“Can this be true?” Henry Stewart is with me, with Archbishop Beaton, and the Earl of Lennox, as one of the friendly lords comes to report. Davy Lyndsay stands in a doorway, listening like a faithful hound missing his master. “Has Archibald turned the boy’s head by giving him nothing but amusement, by allowing him to be corrupted?”
We turn to the messenger. “The young king spoke without coercion,” the lord says. “The Earl of Angus was with him all the time, but the boy could have spoken out, he could have taken three steps across the great hall and joined us. He did not do so. He specifically said that his mother need not fear for him.”
“But I do!” I burst out.
Henry puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “We all do,” he says.
There is a clatter in the presence chamber and a murmur of sound from the people waiting out there to see me. I notice Henry’s hand go to where his sword would be. “Are you expecting anyone?” he asks.
I shake my head as the guards swing open the door and a young man comes in wearing royal livery. I recognize one of James’s grooms. He comes straight to my feet and kneels.
“I come from His Grace the king,” he says.
Davy Lyndsay steps forward. “I know this lad,” he says. “Is the king well, Alec?”
“Aye, he is in good health.”
“You may stand,” I say.
He gets to his feet and says: “I bring a message. He didn’t want to write it down. His Grace says that he was forced to speak to the lords as he did, that he is a prisoner of the Earl of Angus, and that he begs you to save him. He says that you promised to come for him. He says that you must come.”
I put my hand to my heart as it thuds at the appeal from my son. The youth realizes, as he speaks, that he should not address a queen like this, and his color flames up into his face and he drops to one knee and bows his head. “I am speaking His Grace’s words,” he mutters. “He taught them to me just like that.”
“I understand.” I touch his bowed head lightly with my hand. “Are you to go back with an answer?”
“Yes. Nobody saw me leave and no one knows where I am.”
“You hope,” Lennox says dourly.
The boy shows a swift brave grin. “I hope,” he agrees.
“Tell him we will come for him,” I say. “Tell him I will not fail him. Tell him I am putting together an army that will march against the Earl of Angus and that we will free him.”
The boy nods. “You know that George Douglas, brother to the Earl of Angus, is now master of the king’s household?”
“Master?” Davy Lyndsay asks.
There is an aghast silence. “Then the king is in danger of his life,” the Earl of Lennox says soberly. “There is no one around him who loves him. There is no one around him who would not benefit from his death.”
“Archibald wouldn’t kill him,” I protest disbelievingly. “You can’t say that.”
Lennox turns on me. “Archibald has royal blood, and he has taken all the power of the king. He has the keeping of the king and no one can free him. What is this but the step before imprisoning the king and then declaring him sick or mad? And that is one little step before declaring him dead, and Archibald as king himself.”
I shrink back and sink into my chair. “He would not. I know him. He would never hurt my son. He loves him.” I nearly say: “And he loves me.”
“Not if we stop him,” Henry Stewart says.
We muster an army, and a number of lords join us with their armed retainers. Some are Archibald’s sworn enemies and would join any venture against him, some hope for the profit and opportunity of a battle, but some—a good number—want to see my son freed. We plan to attack Archibald’s new ally, my former friend the turncoat, James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran, at the village of Linlithgow Bridge, before Archibald can bring up his army from Edinburgh. The Earl of Arran and the Hamilton clan hold the bridge and so Lennox takes his army through the river and through boggy ground to attack their flank. They wheel to meet him, and then the Douglas army comes up in a rush from the south. My lords are horrified to see the royal standard at the rear of Archibald’s forces. The wicked man, my husband, has brought James to his first battle. He has brought James to watch his mother’s men dying in the fight to free him.
Of course, this is not just spite, it is a brilliant tactic. He is using James just as I did when I sent him out, a boy of just three years old, to surrender the keys of Stirling Castle. This child has been hauled about like an icon before the people since he was born, and now Archibald is putting James and the royal standard at the heart of a treasonous army. Half of our men will not raise arms against the royal standard; it is like blasphemy for them. The Earl of Lennox looks around helplessly as his allies hang back, but the men at the front of both armies are bitterly engaged, shouting insults, stabbing with pikes, hacking with axes and swinging great battle swords. It is bloody and dreadful, and James, trapped at the back, can hear the cries of men mad with rage and those screaming as they go down. He thinks he sees a chance to get away and spurs his horse forward to weave through the armies, and it is then that the new master of the king’s household, George Douglas, my husband’s brother, snatches my boy by the arm, and holds him in a cruel grip in his metaled fist. George yells into my boy’s face that he had better stay with them for the Douglas clan will never let him go.
“Bide where you are, sir, for if they get hold of one of your arms, we will pull you in pieces rather than part with you.”
James, terrorized, turns his head away from the man who sits so high on his horse and holds him so hard, but he obeys. He does not dare try to get to the Earl of Lennox any more. The struggle breaks off—it was doomed as soon as they raised the royal standard—and our men fall away and scatter. One leader fails to retreat; we have to leave the Earl of Lennox injured on the field, and when we recover his body it has been stabbed over and over again. Our forces fall back to Stirling Castle and Archibald pursues us, coming behind us on the dirty tracks as we wind through the hills and splash through the fords, and climb up and up the rocky road to the castle where we scuttle inside, raise the bridge, drop the portcullis, and set the siege.
