We have a great feast that night: haunches of venison, pies of songbirds, slices of roast goose, fish in plenty, roast boar, and tray after tray of sweetmeats at the end of the dinner. Everyone knows that the papal messenger has brought good news and that I am free of Archibald and someone is certain to have slipped away to Edinburgh already to tell Archibald that he has finally lost and I am free. Margaret is not to be named as a bastard and I shall demand that she lives with me.
I laugh at the thought that I am a free woman. I can hardly believe that it is true after so many years of waiting, after so many terrible letters from England. I think that they will soon hear of this, and I think of my sister-in-law, on her knees for my soul and the soul of her husband. I think I am sorry for her, for Katherine, the wife who will be left behind; and I am glad and proud of myself who will be married again, and to a young man who loves me for myself. I think I am a young woman like that slut Anne Boleyn who dares to look the old rules in the face and choose her own future. I think that Katherine, and all the old people who would keep women where they are, under the rule of men, are my enemy. The world is changing and I am in the forefront of change.
“What news of my brother, the King of England?” I ask the papal messenger as the groom of the servery pours him another glass of wine.
“The Holy Father has received an application,” the messenger says. “He is sending a papal legate to London to hear the evidence.”
I am so surprised that I drop my spoon. “What evidence? I thought the legate was coming to reconcile them, or to talk with the queen?”
“He is hearing evidence for an annulment,” the man replies, as if the matter is simple. “The Holy Father is making a full inquiry.”
I should have foreseen this, but Harry’s ability to say one thing and do another continues to amaze me. “My brother has sought to annul his marriage?”
“Your Grace did not know?”
“I knew that he had doubts. I thought that the papal legate was coming to London to resolve those doubts. I did not know that there was to be an inquiry. I did not know that there was any evidence. I thought that my brother the king was opposed to the dissolution of marriage.”
A small, hidden smile suggests that the messenger has been told this too. “It is not a question of dissolution of a valid marriage,” he says carefully. “I understand that the king believes that a valid marriage to the queen never took place. He has produced proofs. And of course, he has no heir.”
“He has had no male heir for eighteen years,” I say tartly. “And he has a princess. Why would he apply for an annulment now?”
“Apparently, it is not to marry another lady,” the messenger says carefully. “It is to ensure that he is not living in a state of sin. He is not self-serving; he believes that God has not blessed the marriage as it was no marriage. It was never a marriage.”
I glance at Henry, who is seated at the head of the table of lords, not beside me, since he is not yet my husband. “Even here in Scotland we have heard of Anne Boleyn,” I remark.
The papal messenger shakes his head slowly, enjoying the twisting diplomatic denial of the obvious. “But not in the Vatican. The curia has not heard of the lady,” he lies beautifully. “Her name is not mentioned in any documents. Her presence at the court in London is not material to the evidence. Your brother is seeking the annulment of his marriage on clerical grounds, not for his personal feelings. He has doubts. He does not have desires.”
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1528
Henry and I are married in the little castle chapel at Stirling. It’s one of the oldest buildings on the steep side of the castle bailey and so the stone-flagged floor slopes upwards to the altar and climbs in a series of worn stone steps. As Henry and I go hand in hand towards my confessor it is an uphill walk, and indeed, I feel that is how our shared life has been.
We have witnesses—never again will I let someone claim that I had no marriage at all but a private handfasting; the priest brings a choirboy to sing the anthem, but it is a private ceremony. Henry gives me the ring of his clan, with the pelican insignia of his family crest. He gives me a purse of gold. We go to bed that afternoon and so the marriage is made, unbreakably. At last I am married to a good man in the safety of my own castle in Scotland. As I doze in his arms and the cold spring afternoon turns dark outside, I think of Katherine and the chilly comforts of her faith. I think that she was so emphatic that she knew what was right, she knew what was God’s will. But here am I, her much less clever sister-in-law, less devout, less educated, poorer and with fewer jewels, inferior in every way, yet it is I who am married to a handsome young husband with our lives before us, and that while the court dances in the great hall, she is alone praying, abandoned by the king who tells her that she is the finest wife he could have, but alas, never his wife at all.
We do not have a peaceful honeymoon at Stirling. Only weeks after our marriage the guards on the castle walls sound the alarm. As soon as the tocsin rings out the animals grazing in the woods outside the castle are driven into the yard, the drawbridge is cranked up and the portcullis slams down. People outside the castle visiting friends or family in the little town at the foot of the hill are exiled, locked out until danger is over, and some of the villagers who have come in to work in the kitchens or serve in the castle are trapped inside with us. We are in a state of siege within moments and I run, from my privy chamber where I was praying, to the captain of the castle at the sentry post above the main gate. To my left I can see them rolling out the big guns on the grand battery, aiming them down the hill where any attacking army has to approach, exposed to our fire on their flanks. Behind me they are arming the palace gate, and bowmen with handguns are running across the guardroom square to line the walls that look down the only road to the castle.
“What is it?” I demand shortly. “Is it the Douglases?”
