“I know.”
“And you have played him false? You pretended that you were reconciled with him but all the while you were writing to the Vatican for your divorce?”
“Yes.”
“And were you unfaithful?” he asks coldly.
“I wanted to be free,” I mutter miserably. “I wanted to be free of Archibald.”
“You took a lover?”
I bow my head before my son’s righteous anger. “I wanted to be free.”
“But I am not free,” my son points out. “I am in his keeping and in the keeping of the lords of the council. If you have lost your power then my case is worse than ever. You will be in disgrace and they will have me as their prisoner. He will have me as his stepson.”
“I am so sorry . . .”
He turns a sulky face to me. “You have done very wrong,” he says. “You have ruined us.”
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1525
I lose all influence over the council of the lords; Archibald will not even see me. I go to Stirling Castle and live like a widow, alone. I keep a small court, but I have hardly the money to pay them. I receive nothing from France and get only a small part of my rents and my fees from my lands—a pitiful allowance paid by Archibald from his charity. He is a wronged husband; he would be within his rights to let me starve and nobody would blame him. Henry Stewart greets me with joy, but soon learns that I am in disgrace and that we will never be married. I publicly protest that my case is still before the papal court and that my rents should be paid to me and not to Archibald, that my son should be in my keeping until we have their decision. The council of lords reply that until the marriage is ended I should live with my husband, and that I must come to Edinburgh to answer before them all. They hate me for being a woman trying to win my freedom. They know that I would have sold them all, lock, stock, and barrel, to get my freedom from Archibald. They hate me for betraying them. They feel betrayed as James does—they know that I was trying to get away and leave them in Archibald’s power.
I don’t go to Edinburgh. Not even to see James will I return to Archibald, and in my absence they declare that I have forfeited all my authority. They say that my son shall be kept by a council of nobles, a rotating set of guardians, and Archibald takes first place. Takes it and keeps it. James is in Archibald’s power and will never return to me. I don’t even know if James wants to see me. He feels I have betrayed him and he will not forgive me.
Archibald takes Margaret, too. There is no protest I can make. She is his daughter and he has evidence from the King of England that her mother is shamed. She is glad to go: she is her father’s little pet, his favorite. I think I should try to persuade her to stay with me but I cannot bring myself to beg her, and I have no power to command.
I write to my brother the king to appeal to him in the name of his nephew, even if he is still angry with me. I write to Katherine and say that as a mother she must understand that I cannot bear James to be held by my enemy. Neither of them replies, but I get a letter from my sister Mary that reminds me that my troubles and sorrows mean little in London; they are all convulsed with gossip.
Our brother has ennobled his bastard son Henry Fitzroy. The little boy is made a duke—Duke of Richmond and Duke of Somerset—and so is the greatest duke in the kingdom. He has far greater lands and fees than my husband Charles. Charles says that Harry will name Fitzroy as his heir, to inherit the throne of England.
I can see her writing change as she realizes that she is speaking to the mother of the legitimate heir.
I am sure you will be very troubled by this, but it is only what Charles says. It may be that your boy will inherit the throne in the end. It’s just that, with everyone speaking so badly of you, Harry cannot name your son as an heir. People even ask if we can be sure of James’s fathering. If you are an adulteress now, might you have been so before? This is so very terrible to hear—I am sorry to repeat it. I wish you would reconcile with the Earl of Angus. Everyone thinks so highly of him. Can you not withdraw your application to the Pope? It’s never going to succeed now.
Of course the queen is very saddened by the honoring of Henry Fitzroy, and now Mary Carey is with child again and everyone knows that it is the king’s baby. Her sister Anne Boleyn is at court too and the king is every day with either one or the other of them as they vie for his attention, and Katherine feels this very much. She is living among her rivals and now she sees a bastard boy is housed in as great a palace as that given to the true princess, her daughter. Princess Mary is to go to Ludlow Castle but she is not made Princess of Wales. I cannot see why not, but Charles says that the English would never accept a woman on the throne. So nobody knows what will happen, the queen least of all.
It is not a happy court any more. The two Boleyn girls are quite frantic in their desire to please and entertain Harry—they sport and dance and play music and compose, they hunt and boat and flirt, but the queen seems very tired. And I am tired of it too. I am tired of all of it.
That’s all. She has no new advice for me but to return to Archibald, it is all any of them ever say. I don’t think she has any thought of me. She cannot imagine my life, short of money, lonely for company, unable to see my son, deserted by my daughter, unable to enter my capital city, a queen in name but stripped of power, wealth, and reputation. For Mary the world is fixed in London and the battle between two pretty Boleyn girls, a great question mark hanging over the throne of England like a sparkling cloth of estate. There is so much more to trouble me, but neither she nor my sister-in-law Katherine ever thinks of me.
HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1526
At last I am able to return to Edinburgh and see my son. For more than a year he has been in Archibald’s keeping and I have been able to do nothing but write to him and send him little gifts, and beg him to remember that his mother loves him and would be with him if she could. I can’t forget the coldness in his voice, the irritation in his face. He blames me for our defeat—and he is right. I blame myself.
Amazingly, it is Harry, my brother, who makes my return to court possible. Harry orders Archibald to give me my rents and my fees and not keep them for himself. Harry says that I must be allowed to see my son. Harry tells Archibald that I should have a divorce if it can indeed be proved that the marriage was invalid from the very beginning. Harry has changed his mind completely: he is turn and turn about. He has forgiven me, he wants me to be happy.
I am amazed. I cannot understand this change of heart that has brought me such opportunity. I am so encouraged and so hopeful that I write to him and to Katherine and thank them for their kindness to me, and promise them my gratitude, and my loyalty to the country of my birth. For some reason, the royal favor has returned to me, and I am restored to the family. I don’t know why I am suddenly beloved again, but I am as grateful as a beaten puppy that squirms to lick the hand that held the whip. Harry has all the power, and, suddenly, he bestows his blessing on me.