Just as James promised me, all those years ago, Stirling Castle is strong. Archibald cannot take the castle until he brings the cannons, but there is nobody to rescue us.
“We have to go,” Henry says to me and to Archbishop Beaton. “We’ll have to surrender the castle, and it will be better if he does not find us here.”
I look at him miserably. “We surrender?”
“We lost,” he says shortly. “You’d better go back to Linlithgow and hope that Archibald will come to terms with you. You can’t stay here and wait for him to capture you.”
The archbishop does not need telling twice. He is throwing off his good cloak and his thickly padded jacket. “I’ll go out of the sally port,” he says. “I’ll get a crook off one of the shepherds and his jacket too. I won’t be taken by the Douglas clan. They’ll behead me like they did the chevalier. I don’t want my head nailed on the mercat cross.”
I look from the man I love to the man I trust. They are both desperate to get away from my castle, to hide from my husband. They are in terror of the man who is coming for them, coming for me. I realize, once again, that no one is going to help me. I am going to have to save myself.
I ride cross-country with just a handful of men to guard me. It rains and the torrential water blots out the signs of our passing, and muffles the sound of the horses. Archibald, riding his men hard through the storm towards Stirling Castle, does not know that I pass within a mile of him. I know his army is there, on the road, headed north, but I cannot see him nor hear the splash and clatter of his cavalry. The country is so empty and so wild that there is no one to tell him of our hard ride over the twenty miles from Stirling to Linlithgow. No one sees us go by, not even the rain-soaked fishermen, not even the herdboys. When the castle at Stirling lowers the drawbridge and opens the gates in a sha
meful surrender Archibald learns that, once again, he does not have me, he cannot hold me, I am gone.
LINLITHGOW PALACE, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN 1526
But he knows that he has won. I don’t need a letter from Cardinal Wolsey in London to tell me that open warfare against my husband is a disaster. Nobody can support a militant queen, never if she is arming against her lord and husband. But the cardinal writes very mildly; he is not so violent an advocate of Tudor marriage as he once was:
Of course, my dear daughter in Christ, it may be that the Holy Father will find that there are grounds for an annulment, and if so, it would be my advice that you should try to agree with your husband about your lands and your daughter. He will want to rule the council of the lords and you would have to assent to his preeminence. We are all agreed that he is the best ruler that Scotland could have, and the safest guardian for your son. If you could only agree with the earl, you would have an honored place at court and be able to see your son and your daughter, even if you were to marry another man in the future.
This is such a far cry from the usual insistence from London that I must stay married or I will overthrow the Church itself that I hold it and reread it for a little while wondering what the cardinal intends from the smooth words in the clerkly hand. I decide that fathoming the cardinal is probably beyond me; but when Archibald writes pleasantly to me, as urbane and courteous as if his army had not murdered a wounded man, the Earl of Lennox, as if his brother had not laid violent hands on my son, I understand that the English policy has changed, completely changed.
Now we are to separate, but I must not overthrow Archibald. I can be free if I surrender my power. Clearly, someone in England no longer thinks that a royal divorce is anathema. Someone in London thinks that a royal divorce can take place and the husband and wife can come to terms. Someone in London believes that a royal marriage can end and the parties remarry. My guess is that someone is Anne Boleyn.
How shameful it is that the great-granddaughter of a silk merchant should be advising English policy in Scotland! Katherine abused her power and was a tyrant more than a queen, but at least she was born royal. Anne Boleyn is a commoner, her father was proud to serve me in my household, her grandparents were born lower even than those of Charles Brandon, Mary’s husband. But, thanks to Harry’s love for the vulgar and showy, Charles is married to my sister and Anne is advising the King of England. No wonder that my troubles with Archibald shrink by comparison. No wonder it matters less to them that I am in love with Henry Stewart—a Scots lord with royal blood. What could they say against him? What can they say against me, when the King of England chooses his friends and his whore from the dross of his country and passes them off as gold?
Archibald invites me to visit my son in Edinburgh. He says I will be an honored guest at Holyroodhouse and I will be able to see James without witnesses, as often and for as long as I like. He says that our daughter, Margaret, is well and happy at Tantallon Castle, and will come to Edinburgh to see me, her mother. With cool courtesy, he offers me the palatial rooms that once housed the Duke of Albany: the regent’s rooms. I understand from this that there is no question of us sharing a bed, and the Whitsun sheets will stay in the linen store. I understand from this that he too has heard from London that divorce is now permissible and he is to treat me with fairness and respect. I understand from this that though I lost the battle against Archibald, I may still come to terms with him. Smiling, I reply that I will be happy to see my son James, my daughter, and my dear cousin Archibald once again.
HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN 1526
The citizens of Edinburgh line the streets and cheer me as I enter the city and proceed, more like a victor than a defeated estranged wife, to Holyrood. Retainers and servants, Stewart and Douglas, bow and doff their hats to me as I dismount, and Archibald greets me as courteously as if we have never been anything but queen and head of the council. He escorts me to James’s private rooms and he leaves me at the door.
