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 them together in the first month of her widowhood. Who did he imagine that Mary wanted when she forged the agreement that she should be free to choose a second husband? He cannot have been thinking at all.
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.
I love him so much, Maggie, that I could not say no. Actually, to tell you the truth, he could not say no, for I cried and begged him and he was so loving that he lifted me up and swore that he would marry me, whatever happened.
So we are married—oh! me and Charles Brandon—married and nobody can do anything about it, and I could not be happier, I have loved him, I think, all my life. Of course everyone is completely furious with us both; but what were we to do? I could not leave my home again, and be married to a stranger. Harry promised me that my second marriage should be my choice, so why should I not hold him to it? Katherine chose in her second marriage, you did. Why not me too? But everyone is very angry.
The Privy Council say that Charles will have to be charged with treason! But I know we will be forgiven if you and Katherine ask. Do write to Harry and beg him to forgive me. All I want is to be happy. You and Katherine are happy. Why should I not be?
It is so childish and so selfish that I have no reply for her. Then I reflect, I have my own troubles, and I am not so sure now that a queen is right to marry for love. I think it is dangerous to make a prince from a commoner, even for love. I think that it would not hurt Brandon to spend a few months in the Tower for his presumption. In the end I write to Katherine:
Dear Sister,
I hear that Mary is fearful of losing our brother’s favor because of her marriage. I believe he told her she might take a second husband of her own choosing, and now it is done. She is so young, and she had no one in France to advise her. I hope you will urge Harry to be kind to her, though, God knows, she has no troubles as grave as mine. When you speak with Harry I beg you to remind him that I cannot hold this country and keep the French out without his help. When is he going to send men and money?
HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1515
Finally freed from the siege but only so that I may greet my enemies like a queen, I am dressed in robes of state, every inch a Tudor princess and Queen Regent of Scotland. Archibald, beside me, is dazzlingly handsome, tall, with red-brown hair and piercing eyes, looking, at this moment, stern and noble; even regal. We have had our official wedding before the lords, and, standing side by side, so close that our fingers brush, we draw courage from each other. We wait for the arrival of the Duke of Albany from France, who is coming to take up his place, despite my objections, as Governor of Scotland.
My brother Harry swore that he would not renew the treaty of peace with France unless the French kept Albany at home. But he signed it and Albany was allowed to go on his way. The peace that Mary’s marriage made is renewed, despite her remarriage. The peace that I made is forgotten.
It is an insult to me that Albany should be invited over my head, but this is what love has cost me. The parliament deny the brilliance of my husband, deny the greatness of his family. Archibald is at the center of a storm of jealousy; I know that they have nothing against him but envy.
Behind us are the great representatives of his family, the Douglas clan and the Drummonds. Beside my husband stands his grandfather Lord John, and his uncle the bishop Gavin Douglas, my nominee for Saint Andrews and Dunkeld. I am, as I have always longed to be, surrounded and supported by a family who love and prize me. They do not compare me with another woman; my place among them is unique. I am their kinswoman and their queen, as outstanding among them as my grandmother was to her wide family of cousins. All wealth and patronage flow from me, all the power is mine. They don’t compare me to another woman because they cannot; there is simply no one like me. I am their heart, I am their head, these are my people.