The House of Tudor (16 page)

Not surprisingly such an oddly assorted couple were made the butt of unkind jokes in certain quarters - in Spain it was being freely predicted that his young wife would soon be the death of a bridegroom in his dotage who constantly licked his lips and gulped his spittle! However, to the outward eye, Louis appeared very jovial, gay and in love. He had temporarily quite thrown off his invalidish habits and boasted that on his wedding night he had ‘crossed the river’ three times and would have done more had he chosen.

Apart from a brief unpleasantness over the dismissal of some of Mary’s English attendants, Louis proved an indulgent and a generous husband and the newly-weds had established quite a cosy relationship by the time Charles Brandon paid a visit to France in November. The Duke of Suffolk had come over accompanied by the Marquis of Dorset and a number of other gentlemen, ostensibly to take part in a tournament forming part of the celebrations for Mary’s forthcoming coronation, but he also had certain confidential matters to discuss with the French government. Suffolk visited the King and Queen at Beauvais, where he found Louis lying on a couch with Mary sitting beside him, and was able to report to Henry ‘that never Queen behaved herself more wisely and honourably, and so say all the noblemen of France’. Charles Brandon was clearly impressed by Mary’s dignity and restraint which, he told Henry, ‘rejoiced me not a little’, adding significantly, ‘your Grace knows why’. It sounds as though he had been afraid Mary might embarrass him in public - this was their first meeting since her marriage. He need not have worried. The Queen of France knew what was due to her position and whatever her inner feelings on seeing Suffolk again, her self-possession was faultless.

It had been an eventful and generally satisfactory year for the Tudor family, but it was to end with an all too familiar disappointment. Queen Catherine was brought to bed at the beginning of December, but the baby, another boy, was either stillborn or lived for only a few days.

5: TUDOR SISTERS

‘Twas kenned that a
woman
was Scotland’s mail; A
wean
wore Scotland’s crown!

‘Sir, I beseech your grace that you will keep all the promises that you promised me when I took my leave of you by the water side…’

While Mary Tudor was occupying the centre of the stage in London and Paris, being petted and fêted as the beautiful young Queen of France, her elder sister was grappling with the realities of life and politics in Scotland after Flodden.

During the months immediately following the battle, Margaret Tudor, a pregnant widow of twenty-three, had been faced with the formidable task of trying to reassemble the shattered fragments of the English alliance, while holding at bay those Scottish warlords whose natural gut reaction was to pursue the blood feud straight across the Border and, at the same time, of taking what precautions she could to ensure the physical safety of herself, her unborn child and the eighteen-month-old James V.

Fortunately for all concerned, the Scots were too seriously weakened by defeat (in some families no male members had survived the slaughter at Flodden) to be able to renew the war at once. Surrey’s army had been disbanded but Lord Dacre, Warden of the Eastern Marches, was keeping up a suitably intimidating show of force along the Border while Margaret, acting with courage and resolution, had contrived to establish a precarious ascendancy over her sullen and largely hostile Council. Her authority as regent had been officially recognized but that, of course, did not for a moment restrain those Scots lords determined to put an end to Tudor domination of their country from plotting behind her back. They turned, as always, to France, and during the autumn of 1513 made contact with John Stuart, Duke of Albany, cousin and heir to the little king, inviting him to return to Scotland to ‘share’ the regency with the Queen who, as they pointed out hopefully, might well die in childbed.

John Stuart had lived all his life in France. (His father had been exiled for plotting against James III). Himself half-French, wealthy, respected and happily married to a French wife, he was understandably reluctant to leave his comfortable home for the bloodstained jungle of Scottish politics. He therefore sent an evasive reply to his would-be hosts, obviously hoping they would not press the matter. But when Margaret got wind of this threatened renewal of the French connection, she was furious. Henry warned her on no account to agree to Albany’s coming – not that she needed warning. She could see, quite as clearly as her brother, the dangers and complications which would follow, and anyway she had no intention of sharing her rule with anyone if she could help it. On the other hand, the Scottish Council was making it plain that unless she consented to receive the Duke, they would not come to the negotiating table with England. This not very dignified squabble dragged on until Margaret was forced to compromise. She undertook to welcome Albany at some future, unspecified date and in return the Scots sulkily agreed to observe a year’s truce.