“Whatever he says,” he nods at the closed door behind the grim-faced Douglas men who guard it, “whatever he says, I would not hurt him. I have loved him like my own son. You know that.”
“Yes, I do know that,” I say grudgingly. “But what complaint can he make of you?”
He gives me his rueful smile. “I keep him from the throne,” he admits. “He cannot take power. I have to rule the lords until I am certain that I and my house are safe and the kingdom in alliance with England. You know that.”
I nod. I do know that.
They swing the doors open and I go in to my son.
He jumps up from the floor where he was playing with dice, right hand against left, and he strides across the room to me. He has grown to become a young man, I see it at once. Only last year he would have bounced over the floor like a fawn. Now he comes quickly, but his shoulders are set like a man’s, and he plants his feet, he does not skip. He has presence—he never had it before.
“Every time we meet, you are changed,” I mourn, scanning his face and seeing the shadow of a moustache, and the beginning of a straggly beard on his cheeks. “A beard! You are never growing a beard?”
“You are always the same,” he says gallantly. “Always beautiful.”
“It’s been terrible,” I say bluntly. “I tried and tried to get you away.”
“I know. I tried to come to you.” He drops his voice. “They laid hands on me,” he says. “They said they would tear me limb from limb. You told me never to let them touch me, but they would have dismembered me. I had no authority. They had no respect and I could not make them.”
Miserably, we look at each other. “I’ve failed you,” I say. “God forgive me, and I hope you will forgive me.”
“No,” he says quickly. He has thought about this. “You have always tried to do the best for me, hold the power, get me to the throne. Those who have failed me are your brother the king, your husband my guardian, and the lords who have let themselves be led like sheep following a wolf. You are not at fault for these men and these fools.”
“I have no money and no army and no support from England,” I say bluntly. “I have no plan.”
“I know,” he says, and suddenly his father’s joyful smile lights up his face. “So I thought we would just be happy together. Even if we are imprisoned. I thought that we might be happy this winter and spend Christmas the three of us, and know that every year that I grow older, every month that my beard grows in, the end of the rule of the Red Douglas comes closer. Archibald cannot hold me as his prisoner when I am a full-grown man. We will win in the end just by surviving.”
I take his hands and I kiss his cheeks where the scattering of dark hairs are as soft as his baby curls. We are the same height now, my boy is as tall as I am, and still growing. “Very well,” I say. “Let us send for Margaret and all be happy.”
LINLITHGOW PALACE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1527
To my amazement we live together, all four of us, and we are happy. The long cold Scottish winter finally melts and then the miracle that is the Scottish spring comes slowly, slowly, first in the rain-soaked, meltwater-soaked greenness of the grass, then in the honking calls of geese flying overhead, then in the jumble and ripple of birdsong at dawn, and then finally with the lenten lilies and the buds thickening on the trees and every living thing springing into life as the sap rises so strongly that I can almost taste it on the warm air and the year turns towards summer.
Archibald rules the council. There is no doubt that all the power is centered on him, but he brings the laws and proclamations for James’s signature. James signs and seals the documents as he is told to do, with a little grimace, he never speaks out against his guardian. James is delighted that I am with him again, and I appoint Davy Lyndsay to my household so James has his dearly loved companion at his side every day once again and we are not completely dominated by the Douglas clan.
The court revolves around me and my son, as it should, and we all go hunting and riding out
together; we organize little jousts and competitions. When the weather grows warm we all go to Linlithgow, and there is rowing on the lake and James goes fishing for salmon. At night we hold masques and dances and James shows himself to be a good dancer and a musician. No one raised by Davy Lyndsay could fail to be a poet, and James writes the lyrics to his own songs. A band of young noblemen gather around him. I think that some of them are bad influences, drinking too much, playing cards for high stakes, and perhaps whoring. But these are the sports of a young man and, God knows, James’s father was no saint. No one seeing James on horseback or jousting could forget his father. Everyone thinks that he must be granted his power this year or next.
We have news from England and from Europe. The troops of the emperor go on taking ground and even riot inside the gates of Rome, and sack the city. People speak as if every Christian has been killed and all the churches desecrated, as if the end of days must surely come now. The Pope himself is captured by the emperor’s forces, and though I know that I should pray for him, I cannot help thinking of myself, and that this is the end of my hopes of freedom. All Church business will be overseen by the emperor, Katherine’s nephew, so I don’t doubt that my application for an annulment for my marriage has been lost, or burned in the wreck of the Vatican. I don’t believe I will ever be divorced from Archibald, and Henry Stewart will always live outside the court and see me only when we can snatch an afternoon together, which we waste in complaints and regrets. We both think that we will never be allowed to be together, that he will be forever barred from the honor and the profit of royal service and I will never give him a half-royal heir.
My brother never writes to me now. Scotland and England have signed the peace treaty and evidently he feels that my work is done and that he has no need of my affection. Mary writes me a letter of such dizzy despair that I have to read and reread it to even understand what she is saying. God knows what is happening in London.