When he visited her and told her of his proposed marriage she veiled her heavy-lidded eyes and threw back her flaming hair, but she did not look at him.
“I am determined,” he told her. “And this must be the end between us.”
“And our son?”
“Do not think I shall ever forget him. He shall be created Earl of Moray; and you shall not be forgotten either. I shall bestow on you the Castle of Darnaway and the forests surrounding it. It shall be yours unless you marry or live with any other man. In which case it would revert to me.”
Janet closed her eyes and nodded. The Earldom of Moray. The Castle of Darnaway. It was a good reward.
She said quietly: “I believe there is good hunting in the forests of Darnaway.”
He smiled. Let her believe that he intended to hunt there and visit her when he did so. Better not to say he intended never to see her again when he was married to Margaret Drummond.
“It is indeed good.”
Then she threw her arms about him and laughed in her wild way. Well, there had to be a last time and he had been prepared for this. What was one more night among all the rest that were left to him?
Farewell Janet, he had said to himself when he had ridden away next morning.
He often wondered afterward what part Janet and her family played in the tragedy that followed. But he could not be sure and Janet might have been guiltless, for there were others to oppose the marriage.
When the news was brought to him he remembered the long-ago occasion when he had heard of his father’s death.
Margaret was at Drummond Castle, making preparations for her wedding. Her four-year-old little daughter, Lady Margaret Stuart, was with her there; so were two of her sisters — the two youngest: Eupheme who was married, not very happily, to Lord Fleming, and Sibylla who was unmarried.
The three sisters sat down to breakfast one morning; a few hours later all three were dead. One of the dishes which had been served to them contained a deadly poison.
So grief struck him for the second time. I shall never forget Margaret, he mourned; as once before he had told himself he would never forget his father’s death. He was distracted by his grief, but his first thought was for his child, and impetuously he set off for Drummond Castle and took the little girl to Edinburgh Castle. He himself would watch over her.
He often wondered who had done this foul murder, but there was no means of knowing. There were some who declared that Lord Fleming, heartily sick of his wife Eupheme, had intended to dispose of her and had carried off her two sisters at the same time.
No one really believed that. There were so many who were opposed to the King’s union with the Drummonds. Already there was a faction who believed that Scotland could best be served by a marriage with Margaret Tudor, the daughter of the King of England. Such ruthless nobles would not care that in killing Margaret they had to kill her two sisters also.
Lurking in James’s mind was the thought of the Kennedys. Was it possible that wild Janet and her family had found some means of destroying the woman who had displaced her? Did they plan to put Janet in her place?
He did not care; he was not a vindictive man. Nothing he did now could bring back Margaret.
He listened with indifference to the arguments which were put before him. A political marriage was the duty of a king. He must contemplate the good which could come to Scotland if there were means of making peace with the old enemy across the Border.
Nothing brought peace between countries as easily as marriage in the royal houses.
He knew they were right. Let the negotiations with Henry VII go forward.
This had been done and now, mourning Margaret Drummond as he believed he would do all his life, he prepared himself to meet that other Margaret who was journeying north to share his throne.
The Thistle and the Rose
On a sunny June day, four months after the death of her mother, Margaret, Queen of Scots, set out from Richmond Palace accompanied by her father. Crowds had gathered in the countryside through which the cavalcade was expected to pass, and Margaret could not hide her delight to find herself the center of such pageantry.
She was young and beautiful. She still mourned her gentle mother, but she had seen little of her during her lifetime and it seemed to her quite a long time ago that Elizabeth of York had died. So much had happened in between; there had been all the excitement of preparing her wardrobe — and how she loved those silks and damasks, those purple and crimson velvets! How she enjoyed the homage which was paid to her! Life was too good for mourning.
Let young Henry purse his little mouth and tell her she was frivolous; she could not care. He would have been equally excited if all the pother was for him.
She had heard stories of her husband and she liked what she had heard. She was longing to be with him. He was handsome and fearless; he loved hunting and the tournament; he was devoted to music.
“He has everything that I would ask of a husband,” she told her friends.
Riding out of Richmond, she did not look back once, nor did she ask herself when she would see those towers and turrets again. She was certain that life in Scotland was going to please her, and that she was going to feel no regrets for the past.
She was a charming figure in her riding dress of green velvet edged with purple tinsel; and when the people saw her on her white palfrey they cheered heartily for their lovely young Princess who was already a queen and whose marriage was going to bring peace to the country. Margaret smiled, acknowledging the cheers. Like Henry she was never bashful but delighted to hear the applause of the people.
There was a litter for her when she should tire of riding; it was magnificent, being covered with cloth of gold and trimmed with gold fringe; on it were embroidered the royal arms of England. She also had a chariot which brought gasps of admiration from all who saw it. It was lined with bearskins and painted with the arms of England, and the trappings of the horses and the hammer-cloths were of black and crimson velvet. Her litter-men wore the Tudor colors, green and white, and painted on them were the combined arms of England and Scotland.
They came by easy stages to Colleweston in Northamptonshire where the King planned to take leave of his daughter. This was the seat of Margaret’s grandmother, the Countess of Richmond, after whom she had been named.
The Countess had prepared a great banquet to celebrate the arrival of her beloved son and granddaughter; and here there was revelry for over a week.
But it was soon time to continue the journey and there, in the hall of Colleweston, Margaret bade farewell to her father and grandmother. All the nobility who had accompanied them, and those who had assembled for the occasion, watched the ceremony of farewell.
The King embraced his daughter and gave her words of advice; he also gave her an illuminated book of prayers in which he wrote: “Remember your kind and loving father in your good prayers. Henry R.”
Margaret was moved by this gesture, and in that moment she remembered that she was leaving her home and, in spite of all the pomp and pageantry which surrounded her and the fineness of her wardrobe, she felt apprehensive.
How could she know what this new land to which she was going would be like? Her father and family would be far away and she would be at the mercy of her Scottish husband.
But when they had left Colleweston and the journey began again she found that, now that her father was not present, she was treated with even more respect, and, her fears being dispersed, her spirits quickly rose.
All through England she was given homage. In every town and village the bells rang out as she approached. The lords of the districts greeted her and bade her welcome, and everywhere she went she was treated as a queen.