Matters had reached this stage when the Queen retired to Stirling Castle to wait for the birth of her child. The baby, a boy christened Alexander, arrived on 12 April 1514 and with this ordeal safely behind her - Margaret had a history of difficult confinements and had already lost four babies out of five - she felt better able to cope. Her circumstances had improved in others ways, too. The new Anglo-French understanding was taking much of the immediate pressure off her and, although the situation in Scotland remained potentially explosive, the long-term prospects of a peaceful and permanent settlement did now seem a good deal brighter. Henry was offering to adopt his nephews and was also dropping broad hints that if he had no children of his own, he would be prepared to acknowledge James as his heir - the very contingency once envisaged by Henry VII and his Council.

The best hope of reaching such a settlement obviously depended on the continued and successful regency of Margaret Tudor, so it was particularly unfortunate that it should have been Margaret herself who ruined everything by a single impulsive act. She had known Little personal happiness as Queen of Scotland but now, for the first time in her life, she was in love and at the beginning of August 1514 -without observing even the formality of informing her Council or her brother -Margaret was married to nineteen-year-old Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, in a private ceremony at the church at Kinnoull.

She could scarcely have made a more unsuitable choice. Angus, whose father had been killed at Flodden, was head of the powerful Douglas clan and by singling him out as her husband, the Queen had destroyed at a stroke the delicate system of checks and balances, the whole intricate web of family feuds, jealousies and loyalties which made up the fabric of Scottish political life and which alone kept the rival chieftains from one another’s throats. They might grudgingly acknowledge a foreign ruler; they would not for a moment stand for one of their number being preferred above the rest - especially a young, untried man who commanded no respect among his fellows either as a warrior or a leader. Angus, in fact, had little enough to recommend him beyond a handsome face and an ingratiating way with the ladies, and he soon proved to be both weak and arrogant - a fatal combination.

The announcement of the marriage led, predictably, to a renewed clamour for the return of Albany. The Council, quite beside themselves with annoyance over the underhand behaviour of the Douglas family, lost no time in informing the Queen that by marrying without their consent she had automatically forfeited the regency and the custody of her sons. Margaret retorted by pointing out, with perfect truth, that there was nothing in James IV’s will to stop her marrying anybody she chose and she proceeded defiantly to create the Earl of Angus co-regent. The Council retaliated by cutting off her income and forcing her to surrender the Great Seal. By September their attitude had become so threatening that the Queen felt it prudent to take sanctuary with her children in Stirling Castle, which had been garrisoned by Douglas men-at-arms.

From Stirling, expecting at any moment to be besieged by her enemies, she appealed to her brother for help. ‘All the hope that my party adversary hath’, she wrote, ‘is in the Duke of Albany’s coming, which I beseech you to let in any wise; for if he happen to come before your army, I doubt that some of my party will incline to him for dread. I shall keep this castle with my children till I hear from you.’ Quite apart from her natural maternal feelings, Margaret knew that possession of the children was her trump card and she went on, ‘the King, my son, and his brother, prospers well and are right lifelike children, thanked be Almighty God’. She warned Henry to disregard any letters he might receive signed only ‘Margaret R’, as these would either be forgeries or written under duress, and she ended: ‘Brother, all the welfare of me and my children lies in your hands, which I pray Jesus to help and keep eternally to his pleasure. Your loving sister, Margaret R.’

Meanwhile, Margaret’s ‘party adversary’, headed by the Earl of Arran, was urgently negotiating with Albany. The Duke, no less reluctant now to assume the regency than he had been the year before, had laid down a number of conditions for his return which made it clear that although he would naturally favour the Franco-Scottish alliance, neither he nor the King of France intended to offer the King of England any unnecessary provocation - indeed, one of his conditions was a stipulation that the Scottish lords must be prepared to behave in a civilized fashion towards Queen Margaret and her husband.

