My justifiable irritation with Katherine’s meddling with the governance of England melts away as I hold in my hands this most sacred relic. I know her devotion—this will be more to her than all the silver in Spain. She could not give me anything more precious, and if it grants me a safe delivery of a healthy son, she has given me my heart’s desire.
Dearest Sister, I give you deepest thanks for the loan of this precious girdle. You could not give me a greater gift. I am fearful as I approach my time, we seem to be so unlucky with our babies. My husband has a painfully uneasy conscience and is afraid that his sins fall on me and our unborn children.
This is why the girdle will comfort me as I go into confinement and bear me up in my time, and bring, I hope, an heir safely into my arms and to his throne. God grant us all forgiveness for our sins and let His mercy fall on us. God bless you for giving me this, you are a true sister. Ask Mary to pray for me too as I know that you do. Margaret.
Louis of France, alarmed by the allies massing against him, promises my husband that he shall have anything he wants if he will keep the “Auld Alliance” between France and Scotland. I am preparing to go into confinement when James comes to find me in the tiny room at the top of the tower, looking out over the water meadows and the loch.
“I thought I would find you here,” he says. “I am surprised you can make it up these steep stairs with that good belly on you.”
“I am breathing the air and taking the sun before I have to go into confinement,” I say.
He sits beside me. There is barely room for the two of us on the circular stone bench that lines the round room, but the unglazed windows show the countryside all around the castle and the swallows weave around this highest point. I can see for miles and miles in every direction and the huge sky arches over the tower as if it were the highest point in the world.
“I will work for peace while you are bringing us joy,” James says. He takes my hand and holds it to his chest, against his heart. “And when you next come up here we will carry our boy and let him see his kingdom.”
We get to our feet and step outside the little room, leaning on the parapet and looking down at the loch below where it ripples with the wind, blue under a blue sky. “If I am in alliance with the French, your brother will not invade them. He will not dare, for fear that I might invade the Northern lands while he is away.”
“You can’t do that! Our marriage sealed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace.”
“I won’t do that, but your brother is young and foolish and needs to fear a danger near home to keep him from seeking other dangers far away.”
“It’s her,” I say miserably. “It’s her. She wants him in alliance with her father, and her father is the most untrustworthy man in Christendom. My own father never liked him.”
James laughs shortly. “You’re right about that,” he says. “But you go to your work and be sure that I am keeping this country and even England safe for the boy that you may give us. Who knows? He might be heir to both kingdoms.”
I find my mouth trembles a little as I try to ask him if he has given up thoughts of a curse. “You don’t think . . . ?”
He knows at once what I mean, and with a quick gesture he draws me to his side and kisses my downturned head. “Hush,” he urges me. “I have the whole of the Church in Scotland in my keeping, and they are every one of them praying for you, for your boy, and for us. Go with a glad heart, Margaret, and do your work. Come on, I’ll take you down to it.”
He goes before me down the tight curves of the winding stone stair and makes me walk with one hand on his shoulder so that I cannot stumble. We enter my presence chamber, and all of my household is waiting to say farewell and wish me well. The two bastards, James and Alexander, kneel to me and wish me good health. At the doorway of my bedchamber, shrouded in darkness, my chamberlain gives me a cup of ale and my husband gives me a kiss on the mouth.
“God speed, my love,” he says. “Be of good heart. I will be waiting out here for news.”
I try to smile but I go into the darkened room with my head down, and my shoulders hunched. I am afraid; I am afraid that my family is under a curse for what we did to get the throne of England, and that the curse will fall on me and the baby that I have got to bring into the world.
I have a boy. Perhaps it is the blessing of the Virgin’s girdle, which we tie around my straining belly, perhaps it is the prayers of we three sister-queens; but I, Margaret, Queen of Scotland and Princess of England, have a strong, healthy boy. As soon as James is told he goes silently through the crowded presence chamber to the chapel and down on his knees in thanks for our good health, and puts his forehead to the stone floor to pray that it continues. Then he rises up and comes to the screen in my privy chamber.
“Go away,” I say. “You know you’re not allowed here.”
“Let me see him. Let me see you.”
I rise up from my great state bed, for the little one I used in childbirth is cleared away, and now I rest under curtains of cloth of gold and sleep on pillows under a headboard carved and gilded with the thistle and the rose. I beckon the rocker to bring the baby to the screen and I stand beside her, in my beautifully embroidered robe, and spread the lace on the baby’s gown for his father to admire. James’s dark intent face is bent to his small son; he does not notice the Mechlin lace at all, though it cost a small fortune. The baby is asleep, his dark eyelashes laid on pale cheeks. He is tiny. I had forgotten how tiny a newborn baby is. He would fit into one of his father’s broad hands; he is like a little pearl in a sea of the finest silk.
“He is well.” James says it like a command.
“He is.”
“We will name him James.”
I bow my head.
“And you are in no pain?”
I think I would have died after my first birth if James had not interceded with the saint. This time too was a hard birth but the most sacred girdle of Our Lady helped me in my ordeal. I will never forget that Katherine shared it with me, that she thought of me and trusted me with her greatest treasure to help me to this joy. “There is pain, but the relic eased the worst of it.”
He crosses himself. “I shall stay up all night praying; but you must drink some birth ale and sleep.”
I nod.
“And when he is christened we will have days of jousting and feasting to celebrate his birth.”
“A joust as good as . . . ?”
He knows I am thinking of the tournament they had at Westminster when Harry’s son Henry was born. “Better,” he says. “And I will get them to send your inheritance from England so you can wear your jewels. So sleep well, and get well soon, my dear.”
I go back to my bed. I take one fold of the curtain in my hand so that I can feel the threads of gold and I close my eyes and imagine the jewels of my inheritance as I go to sleep.
HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN, 1512
I am too ill for a great celebration of our son and heir. In any case, James is desperately trying to keep the peace between the kings of Christendom who have all forgotten their duty to God. It is impossible for him to call the monarchs of Europe to a crusade if they insist on quarreling among themselves. The worst offender, obviously, is Katherine of Aragon’s father, Ferdinand.
I write to Katherine, as a sister and a sister-queen, asking her to influence Henry for peace. It is not easy for me to write her a long letter in my own hand as I am with child again and terribly tired this time. The baby sits heavily and low and I suffer from aches in my back and shooting pains in my belly. But James insists that I appeal to Katherine, telling me that we have to persuade my brother and his wife not to destroy the peace of Christendom, that Harry should be going to the Holy Land with James and not invading France with Ferdinand. “Tell her that I am afraid of sin,” he urges me. “Tell her everything. Tell her you are with child again and that I have to go on crusade to fulfill my promise, to keep you safe.”