“Ah, you mean the poor Cardinal Wolsey,” the ambassador says, shaking his head. “He made the mistake of living more grandly than the king himself and now the king has taken everything away from him.”
“I don’t think it is my brother who is jealous,” I say mildly. “Harry always said that Wolsey should be rewarded for his work in serving the kingdom. I think you will find it is the lady who now lives in Wolsey’s beautiful house of York Place who is behind his downfall.”
The ambassador nods and does not answer. “The Holy Father is very troubled by this,” he says quietly.
“Indeed, it is the worst thing that might happen,” I reply. “And I hear that Lady Anne is a Lutheran?”
He looks grave but is too careful to name the favorite as a heretic. “Do you write to your sister-in-law the queen?”
“I write to my sister Mary, but the queen has been so distressed and so troubled that I have not added to her worries.”
“She has a new ambassador come from Spain to advise her.”
“She should not need a Spanish ambassador. She is Queen of England,” I say shortly. “She should be able to trust to English advice.”
He bows. “Indeed. But since Spain supports her, the Holy Father must support her too. And there is no certain evidence against her marriage with your brother. If she would only be persuaded to retire. If perhaps you could suggest to her that she might become an abbess, pursue a life of holiness . . . ? Would she listen to you?”
The musicians from the gallery, the chink of glassware, the rumble of talk all suddenly become dim to me, and the brightness of the hall, the tapestries, the carved wood, the flicker and leap of firelight, suddenly fade. I think for a moment what I would say to Katherine, if I were called to advise her. I think how pleasing it would be to me, how smug I would feel if she were to step from public life into the seclusion of an abbey and there were just Mary and me, us two dowager queens, and no Katherine dominating the court. I think how much better my life would have been if she had never leapt up so high, if she had not been Regent of England, if she had not sent the English army to Flodden with orders to take no prisoners but to kill all that they could, if she had never advised Harry against me.
And then I think again. I think of her as Princess of Wales when Arthur died and left her with nothing. I think of my lady grandmother’s terrible envy and enmity towards her. I think of how she endured poverty and hardship, living on the fringe of court, turning her dresses and darning her hems, eating badly, served worse, holding onto the calling that she believed came from God—to be Queen of England.
“I would not advise her to give up her crown,” I say simply to the ambassador. “I would advise no woman to give up anything that she has managed to win. I would advise every woman to work as she can, and gain what she can, and keep it. No woman should be made to surrender her goods or herself. A wise woman will enrich herself as if she were the equal of a man, and a good law would protect her rights, not rob her like an envious husband.”
He smiles at me, very charming, and he shakes his head. “You would suggest a sisterhood of queens, a sisterhood of women,” he says. “You would suggest that a woman can rise from the place where God has put her—below her husband in every way. You would overthrow the God-given order.”
“I don’t believe that God wants me ill-educated and poor,” I say staunchly. “I don’t believe that God wants any woman in poverty and stupidity. I believe that God wants me in His image, thinking with the brain that He has given me, earning my fortune with the skills that He has given me, and loving with the heart that He has given me.”
The earl’s chaplain says grace and we bow our heads for the long prayer.
“I won’t argue with you,” the papal ambassador says diplomatically. “For you speak with the beautiful logic of a beautiful woman, and no man can understand it.”
“And I won’t argue with you, for you think that you are paying me a compliment,” I reply. “I will hold my peace, but I know what I know.”
We stay in the palace of green trees for three days, and every day James and the earl and the ambassador go out hunting. Some days they fish; one day it is so hot that James strips down naked and he and the earl and the court go swimming in the river. I watch them from the window of my bower, terrified that James will be swept away by the water. He is the hope of Scotland, he is the future of the country—I don’t like him to be in any danger at all.
On the third day we thank them and say that we have to move on. James kisses the earl and the countess and gives them a gold chain from his own neck. I give her one of my rings. It is not one of my favorites: a ruby from my inheritance.
As we ride away the papal ambassador looks back and exclaims: “Mother of God!”
We all turn. Where the palace had been tall and turreted there are plumes of smoke from the greenwood and the crackle of fire. Little cracks of gunpowder going off under the walls tell us that the fire has been set to destroy the summer palace. James reins in so that we can watch as the yellow flames greedily run up the dried leaves and little twigs and set the bracken roof alight in moments. Then there is a great roar as the walls catch fire and a crash as the first tower collapses into the heart of the blaze.
“We should go back! We could soak it from the moat!” the papal ambassador cries. “We could save it.”
James lifts a hand. “No, it has been fired on purpose. It is the tradition,” he says grandly. “It’s a great sight.”
“A tradition?”
“When a Highland chief gives a great feast he builds the dining hall and when the feast is done he burns everything, tables, chairs, and hall. It will never be used again: it was a singular experience.”
“But the tapestries? The silverware?”
James shrugs, a king to his fingertips. “All gone. That is the beauty of Highland hospitality: it is total. We were guests of a great lord; he gave us everything. You are in a wealthy kingdom, a kingdom like a fairy tale.”
I think James is going a bit far, but the ambassador crosses himself as if he has just seen a miracle. “That was a mighty sight,” he says.
“My son is a great king,” I remind him. “This shows you the esteem of his people.”
I don’t doubt for a moment that the countess took down the tapestries and all the valuables. They probably took the windows out before they fired the wooden walls. But it is a great sight, and it has done its work. The papal ambassador will go home to Rome and tell the Pope that my son James can look higher and farther than his cousin Princess Mary. Scotland is a great country, it can ally with whom it chooses. He can tell him also that I will not side with my brother against my sister-in-law. We are fellow queens, we are sisters, that means something.
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, WINTER 1530
James is paying a great deal of attention to Margaret Erskine, a pretty twenty-year-old young woman, the wife of Sir Robert Douglas of Lochleven. I cannot like it. She is undoubtedly the loveliest girl at court and there is a spark about her that sets her apart from all the other young women that James dances with and rides with, and—I suppose—meets in secret for lovemaking. But certainly, she’s no commoner to bed and to leave. She is the daughter of Baron Erskine and they are not a family to be trifled with.
“Who says I am trifling?” James asks me with his sideways smile.
“You cannot be doing anything else when you ride into Stirling disguised and kiss the merchants’ wives and then tell them you are the king.”
James laughs. “Oh, I don’t stop at kissing.”
“You should stop at kissing, James; you should see, from England, the trouble that a king can get himself into with a woman.”
“I don’t get into trouble,” he says. “I adore Margaret, but also I have a great liking for Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth who?”