These terms were still under discussion when King Louis died at the beginning of January 1515 - an event which intimately affected the lives of both the Tudor sisters, for much would depend on the attitude adopted by the new French king. François, Count of Angoulême, a vigorous, athletic twenty-one-year-old, might be expected to be less pacifically inclined than his ailing predecessor and certainly his head was full of dreams of conquest, just as young Henry Tudor’s had been. But Franc^-ois’ dreams were of Italian conquest, of leading a triumphant army across the Alps, and it was no part of his plan to risk a war on two fronts. At the same time, he could scarcely ignore the claims of his country’s ancient ally - especially when Scotland was being so obliging as to offer him a foothold on the British mainland! The knowledge that a French presence established north of the Border would alarm and annoy the King of England caused Francois no particular dismay. Henry Tudor was about to discover that he now had a serious competitor for the role of young lion among the European monarchs.

So, in the middle of May, despite a fusillade of diplomatic protests from London and a lurking English fleet in the North Sea, the Duke of Albany, attended by an impressive retinue, landed at Dumbarton to assume the Scottish regency. Margaret’s first meeting with the interloper took place in Edinburgh and seems to have come as quite a pleasant surprise. Instead of the ogre she had apparently been expecting, she found an agreeable middle-aged Frenchman whose courtly manners and conciliatory approach might have been designed to soothe the fears of the most nervous lady. Albany, in short, was a gentleman and that was a good deal more than could be said for most of the Scottish nobility.

Left to themselves, the rival regents could probably have arrived at a mutually satisfactory power-sharing arrangement but there was never any chance of that. As soon as rumours that the Queen and the Duke were showing signs of becoming too friendly reached Lord Dacre in the Marches he hastened to warn Margaret to beware of French machinations, adding helpfully that she and her children were in great danger from Albany who was planning to murder his little cousins and seize the throne for himself This was a libel, but the Duke, an honest well-meaning man and no fool, was hopelessly handicapped by the fact that he knew nothing about Scotland and could not even speak the language. Surrounded by a ring of greedy, suspicious magnates, whose one idea was to wring the maximum personal advantage from the situation and who would not hesitate to change sides any time it suited them, his freedom of action was severely limited. He was obliged to move against the Douglases if he wanted to preserve even a semblance of unity and this, of course, put an end to all hope of reaching an understanding with the Queen.

The unhappy Margaret was now pregnant again. She saw her only assured allies under attack and she was desperately short of money - Albany’s promise that her dower rents would be restored had not keen kept. It was becoming increasingly difficult to communicate with her brother and Henry, who was waiting on events, sent her nothing but vaguely worded messages that he was labouring for her more than she was aware of, which was not much comfort in the circumstances. Albany seemed to have gone over to the enemy and by July, Margaret, in fear for herself and her children and terrified for her husband, had once again sought refuge at Stirling. This time, though, there could be no evasion of the issue.

Albany and the Council had now decided on new arrangements for the custody of the little king and his brother. The Duke took his responsibilities towards the children very seriously and he knew that as long as they remained with the Douglases they would be in constant danger of kidnapping, or worse, by one or other of the rival factions. James, who stood so close to his uncle’s throne, was a particularly hot property and rumours - not without foundation - were widespread that his mother was planning to escape with him to England. Albany, still trying hard to be fair to everyone, got the lords to agree that Margaret should be allowed to choose four guardians from a short-list of eight and given reasonable access to her sons; but she must be made to surrender them.

A deputation was sent off to Stirling to break this news to the Queen, but Margaret had enough warning of its approach to stage a scene which would, she hoped, advertise her cruel predicament to the world and gain her a little more time. She stood just inside the castle gates, holding three-year-old James by the hand, with Angus at her side and the nurse carrying Alexander, now fifteen months, standing behind her. As soon as the lords were within earshot, she called out to them to stand and show the cause of their coming. According to an eyewitness report: