We do not have a peaceful honeymoon at Stirling. Only weeks after our marriage the guards on the castle walls sound the alarm. As soon as the tocsin rings out the animals grazing in the woods outside the castle are driven into the yard, the drawbridge is cranked up and the portcullis slams down. People outside the castle visiting friends or family in the little town at the foot of the hill are exiled, locked out until danger is over, and some of the villagers who have come in to work in the kitchens or serve in the castle are trapped inside with us. We are in a state of siege within moments and I run, from my privy chamber where I was praying, to the captain of the castle at the sentry post above the main gate. To my left I can see them rolling out the big guns on the grand battery, aiming them down the hill where any attacking army has to approach, exposed to our fire on their flanks. Behind me they are arming the palace gate, and bowmen with handguns are running across the guardroom square to line the walls that look down the only road to the castle.
“What is it?” I demand shortly. “Is it the Douglases?”
“An advance guard. I can’t see who.”
I see a herald ride up the road, two men behind him, looking as nervous as any man will be under the gaze of forty cannon. Standards ripple before and behind him.
“Stand!” bellows the captain of the castle. “Identify yourselves!”
“A warrant of arrest.” The herald raises a piece of paper but it is too far to see if it is a forgery.
“For who?”
This is extraordinary. Who can they want?
“A known traitor, Henry Stewart, for marrying the queen regent without permission from her son, the king.”
The captain glances sideways at me and sees my aghast face. This is the very last thing that I expected. I had thought that Archibald and I were agreed that I should be free. I thought it was Harry’s order. I thought Ard was satisfied with the power he had seized and the use he has had of my lands.
“Open the gate in the name of the King of Scotland,” the herald shouts.
It is an irresistible password. We cannot resist the name of the King of Scotland without being declared traitors ourselves. I bite my lip as the captain looks at me for a command.
“I have to open it,” he says.
“I know you do,” I say. “But first send someone out to make sure that it is the royal seal.”
I am playing for time, but I have no plan for the extra ten minutes. Henry comes up behind me and watches with the captain as our master of horse goes out and examines the seal. We see his gesture to the captain to acknowledge that it is genuine, and the captain bellows at his men and the portcullis slowly creeps upwards.
“Can you ride out of one of the sally ports, as they are coming in the main gate?” Desperately I hold Henry’s hands and scan his white face.
“They’d capture him on the road down to the village,” the captain advises. “They’ll have a guard waiting, and pickets all around.”
“Can we hide him?”
“Then we’d be guilty of treason too.”
“I didn’t think! I never dreamed!”
“I’ll demand safe conduct,” Henry says quietly. “I’ll demand a trial. If I go out publicly with some of my own people, and you write to the lords of the council, they’ll try me for treason but perhaps forgive me. Nobody would blame me for marrying you. Nobody can blame you. You are legally divorced.”
“It’s no worse than Charles Brandon did with Mary,” I say. “All they got was a fine that they never paid.”
“At any rate, not even Archibald will dare execute me for it,” Henry says wryly.
“He’s just trying to frighten me,” I say. My shaking hands show his success.
“I’ll go,” Henry says. “I’d rather volunteer than be captured.”
I want to pull him back, but I let him go down the stone stairs and greet the messenger in the guardroom square. Slowly I follow him as the gate to the inner castle opens and Henry orders his household and his horses to come with him to Edinburgh. He speaks to the herald and I see him repeat a question and then shake his head.
“I’ll follow you,” I say to him quietly. “And I’ll get hold of Archibald. He won’t refuse me if I’m there in front of him, arguing for you.”
“It’s not Archibald,” he says, his face shocked. “It’s a genuine warrant from your son James himself. And he is acting on the advice of the King of England. Your brother wants me tried for treason, and your son wants me dead.”
STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SUMMER 1528
They all write to me: Harry, Thomas Wolsey, Katherine, Mary. They all deplore my divorce; Harry threatens me with the damnation of adulterers. Katherine begs me to think of the legitimacy of my daughter, and says that I am throwing her down as baseborn. Thomas Wolsey tells me that Harry’s outraged rant is a true copy of his spoken words, and Mary tells me that gowns are being cut slightly off the shoulder.
I write to Archibald, I write to James. I write to William Dacre, the heir to Lord Thomas Dacre, I write to Mary, to Katherine, to Harry; I write to Cardinal Wolsey. If I dared I would write to Anne Boleyn as the most potent advisor at Henry’s court. I try to contain my terror and I write, as calmly as I can, that my former marriage was annulled by the Pope himself on the basis of my husband’s precontract with Lady Janet Stewart of Traquair. Since I am free, I chose to marry Henry Stewart, and although I should have asked for permission for this match, I, like my sister Mary, am asking for permission after the wedding. All I am requesting is the same treatment as my sister Mary, who married Charles Brandon without her brother’s permission. All I am asking is that I am treated justly and fairly, as Mary was. Why should I accept harsher treatment than she? Why should anyone treat me with more unkindness than Mary—who was a king’s widow and married her choice during her year of mourning? What could be more disrespectful than that?
I write peaceably and soberly to Archibald. I say that I am happy that our daughter is safe in his keeping, but I remind him that she is high-born and legitimate. She keeps her good name. I expect her to visit me when I request it. I expect to see her when I want to.
I have a reply from my son James. He does not even answer my appeal for mercy for Henry Stewart. He writes of nothing personal; anything he writes to me is read by Archibald’s advisors. But this letter announces that James is calling a meeting of the council to complain of lawlessness on the borders. I don’t know why James should suddenly address the desolate state of the borders, nor why he should tell me, when I am begging him to release my young husband.
I am writing another round of appeals one evening when I hear the shout of one of the guards and the sudden ringing of the tocsin bell. It is three loud rings, the signal that a few men have approached the main gate, not the hammering peal that warns of an approaching army. At once, I pray that it may be Henry Stewart coming home to me, and I drop my pen, pull a cape around me, and go out into the outer close. The gate to the main entrance is open and as I watch, the great gates are flung open without a command from the captain of the castle, and I can hear the sound of the soldiers cheering.
This is extraordinary. They would not be cheering Henry Stewart, and I cannot imagine who else would come after curfew. I hurry across the outer close to see what late-night visitor has found the gates thrown open to him to cheers from my guard, when I see a big warhorse and above it the gleaming smile of my son James.
“James!” is all I can say, and he pulls up his horse, jumps off, and throws the reins to his groom.
“James!”