Mary does not describe Norfolk’s honors, but I know that his ducal crest is a lion: the lion of Scotland, James’s lion, with an arrow through its jaw to represent the billhook cutting off my husband’s face, the arrow in his side. Noble indeed, a beautiful crest to choose. I hope my brother does not rue the day that he honors a king killer.
I hold Mary’s silly vain letter on my lap and I note her facile regrets that I cannot come to her wedding. But I think: perhaps I could attend? I could take a small court, a small guard in new livery. I could make it a state visit: the queen traveling in grandeur, and then I could visit towns, and people could come out and recite poems to me. I think Ard could ride at my side and make me laugh and see how people in England love me, their first and best Tudor princess. I would like him to see me in England, to see the welcome that they would give me, that I am a great woman in England, a princess in my own right. And on the journey he would lift me down from the saddle and hold me close every day. Nobody would notice that moment. He would stand beside me while I dined every night, and we would dance together. I would have new gowns and my portrait painted, and perhaps I would have him painted beside me, as a favored member of my household. Mary is so spoiled and stupid that she does not invite me, merely assuming that I cannot come; but perhaps I will come—and surprise them all.
It is a daydream—as false and beguiling as Ard’s whispered promises of love. I don’t have the money to make a great trip to London, I don’t have the gowns to outshine my little sister, I don’t have better jewels than the Queen of England, I don’t even have the royal jewels that my father left me—and they have not invited me to attend.
Mary says that Katherine is traveling on the summer progress in a litter and at once I turn the page and read it again. Yes, she clearly says it. I know there can be only one reason that Katherine would be in a litter and not on horseback trying to keep up with Harry: she must be with child and praying with all her heart that this time she can keep the baby.
I put the letter in my empty jewel box, and look out of the small arched window at the rolling hills that go on and on to the horizon beyond. It is so unlike the rich low-lying meadows of the Thames valley. Here there is no succession of beautiful houses and rich abbeys surrounded with bobbing apple trees heavy with new fruit. There are no walled parks, or smooth greens for bowling. There is just the wide arching sky over the climbing hills and the steep ridges and cliffs, the darkness of the ancient mountain forests with the eagles soaring above them.
I have been happy this summer with my boys, reveling in the respectful adoration of Ard, and with the country at peace. But my joy falls away from me at this one piece of news. I imagine Katherine riding in a silk-curtained litter, Queen of England, expecting another baby, and I think: she will be ahead of me forever. Forever she will be at peace when I am troubled. She has a husband who protects her, who is victorious when he goes to war. She has a litter to ride in and a country where she is safe. Now she is with child and if she has a boy then she has an heir to the throne of England and my own prince will only ever inherit Scotland and that is a hard kingdom to hold.
I think: I am always going to be in second place to her. I can’t bear for her to be Queen of England with a Prince of Wales in the cradle, while I endure my life, half forgotten in a distant poor kingdom. And in that minute, I think defiantly: well then! I shall defy her mealymouthed good wishes, her sisterly hints. I shall marry Louis of France and I will have an ally for my country who is strong enough and rich enough to defeat England if it comes to war again. I will be Queen of France and Scotland with two strong boys in Scotland and perhaps more to come, and that is better than being Queen of England, clinging to the sides of a litter and hoping not to miscarry your future.
I write privately to the Scots ambassador in France. I tell him that I have made my choice and he can communicate it to the old king that I called a monster. He can tell him that I am prepared to marry. Louis of France shall make a formal public proposal and I will give him my hand. I will marry him, whatever old beast that he is, and I will be Queen of France, England’s enemy, and Katherine’s superior.
METHVEN CASTLE, PERTH, SCOTLAND, JULY 1514
A terrible thing has happened to me, and I cannot comprehend it. I cannot understand the falseness of my sister, my own sister! I cannot believe the duplicity of my own brother. I feel as if I never knew either of them, as if they have betrayed me in some wicked concordance of their own. It is disreputable, it is to brand themselves publicly as liars. They are beneath contempt. They seek to destroy me and my prospects. First they widowed and now they ruin me.
Mary has repudiated her marriage contract with Charles of Castile. Repudiated it! As if it never was! As if she can give her word and accept the jewels and go through with the vows and stand under the canopy of cloth of gold—for I have not forgotten the canopy of cloth of gold, I have not forgotten the woodcut that was printed and went all around the kingdom, everywhere. She did all of that, and now she says that she did not. She did not promise, it will not happen. Mary is not going to marry Charles of Castile.
How is anyone to trust the word of a princess if Mary can be betrothed for years—not for a little while, but for years, with gifts coming every month—and then withdraw her promise, retract her betrothal, and repudiate such a monarch? What of the wardrobe of gowns? The biggest ruby in the world? The grandson of the emperor is suddenly not good enough for her? How high is my sister going to aim? Is this not sinful vanity? Is this not the very sin that my lady grandmother warned her about when she was a little girl in the nursery? Surely someone should tell Mary that she cannot give her word and then break it: the word of a princess should be solid gold.
I am horrified. I am furious. My ladies gather around me and ask if I am ill, for I have blanched white and then blushed feverishly red. I brush them aside. I cannot tell them what is the matter. Nobody must ever know the terrible blow that has fallen on me: for it is the worst thing. The worst thing in the world. Unbelievably, she is going to marry Louis of France.
The very moment that I had decided to accept his proposal, for such politic reasons, for such queenly reasons, Mary has pushed in first and is going to marry him instead of me. In my place! And how could he make a proposal to her when he was in the middle of an offer for me? Is it not dishonorable of him? Everyone says he is a byword for dishonor and oath breaking, but nobody warned me that he might throw me over for my little sister. And what of Harry, who knew that Louis had proposed to me, and that I was considering his offer? Should Harry not say: “How dare you make a proposal to a great queen, and at the same time court her younger sister?” This is double-dealing by Louis—but by Harry and Mary too!
Why should Mary even consider him? Is he not old enough to be her grandfather? Her great-grandfather? Is he not riddled with the pox and a danger to any wife? Did he not drive one wife into a nunnery and the other into an early grave? Why would Mary accept? Why would Harry desire it? Why would Katherine consent? For sure, this will be Harry’s doing: Harry and Katherine’s. God knows it will be they who pull the strings, as if Mary were a little marionette in a morality play. How Harry could do this to his sister is beyond me. Louis is his enemy! The enemy that he marched against only last year. The lifelong enemy of his Spanish wife and all her family!