry to have to tell you that I have lost another child. He came too early and though we thought we might have saved him, he slid away from us. He was a boy. This is my fourth dead child. God have mercy on me and spare me another day like this. Pray for me, Margaret, I beg you, and for his poor little soul. I don’t know that I can bear another loss. I don’t know how to bear this one, after all the others.
I sit by the fire with the letters in my lap, my constant awareness of the rise and fall of these two women stilled for once, my envy at bay. I don’t think I can judge which of us is in the best position: myself married for love but under siege from my own people; Mary sold into a beautiful slavery, as much a whore as any in the bathhouses of Southwark; Katherine bowing her head against the most terrible ill luck, breaking her heart every year with another loss.
A fourth dead baby? Is this possible without a curse? Would God send four tragedies to a queen that He loved? Does God refuse to raise another Tudor boy to the throne of England? Is He showing us this? Or is it Katherine who is cursed? For insisting on the death of my cousin Warwick and the boy we called Perkin, for killing my husband, an ordained monarch?
Ard comes into the room and I know that my face lights up when I see him. “Are you sitting in half darkness?” he asks, smiling. “I think we can still afford candles!” And he goes quickly and gracefully round the room, lighting the expensive wax candles one after another as if he were still my carver and devoted to my service and I were still the most beautiful queen.
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, JANUARY 1515
It was no joyful Christmas for us as newlyweds for we were surrounded by an army led by the Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, who chose me to be his king’s wife, danced at my proxy wedding and received his title when I was crowned. Now we are enemies and he has to set a siege against me in midwinter, constantly undermined by Albany, who refuses to come from France unless his ancestral home is guaranteed for him, and his title, and his lands.
“Can they not see that he will fleece them like sheep?” I demand of Archibald. He shakes his head. He is playing with James, setting up a line of nodding toys for him to move the first so that they all tumble down. They do this over and over again, while I sit at the table and read impossible demands from the lords’ council and want to scream at the distracting chatter between the two of them, and then the clatter of the toys as they fall.
There is the noise of marching feet, and a quick exchange of passwords. I jump up, always afraid now. I thought that the Douglas family would own me and keep me safe, but all I find is that their enemies are added to mine. A messenger comes in with a packet of letters.
“Will you read these?” I ask Archibald.
“If you wish,” he says unwillingly. “But shouldn’t it be you? They’re from your brother. Shall James and I go and play in the nursery tower?”
“For God’s sake, open them,” John Drummond says grimly from the shadowy corner. He has been quiet for so long that I thought he was asleep, lulled by James and Archibald’s repetitive game. “Open them and see the news. God knows it can’t get worse.”
This is no way for a lord to speak to a co-regent, but I try to nod cheerfully, and I sit on the floor beside James. “I will play with you while your lord father reads the letters,” I say.
“No,” he whines at once, and I look around for Davy Lyndsay to take him away. I can’t set up the little game to James’s liking and he starts to whimper in disappointment and asks for Ard to come back and play.
“Here, see this,” says Davy, and shows him some hand-carved skittles and a little round ball.
“Oh, go and play with that,” I say impatiently.
“Good God,” Archibald says, reading the messages. “Louis of France has died. Weakened and died.”
“Poison?” John Drummond asks.
“They’re saying exhaustion,” Archibald says, reading intently, a quiver of laughter in his voice. “Because of his beautiful young wife. The King of England writes that Francis will take the throne, and he is no friend to England. Your brother says we cannot let Albany come, he will deliver the keys of the North of England to the French.”
He reads slowly, his smooth brow furrowed. “Your brother says he will do what he can to delay Albany. But you have to reverse the council’s decision and forbid him to come.”
“How?” I say flatly. “I have spent all the gold and goods in the treasury on this siege. There is no money, and no army and no power. Your men slip away every day, we can’t hold out.”
“Write and tell your brother,” Drummond recommends. “Tell the king that you will do his bidding but if he does not want a French governor for Scotland then he has to send us money. We will hold the country independent, or as an English fief—we don’t care which—but he has to send us the money. Look! This is the best thing that could happen for us. Now he needs us. Make it clear that he has to pay us to hold Scotland for him. We can name our price.”
“But what about Mary?” I ask, as I take my place and pick up my pen to write my begging letter. “What does he say about her?”
“He says nothing.” Archibald looks through the secretary’s careful handwriting. “Oh, he says that he is sending the Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, to France to bring her home, if she is not carrying the French king’s child.”
“He’s sending Brandon?” I can hardly believe my brother’s folly. He might as well give his little sister to this nobody as throw t
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, APRIL 1515
It takes weeks and weeks before I hear that Harry has been fooled by our pretty sister, and she has danced her way into disgrace. Her letter comes to me by a merchant who had it from one of his customers in Paris, knowing he was bringing goods to Scotland. It is travel-stained but the seal is unbroken.
She writes:
The most terrible thing, and the most wonderful thing. I know that you will support me, for you promised that you would. I have to call on you as a sister. I do. I demand your support as my sister. I call on Harry as my brother too, but he is furious. Katherine won’t even write to me. Would you tell her that I could do nothing else? That it is my turn for love. Would you persuade her? She will listen to you and then she can talk Harry round.