“An advance guard. I can’t see who.”
I see a herald ride up the road, two men behind him, looking as nervous as any man will be under the gaze of forty cannon. Standards ripple before and behind him.
“Stand!” bellows the captain of the castle. “Identify yourselves!”
“A warrant of arrest.” The herald raises a piece of paper but it is too far to see if it is a forgery.
“For who?”
This is extraordinary. Who can they want?
“A known traitor, Henry Stewart, for marrying the queen regent without permission from her son, the king.”
The captain glances sideways at me and sees my aghast face. This is the very last thing that I expected. I had thought that Archibald and I were agreed that I should be free. I thought it was Harry’s order. I thought Ard was satisfied with the power he had seized and the use he has had of my lands.
“Open the gate in the name of the King of Scotland,” the herald shouts.
It is an irresistible password. We cannot resist the name of the King of Scotland without being declared traitors ourselves. I bite my lip as the captain looks at me for a command.
“I have to open it,” he says.
“I know you do,” I say. “But first send someone out to make sure that it is the royal seal.”
I am playing for time, but I have no plan for the extra ten minutes. Henry comes up behind me and watches with the captain as our master of horse goes out and examines the seal. We see his gesture to the captain to acknowledge that it is genuine, and the captain bellows at his men and the portcullis slowly creeps upwards.
“Can you ride out of one of the sally ports, as they are coming in the main gate?” Desperately I hold Henry’s hands and scan his white face.
“They’d capture him on the road down to the village,” the captain advises. “They’ll have a guard waiting, and pickets all around.”
“Can we hide him?”
“Then we’d be guilty of treason too.”
“I didn’t think! I never dreamed!”
“I’ll demand safe conduct,” Henry says quiet
ly. “I’ll demand a trial. If I go out publicly with some of my own people, and you write to the lords of the council, they’ll try me for treason but perhaps forgive me. Nobody would blame me for marrying you. Nobody can blame you. You are legally divorced.”
“It’s no worse than Charles Brandon did with Mary,” I say. “All they got was a fine that they never paid.”
“At any rate, not even Archibald will dare execute me for it,” Henry says wryly.
“He’s just trying to frighten me,” I say. My shaking hands show his success.
“I’ll go,” Henry says. “I’d rather volunteer than be captured.”
I want to pull him back, but I let him go down the stone stairs and greet the messenger in the guardroom square. Slowly I follow him as the gate to the inner castle opens and Henry orders his household and his horses to come with him to Edinburgh. He speaks to the herald and I see him repeat a question and then shake his head.
“I’ll follow you,” I say to him quietly. “And I’ll get hold of Archibald. He won’t refuse me if I’m there in front of him, arguing for you.”
“It’s not Archibald,” he says, his face shocked. “It’s a genuine warrant from your son James himself. And he is acting on the advice of the King of England. Your brother wants me tried for treason, and your son wants me dead.”
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1528
They all write to me: Harry, Thomas Wolsey, Katherine, Mary. They all deplore my divorce; Harry threatens me with the damnation of adulterers. Katherine begs me to think of the legitimacy of my daughter, and says that I am throwing her down as baseborn. Thomas Wolsey tells me that Harry’s outraged rant is a true copy of his spoken words, and Mary tells me that gowns are being cut slightly off the shoulder.
I write to Archibald, I write to James. I write to William Dacre, the heir to Lord Thomas Dacre, I write to Mary, to Katherine, to Harry; I write to Cardinal Wolsey. If I dared I would write to Anne Boleyn as the most potent advisor at Henry’s court. I try to contain my terror and I write, as calmly as I can, that my former marriage was annulled by the Pope himself on the basis of my husband’s precontract with Lady Janet Stewart of Traquair. Since I am free, I chose to marry Henry Stewart, and although I should have asked for permission for this match, I, like my sister Mary, am asking for permission after the wedding. All I am requesting is the same treatment as my sister Mary, who married Charles Brandon without her brother’s permission. All I am asking is that I am treated justly and fairly, as Mary was. Why should I accept harsher treatment than she? Why should anyone treat me with more unkindness than Mary—who was a king’s widow and married her choice during her year of mourning? What could be more disrespectful than that?
I write peaceably and soberly to Archibald. I say that I am happy that our daughter is safe in his keeping, but I remind him that she is high-born and legitimate. She keeps her good name. I expect her to visit me when I request it. I expect to see her when I want to.
I have a reply from my son James. He does not even answer my appeal for mercy for Henry Stewart. He writes of nothing personal; anything he writes to me is read by Archibald’s advisors. But this letter announces that James is calling a meeting of the council to complain of lawlessness on the borders. I don’t know why James should suddenly address the desolate state of the borders, nor why he should tell me, when I am begging him to release my young husband.
I am writing another round of appeals one evening when I hear the shout of one of the guards and the sudden ringing of the tocsin bell. It is three loud rings, the signal that a few men have approached the main gate, not the hammering peal that warns of an approaching army. At once, I pray that it may be Henry Stewart coming home to me, and I drop my pen, pull a cape around me, and go out into the outer close. The gate to the main entrance is open and as I watch, the great gates are flung open without a command from the captain of the castle, and I can hear the sound of the soldiers cheering.
