Tudor Princess, The (38 page)

‘You are jesting,’ I said, attempting a chuckle that strangled itself in my throat. ‘You are jesting! Harry, I just informed you that you are to be a father and this is how you act? My God, you ungrateful little man!’

Harry approached me, leaning forward to kiss the top of my head. ‘A mother and grandmother in one year. Isn’t that something?’

‘Oh, get out!’ I cried, rising from my chair, causing it to jostle on its legs. ‘Get out, anyway! I shall celebrate alone, as I always do!’

Harry’s bow was stiff. ‘Then I bid you good night, my lady. Enjoy your supper and your … celebrations …’

Harry quit the room and I sank into my chair, laying my head on my folded arms and sobbing.

21

I
n November I was preparing for Christmas early from my confinement chamber at Stirling. I wanted to have a good Christmas with Harry and Jamie and the new baby, despite the unpleasantness revealed the night I informed Harry of our blessing. Jamie’s matters would resolve themselves when he married, and I was considering more and more my brother’s proposition of his daughter, Princess Mary, for his bride. His children by his mistresses would be heaped in honours, just as his half brothers and half sisters were by his father before him, and his ladies well compensated as royal mistresses always seem to be, the lucky little wenches. Marriage would tame him, and if he was able to sire so many children there was no doubt it would be fruitful. The sooner to get him wed, the better. I resolved to make it a priority.

But as to Christmas, I hoped to make at least part of Harry’s wish come true and bring Margaret from her household to celebrate with us at Stirling. I would throw a feast and perhaps even a masque. We would all be happy and at peace and Harry would let go his silly desire to retire to Methven. All would be restored. I would spoil Harry and the children with the best of everything in my power to procure. It would be a happy Christmas.

I regaled Ellen with my plans, hoping to rouse her from her malaise. She always had a good head for planning things, and perhaps a new gown would cheer her as well, if I could afford it. I hated asking for money, but I wasn’t above it, especially at this crucial time of preserving my family and marital peace.

One day as we chattered under the pretext of sewing garments for the new baby, we were interrupted by Harry bursting into the room without ceremony. He was breathing hard, his forehead and cheeks ruddy and glistening with sweat.

‘Harry, how rude of you to come so unkempt,’ I said, mildly annoyed that my time with my truest friend was interrupted. ‘What is it?’

‘Your Grace.’ He bowed as he approached me. ‘Mistress Ellen.’ He offered another nod in her direction, which she returned. ‘I wanted you to hear it from me first,’ he told me. My heart began to thud. Sweat mirroring his own began to gather at my hairline.

‘Harry, this is serious, isn’t it?’ I breathed. ‘Something has happened.’ My stomach began to twist as I swallowed back burning bile. ‘Jamie. Is Jamie all right?’

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and nodded with a sigh I detected exasperation in. ‘Yes, the king is fine, my lady. It is Margaret.’

‘Margaret?’ I screwed up my face in confusion. ‘What on earth could be wrong with Margaret? She has not taken ill, has she?’

Harry shook his head. ‘No, she is not ill. She has been taken by Angus, Your Grace. He has fled Scotland with her.’

My hand flew to my breast as the baby offered a hard jab to my bladder. I doubled over. ‘No … oh, no …’

My daughter, the little fair stranger I had borne Angus … he had taken her, as he had taken Jamie, as he had taken everything, and I did not protect her, I was not there.

I had failed her as I had failed so many times before.

‘What are we to do?’ I breathed. Ellen took my hand, rubbing it. Mine was limp in hers. ‘Oh, God, Harry, what are we to do?’

‘She is at Berwick,’ Harry said. ‘You may wish to consult His Majesty King Henry on this; perhaps he can be of help.’

I nodded, numb. ‘Yes … yes, of course.’ I turned to Ellen, reaching out to pat her cheek. ‘Leave us, darling,’ I said, and she rose to do my bidding. Once we were alone, I reached out my hands. Harry took them.

‘Harry … if we had gone to Methven, like you said …’ I could not speak. Tears choked me. ‘Oh, Harry—’

Harry shook his head, drawing me from my bed to hold me near. His steady heartbeat beneath his doublet was strong, reassuring. I nuzzled against his shoulder.

‘It is not your fault, Margaret,’ he told me, stroking the back of my hair. ‘It is not your fault.’

But I knew better. Harry was being charitable, that we might keep the peace, which had been so delicate of late.

It was completely and entirely my fault.

My labour pains began on my birthday; it was a bit early but not dangerously so. I bore down, anticipating another dreadful birthing experience, wondering how I could ever pursue young Margaret and Angus if my recovery was as slow as when I had had Margaret. With Ellen and my ladies and a competent midwife, I endured. It was a blessing that it proved not to be as hard as I dreaded, and my fair-haired little girl was brought into the world with relative ease on 29 November.

I took her in my arms, grateful I was able to hold her so soon after the birth, unlike many times before when I had been too ill to hold my other children. She was tiny and pale, thinner than her siblings.

‘What will you call her?’ Ellen asked me.

‘I rather like the name Dorothea,’ I said. ‘Harry fancies it, too.’

‘It is a lovely name,’ Ellen assured me, reaching out to take the baby. ‘Now get some rest while Lord Methven is fetched. He will want to see his new little angel.’

Weariness overcame me as soon as the word ‘rest’ fled Ellen’s lips, and I sank back into the pillows. ‘I hope he is happy. Perhaps next time it will be a boy … but of course perhaps God is sending me this little girl to replace young Margaret …’

Ellen cocked her head, scrunching her nose up and regarding me as if I had said something strange.

