All day fresh incomers ride against the challengers, and the sand is churned and dirty, and the beautiful harness and livery are torn and dulled by the time the sun starts to set over the arena and the king’s team are declared the victors, and the greatest of them is Harry.
Katherine stands in the box as he comes and bows before her, and I think that she looks like our mother did when she was weary but making the effort to respond to Harry’s constant need for praise. She smiles as warmly as our mother did, handing down the prize of a gold belt of sapphires, giving a fortune to the young man who already owns everything. She clasps her hands together as if she is overwhelmed by joy at his victory, and then, when she has done everything he could hope for, she turns and we follow her back into the palace for the lengthy tournament dinner. There will be speeches, there will be masques, there will be dancing late into the night. I see her sideways glance at her baby, Mary, who has been brought to the box to witness her father’s triumph and to be shown to the cheering crowd, and I know that she would far rather be in the nursery watching her baby feed, and then going to bed herself.
I have no sympathy for her. She is Queen of England, the wealthiest woman in England, the greatest woman in the kingdom. Her husband has just beaten all comers. I would expect her to be beside herself with joy. Lord knows, if I were in her place, I would be.
I am to meet with the Scots lords who have come to England to persuade Harry to peace. They will ask him to keep me in exile, they will ask him to allow the Duke of Albany to rule my country, they will remind him that my husband is an outlaw and suggest that he should stay that way, to be hunted like a beast till they catch and kill him. They must be sick with anxiety, for I am a Tudor princess again, in prime place in my brother’s fickle attention. He will not even see them.
“They shall attend you before me,” Harry promises me at dinner at Greenwich Palace. I am seated on his left side, Katherine is on his right, my sister is beside me, exquisite in a gown of the palest yellow, her thick blond hair hidden by a pale yellow hood studded with diamonds, undoubtedly the most beautiful of the three of us—but she is two seats away from the throne, not adjacent as I am. “You shall state your demands. They shall make their explanations to you.”
“And will you see them after?” I ask.
He nods. “You can tell me what they have said to you. We’ll talk with Wolsey. We’ll bring them to heel, Margaret, never doubt it.”
“When will they come?” I am not nervous; I know that I can persuade them. I know that I can be a good queen regent. Scotland is a mass of warring loyalties; but so is England, so is France. Any throne attracts rivals—James taught me that—and now I am ready to learn his lessons and be the great Queen of Scotland that he said I should be.
“In a few days” time. But I want you to move house. Guess where.”
For a moment I wonder if I am to go into one of the royal palaces, and for a moment I hope for Richmond. But then I know where I should be. “The Palace of Scotland,” I say.
Harry laughs at my quickness and clinks his golden goblet against mine. “You’re right,” he says. “I want them to see you in the London palace of the kings of Scotland. It can remind them that you own it as much as Edinburgh Castle.”
THE PALACE OF SCOTLAND, LONDON, ENGLAND, AUTUMN 1516
They have sent the Bishop of Galloway and the Commendator of Dryburgh. Monsieur du Plains comes too, to represent the French interest and to persuade us all to a compromise that leaves the duke as regent. They have half a dozen clerks as well and a couple of minor lords. I receive them in the throne room. The palace is terribly dilapidated; nobody has used it since the visit of the Scottish lords for my proxy wedding and that was thirteen years ago. But the fresh rushes hide the worn stones and the old floorboards, and Katherine has loaned tapestries to keep out the draughts from the doors where the timbers have shrunk. The building itself is imposing and Harry’s groom of the household has given me massive oak furniture, including a throne inlaid with silver. As always, the appearance of royalty matters more than the reality. Nobody approaching the throne room of the Palace of Scotland could doubt for a moment that I am a great queen.
I sit on my throne beneath a cloth of estate as they come in, as still as if I were the Spanish princess, on her best, most formal manners, all those years ago, and I let them bow to me, without rising from my chair.
I speak with a balance of majesty and diplomacy. I have thought long and hard what agreement I will make. I cannot be impulsive and angry about my son James, my husband, or the deep terrible loss of Alexander. I have to win them over. I have to make them want me to return.
I see them warm to me. I have the Tudor charm—we all have it, Mary and Harry and I—we all know that we do—and I am patronizingly pleasant as I listen to them, and pretend an interest in their views. I play them, as my lady grandmother used to play the great men of England: asking them for their opinions, consulting them as experts, feigning deference, while all the time she had her own plan. And all the while, they are standing before me, and I am seated under a cloth of gold, the cloth of estate of majesty. The duke that they call regent may rule them but he does not sit under cloth of gold, his sleeves are not trimmed with the white ermine of royalty.
I speak to them frankly. I say that I must have my goods returned to me. There were gowns and jewels sent to Archibald’s castle at Tantallon, my summer wardrobe in Linlithgow—I expect them to be sent to me here in London. The regent owes me the rents on all my lands in Scotland: my dower lands, which were given to me by my husband the King of Scotland himself. Albany cannot say that he is ruling a country at peace, and then pretend that rents cannot be collected. And it must be me who appoints my son’s tutors. I have to hear from James, my son. I have to be free to return to Scotland and he must live with me. My husband and his grandfather and all his family must be pardoned, they must be free to live with me.
The Scots suggest quietly, politely, that I cannot return and expect to rule. I tell them that is exactly what I do expect. They were wrong to put Albany in my place; they have obeyed the French king, not me, their true queen. Look at their ally of France, advancing unstoppably across Europe! I give Monsieur du Plains a little smile as if to say that I perfectly understand his interests, he does not fool me. Who can doubt that France hopes to hold Scotland by this transparent device? If Scotland continues to side with the French spy Albany, with his French wife and loyalties, they will lead the kingdom of Scotland into war with England. My brother will not tolerate the French army on his doorstep. He insists on my safe return. Do they really want another war with England? Have they so many sons that they want to lose another generation at another Flodden? When we are still grieving for the last one?
Monsieur du Plains protests quietly at this, saying that France has no intention of capturing Scotland by deceit, that the duke is a Scot, heir to the throne after my son, not a Frenchman. I smile beyond him to the commendator and the bishop. My smile says—we know, we three Scots, that he is lying. And they smile back at me. We know, we three Scots.
LAMBETH PALACE, LONDON, ENGLAND, AUTUMN 1516