This is extraordinary. They would not be cheering Henry Stewart, and I cannot imagine who else would come after curfew. I hurry across the outer close to see what late-night visitor has found the gates thrown open to him to cheers from my guard, when I see a big warhorse and above it the gleaming smile of my son James.
“James!” is all I can say, and he pulls up his horse, jumps off, and throws the reins to his groom.
“James!”
He is dressed like a poor man in a brown wool cape with a plaid over his shoulder of gray and brown. He has a thick belt around his waist and a great knife in a cheap scabbard on his hip. But he has his own good riding boots, and his own unmistakable beam of triumph.
“I got away!” He scoops me up into his arms and kisses me, a smacking kiss on both cheeks, then he takes me by the waist and dances me around the yard as his horse snorts and backs away from us and the men cheer. “I got away. At last. I’ve done it. I got away.”
“How, how did you?”
“He went off to the borders to make war on his own blackguards and I told everyone else that I would be up at dawn to go hunting. I went to bed early and so did everyone else. Jockie Hart and these two had my horse ready and a spare set of clothes and swore they would come with me. We had the horses out of the stable and were away up the North Road before dawn, before they even knew we were gone.”
“He’ll come after you,” I say, with a glance towards the south as if I can see Archibald’s army marching from Edinburgh.
“For sure. And he’ll guess I have come to you. Let’s get in and get the gates closed and post guards.”
He sweeps me in, his arm around my shoulder, and I call for lights as we go into the hall and the household wakes around us, half of them sleeping on trestles in the hall, getting to their feet and cheering the news that the king is here, the king himself, and he will never be captured again.
“We must fly the royal standard,” I order. “Then if they come against us they are declared traitors. And you must issue a warrant to ban any of the Clan Douglas from coming near you.”
“Write it out,” James says. “I’ll sign it and seal it with my ring.”
“You brought it?”
“I always wear it. Archibald has the big seal but I have this.”
“And send out a declaration that all the lords who are loyal to James are to come here to join His Grace. We’ll call a council of the lords and then a parliament in Edinburgh,” I say to my chief clerk, who is writing frantically, his writing desk slung around his neck, scattering sand on the letter to dry it. I give a little excited laugh. “It is like a masque, starting again. But this time we have the costumes and we know the moves.”
“And write to Edinburgh Castle to order the release of Henry Stewart,” James says.
I look up.
“It is your wish?” he asks me.
“Yes, of course, but I thought you were opposed to my marriage.”
“I was opposed to the scandal, not to the marriage,” he says, pedantic as any young man. “It was Archibald who ordered your husband’s arrest in my name. He wanted to please your brother and I consented, so he would think that you and I were enemies. Of course, Henry Stewart is not my choice; but if he is yours, he can be freed and I will make him a lord. What’s his estate?”
“Methven,” I say. “He can be Lord Methven.”
“Write it down,” James says, laughing. “These are my first acts as ruling king.”
EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1528
We enter Edinburgh in triumph, and it is a greater triumph than ever before. The lords meet us at the Tollbooth, the people throw flowers and scented water from the upper windows and crowd the narrow streets to see James and me together, smiling and acknowledging the cheers. James, their king, is finally the ruling king and Archibald is nowhere to be seen.
We keep the castle armed, victualed, and ready for a siege because I am constantly afraid that Archibald will return with the Douglas clan at his back. James has guards on his bedroom door and sleeps with
an armed man on a pallet bed beside him. My brother Harry writes to me that I will be damned for all eternity for breaking my marriage vows and living in adultery. I don’t even reply. It is a terrible thing for a brother to write such words of condemnation to his sister, but a brother who is leaving his wife every day in order to pursue another woman, and is chaste only because his mistress is playing a long game, has no right to speak so to me. Never again will I think that morality is different for men.
The city buzzes with rumors of a Douglas army massed in the hills outside and preparing to set a siege. The citizens and the merchants support their young king but they are afraid of the Douglas power. Only six years ago the Douglas clan spilled blood in the streets of Edinburgh, and it is less than four years since I opened fire on them from Holyroodhouse. The people don’t want to be trapped in their own city between two warring powers; there is nothing in the world worse than a civil war.
The lords agree that the Douglas clan have been treasonous. The declaration is put to the horn—the herald goes to the mercat cross and, after three blasts of the trumpet, announces the names of traitors. My former husband, Archibald, is under sentence of death. Our enmity has finally brought us to this point. I have not just divorced him and married another man, I have ordered his death. I may have to watch him executed. This must be the end of everything between us.
“We should go to Stirling,” Henry advises. We are in James’s privy chamber. I am seated on the throne as James strides up and down, looking out of the windows. Some of the older lords are with us. Most have chosen the king against his stepfather. Nearly all of them say that they were loyal all along but were bribed by English gold and afraid of Archibald.