Of course, Thomas Dacre, with his spies everywhere, knows what I am doing the moment I do it. He writes that he knows I rode in secret to meet James Hamilton and his men. He says, anxious as Katherine about the reputation of a marriage, that I went alone, under cover of darkness, that my honor is stained. He knows for a fact that I was out at night in secret when my husband was away from home. My behavior is shocking. He has been forced to tell my brother the king that I am now widely known to be the lover of James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran.
Defiantly, I reply, I am furious that Dacre should insult my name. Hear this! I say: I have written to the Duke of Albany and asked him to come home to Scotland and rule as regent, since the country is falling into a state of brutal savagery with one lord against another, half of them paid by England to tear Scotland apart. I say that I was forced to write by the council of the lords because neither Dacre nor my husband protects me against the council. I have to live in Scotland and come to terms with the lords and see my son. Is Dacre going to help me or not?
This is how women are treated: when they act on their own account they are named as sinners, when they enjoy success they are named as whores. Thomas Dacre never lifted a hand to help me get my rents from Archibald or make him be a good husband to me. But James Hamilton and the lords of the council have agreed that I shall have the money from my dower lands. Has Thomas Dacre ever done so much? His silence is the most eloquent reply.
Silence too from Archibald. So I know that Dacre will have told him, as well as my brother, as well as my sisters, that he thinks I have taken James Hamilton as a lover, that I am enticing the Duke of Albany back to Scotland. I don’t even know where to find Archibald. I will not send a messenger to Newark Castle, I will not believe for one moment that he is there, with Janet Stewart. But if he is not there, then where is he? And why did he not come home after two nights as he promised? And why has he not sent for me?
After many nights when I sleep alone in our big bed between the cool sheets I realize that he may not come back at all. Dacre will have warned him that I know that he went to Newark Castle, Janet Stewart will have begged him to stay with her. He is a border lord accustomed to swift changes of fortune. He will not care that he is caught out. He will not care that I know where he is. He does not come back to Edinburgh and I do not look for him in the palace. I think he is like the migrating flocks of ducks that darken the sky in the autumnal days. He comes and he goes and nobody knows why. Certainly, I don’t know why.
But as it starts to grow cold, and the leaves of the silver birches turn yellow and shiver in the cold winds, and the oak leaves whirl around us as we ride beside the silvery waters of the lake, I receive a travel-stained package from France and inside is a letter from the duke himself, the absent regent, and he says that he thinks he will stay away for longer still (he does not say, but I guess he is all but a prisoner of the agreement between my brother and Francis of France). In the meantime, he proposes smoothly, I should go to the council of lords as his nominated deputy. I should be regent again; I may take his place.
I cannot believe he has written so kindly. At last, someone who thinks of the good of the country; at last someone who thinks of me. Of course, it is the right solution. It is the regency that the late king wanted, it is the regency that I want. Who better to be regent than the king’s mother? Anyone who had seen my lady grandmother’s care of England would know that the best person to rule a country is the mother of the king. Albany makes it clear that Archibald is to have no place in the council. He makes it clear that he thinks of Archibald as Dacre’s spy—his little bleached talbot, his puppy. Archibald has taken the English shilling and will never be trusted in Scotland again. Oddly enough, I—an English princess—am known to be more independent.
I will accept. It is the right solution for me even though it puts me in firm alliance with the French. But there is more. Albany offers to do me a service in return for my taking up the duties. He tells me that he is going to Rome, that he has much influence with the Vatican. As regent, all the Scots Church benefices are in his keeping. He is powerful in the Church, can meet with the Holy Father himself—and he offers to urge the matter of my divorce from Archibald. If I wish it. If I believe that my husband has deserted me for another woman and I want to be free of him.
It is as if I am at the top of my tower in my little stone lookout and finally I can breathe the clean air. I can be free. I can defy Katherine, and I can punish Archibald for his open adultery. Katherine may have to endure an unfaithful husband and pretend that his bonny boy was never born; but I do not. She can be more of a wife than I am—accepting everything that her husband does—but I can be more of a queen than she—taking my independent power. We shall see whose reputation is the greatest in the end.
Recklessly, delightedly, I rush on in my mind. Archibald can be Janet Stewart’s husband; she can have him. I will not be his step to the regency, his drawbridge to my son, his entry to power. He can keep Janet Stewart and her insipid daughter, and his little life, and I will be Regent of Scotland without him. I will be Regent of Scotland with the support of the French, not the English. I will forget my hopes of my brother just as he forgets me. I will not yearn for the love of my sisters. Katherine can disown me and Mary can think only of her hoods, and if I have no sisters at all, then so be it. I am My Lady the King’s Mother and regent. That is better than being a sister, that is better than being a wife.
EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SPRING 1520
Finally accepted by the lords as Regent of Scotland and head of the council, I am allowed to enter Edinburgh Castle to see my son. I can even stay in the castle if I wish. They no longer fear that I will run away with him to England: they no longer think that I will give the Douglas clan the keys to the castle. They start to trust me, they start to understand my determination to see my son become king of a country with a chance of survival. Together we are starting to agree that England is an awkward neighbor, the nearest and the most dangerous. I acknowledge to them my disappointment that the greatest English influence in Scotland is not me, working for peace, but Thomas Dacre, working for uproar. Carefully, I convince them that Archibald does not speak for me, is not my husband in anything but name, cannot be trusted with my interests. We are publicly estranged. Carefully, they tell me that he must be charged with treason, for his actions against Scotland, for his spying for my brother. I nod. They need say no more. I know that Archibald has betrayed his country as well as his wife.
“Do you consent that we issue a warrant for his arrest for treason?” they ask me.
I hesitate. The penalty for treason is death, unless a man can win a pardon. With a sudden pulse of desire I think that Ard might beg me for pardon, I might have the upper hand. I might forgive him.
“Arrest him,” I say.