I closed my eyes and allowed sleep to carry me away, to lands where I could see the other babies I had borne, babies who were no longer here …

My family was as broken as it had ever been. The months passed, Christmas falling short of my expectations once again, as no one was in a celebratory mood and I was still weak from Dorothea’s birth. Though I wrote to Wolsey, my brother’s adviser, and my brother himself, no one would venture to rescue my Margaret. Instead, Henry arranged that she be brought to his court and be raised beside the Princess Mary. She was gone. I had lost her as surely as if she had died, and I knew I would never see her again, as I would never see the court of England again. She was the daughter of an English princess and would be raised to be a good English maid.

Was it a kinder fate than what Scotland could offer?

I wanted to think so.

‘I never talked to her,’ I confessed to Ellen one night while I rocked Dorothea in her ornate cradle Harry himself helped fashion for her. He did not seem the least bit offended that I had given him a girl; in fact, he seemed mad for the little golden-haired cherub. As for me, I spent as much time with her as I could; I would not repeat with Dorothea my mistakes with Margaret, mistakes that haunted me almost every waking moment.

‘Did you know? I never talked to her,’ I repeated, referring again to Margaret. ‘I canna even remember one meaningful word we have ever, ever spoken to one another, beyond letters and such. Oh, I fussed over her as a babe and whenever we saw each other as she grew I petted her, of course. But … I never really
talked
to her. She is thirteen years old and I have never even talked to her!’

‘I know, Your Grace,’ Ellen said. Of course she knew. She knew everything, every dark recess of my soul, which I was certain was now damned, if it hadn’t been before. ‘I know,’ she said again, in her cooing voice.

‘At least I have Dorothea,’ I sighed, looking down into the cradle where lay the sleeping babe. Tears clouded my vision. ‘At least I have her …’

‘Lessons abound, Your Grace,’ Ellen said.

I was tired of learning them.

By the next summer I had recovered well. I was still stouter than I hoped to be, but I was now forty and could not expect much. I was lucky to have lived to forty, as it were. My brother, in a comic twist of irony, was making any attempt he could to further his cause of divorcing Queen Catherine in favour of Anne Boleyn.

‘What do you make of that?’ Ellen had asked me one evening as we were preparing to receive an ambassador from the Vatican to assess our perspective on the situation.

‘I find it hilarious,’ I said. ‘In light of the vulgar things he said about me, and to me, when I dared go against convention and divorce Angus. He didn’t even wait two years before seriously pursuing his own divorce. Ah, hypocrisy …’ I chuckled. ‘Only my brother. He can justify any move he makes and never see the parallels between himself and those he criticises for the same choices.’

Ellen echoed my laughter. ‘Poor Queen Catherine, I wonder how she fares.’

I shrugged. ‘I couldn’t care less. After her triumph over my husband’s death, and her joining in my scolding for the Angus affair, I see it as divine retribution. I wonder how above me she sees herself now that her own daughter is kept from her and she canna do anything about it, especially after her criticism of me when I was separated from my boys.’ I remembered the conversation at Baynard’s Castle too well, when she dared imply my unfitness as a mother.
Divine retribution has a bitter taste, doesn’t it, Catherine
? I thought with a sneer.

Ellen sighed at this. ‘I will remember her in my prayers; I canna help but feel sorry for her.’

‘You were always better than I,’ I told her with mock petulance. ‘And you are the only person I dinna begrudge for being so. But! Enough about my brother; I shall be embroiled in discussions about him all weekend. You are coming, are you not? We are going to the Highlands, Ellen; they are so beautiful! You would love it. It is so different there, not bleak and rocky like it is here. Everything is green and beautiful and steeped in traditions of old.’

Ellen drew in a shaky breath. ‘I will remain behind and look after Dorothea, along with her nurses,’ she told me. ‘Let you enjoy your time with Lord Methven and His Majesty.’

‘Very well,’ I consented, though I was sad to leave my dearest friend behind. ‘You don’t know what you will be missing!’

‘All the better, then,’ Ellen said. ‘This way I shall have no regrets.’

For some reason those words struck me and I wondered if Ellen had any regrets thus far.

Surely no one could have as impressive a catalogue of regrets as I.

Oh, the Highlands! They always surpassed my expectations with the lushness of the foliage, so green it seemed almost painted on by some faerie hand, and the kindness of the Highlanders as they received us into their strange world. We were met with cheers and blessings as we made our progress to where we would meet the Earl of Atholl. It was the old days for me again, my days with my husband Jamie, when life was merry and the kingdom was at rest.

My son, Jamie, was as beloved as his father and as handsome. The young maids fawned over him as they struggled to be the first among the throngs that lined the roads, waving and shouting, hoping he would cast his gaze upon them and favour them as he had been rumoured to favour many a lass. Though it grated on me, I could not begrudge them; it elevated a woman’s status in life to be loved by a king, and if she was fortunate enough to bear him a child, she would be rewarded. And my son was rewarding many women. He now had five children by five different mistresses.

At least he had established the fertility of the house of Stewart.

The Earl of Atholl had built a marvellous reception hall of woven birches and green timber that smelled so fresh, I inhaled as if it were the sweetest pomander. Tapestries hung from the roughly hewn walls, the windows were glazed, and we stood on a floor strewn with a carpet of sweet-smelling herbs and flowers. It was a marvellous marriage of courtly elegance and the simplicity of the forest.