The city is walled with fine gates, and behind them the houses are a mixture of shanties and hovels, some good-sized ones with plastered walls under thick thatched roofs, and a few newly built of stone. There is a castle perched on the very top of an incredibly steep hill at one end of the city, sheer cliffs all around it and only a narrow road to the summit; but there is a new-built palace in the valley at the other end, and outside the tight fortified walls of the town are high hills and forests. Running steeply downhill from castle to palace is a broad cobbled road, a mile long, and the best houses of the tradesmen and guildsmen front this street and their upper stories jut over it. Behind them are pretty courtyards and the dark wynds that lead to inner hidden houses and big gardens, orchards, enclosures, and more houses behind them with secret alleyways that run down the hill.
At every street corner there is a tableau or a masque, with angels, goddesses, and saints praying for love and fertility for me. It is a pretty little city, built as high as it is broad, the castle standing like a mountain above it, the turrets scraping the sky, the flags fluttering among the clouds. It is a jumble of a city, being rebuilt from hovels to houses, from wood to stone, gray slate roofs replacing thatch. But every window, whether open to the cold air, shuttered, or glazed, shows a standard, or colors, and between the overhanging balconies they have strung scarves and chains of flowers. Every poky little doorway is crammed with the family clustered together to wave at me, and where the stone houses have an oriel window or an upper story and a balcony children are leaning out to cheer. The noise of all the people crammed into the little streets and the shouting as our guard push their way through is overwhelming. Ahead and behind us there must be at least a thousand horses with Scots and English lords intermingled to show the new unity that I have brought to Scotland, and we all wind our way through the narrow cobbled streets and then down the hill to the palace of Holyroodhouse.
HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, AUGUST 1503
Next day my ladies wake me in the cool light of a blue sky at six in the morning. I attend Lauds in my private chapel and then I take breakfast in my presence chamber with only my ladies attending. Nobody eats very much, we are all too excited, and I am ready to be sick at the very taste of the bread roll and small ale. I go back to my bedroom where a huge bath has been rolled in, filled with steaming water, and my wedding gown is laid out on the bed. My ladies wash and dress me as if I were a wooden poppet, and then they comb my hair so that it is smooth and curling and spread out over my shoulders. It is my best feature, this wealth of fair hair, and we all pause to admire it and tie in extra ribbons. Then, suddenly, there is no time and we have to hurry. I keep remembering a dozen things that I want, and a dozen things that I was going to do. Already I have on my wedding shoes, with embroidered toes and golden laces, quite as fine as Katherine of Arrogant’s, and Agnes Howard is ready to walk behind me, and the ladies all line up behind her, and I have to go.
Down the stone stairs, into the bright sunshine I glide to where the great door of the neighboring abbey is thrown open for me, and then into the abbey, which is crowded with lords and their ladies dressed in their robes, the air scented with incense, and ringing with the music of the choir. I remember walking up the aisle towards James at the top, and the blaze of gold from the reliquaries on the altar and the heat from the thousands of candles and the high vaulting of the ceiling. I remember the magnificent stone window over the altar, stories high, blazing with color from the stained glass—and then . . . I don’t remember another thing.
I think it is as grand as Arthur’s wedding. It’s not Saint Paul’s, of course, but I wear a gown as good as Katherine’s was on that day. The king at my side is a blaze of jewels, and he is a full king whereas Katherine married only a prince. And I am crowned. She was never crowned, of course, she was a mere princess, and is now even less than that. But I have a double ceremony: I am married and then I am crowned queen. It is so grand and it takes so long that I am in a daze. I have ridden so far, hundreds and hundreds of miles, all the way from Richmond, and been seen by so many people. I have been waiting for this day for years; my father had it planned for most of my life, it is my lady grandmother’s great triumph. I should feel wildly excited, but it is too thrilling to take in. I am only thirteen. I feel like my little sister Mary, when she is allowed to stay up too late at a feast. I am dazzled by my own glory and I pass through everything—the wedding Mass, the coronation and the loyal oaths, the feast, the masquing, the last service at the chapel, and then the procession to bed—as if I were dreaming. The king’s arm is around my waist all the day—if it were not for him I think I would fall. The day goes on forever, and then he goes to confess and pray in his rooms as my ladies take me and put me to bed.
Agnes Howard supervises them as they unlace my sleeves and put them away in lavender bags, untie my gown and help me out of the tight stomacher. I am to wear my finest linen robe, trimmed with French lace, and over it I have a satin gown for the night. They lie me on the bed, propped against the pillows, arrange my gown around my feet and pull and tweak at my sleeves as if I were a wax effigy, like my mother on her coffin. Agnes Howard twists my fair hair into curls and spreads it around my shoulders, pinching my cheeks to make them blush.
“How do I look?” I ask her. “Hand me a mirror.”
“You look well,” she says with a little smile. “A beautiful bride.”
“Like Katherine?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Like my mother?” I gaze at my round childish face in the looking glass.
She studies me with critical, measuring eyes. “No,” she says. “Not really. For she was the most beautiful of all the Queens of England.”
“More beautiful than my sister, then?” I say, trying to find some measure to give me confidence to face my husband this night.
Again, the level, judging look. “No,” she says reluctantly. “But you should never compare yourself with her. Mary is going to be exceptional.”
I give a little irritated exclamation and push the looking glass back at her.
“Be at peace,” she recommends. “You’re the most beautiful Queen of Scotland. Let that be enough for you. And your husband is clearly pleased with you.”
“I wonder he could see me through the beard,” I say crossly. “I wonder he can see anything.”
“He can see you,” she advises me. “There’s not much that he misses.”
The lords of his court escort him to the bedroom door, singing bawdy songs and making jokes, but he does not allow them into our chamber. When he enters he says good night to the ladies so that everyone leaves us and has to abandon the hope that they might watch the bedding. I realize that he does this not out of any shyness, because he has no shyness, but out of kindness to me. There is really no need. I am not a child, I am a princess; I have been born and bred for this. I have lived all my life in the glare of a court. I know that everyone always knows everything about me and constantly compares me to other princesses. I am never judged for myself, I was always viewed as one of four Tudor children, and now I am weighed as one of three royal sisters. It’s never fair.
James undresses himself, like a common man, throwing off his fine long gown so he stands before me in his nightshirt, and then pulls that over his head. I hear a chink like a heavy necklace as his nakedness is revealed to me inch by inch as the nightshirt is stripped off. Strong legs covered in thick, dark hair, a mass of dark hair at his crotch and his pizzle standing up awkwardly like a stallion’s, the dark line of hair over his flat belly, and then—
“What’s that?” I ask as I see a circlet of metal rings around his waist. It was this that made the little revealing chink.
“That’s my manhood,” he says, deliberately misunderstanding me. “I won’t hurt you, I will be gentle.”
“Not that,” I say. I was raised at court but I have been around stables and farm animals for all my life. “I know all about that. What is that around your waist?”
He touches the belt lightly with his finger. “Oh, this.”