The Thistle and the Rose (13 page)

He could not help picturing him with Janet, and he knew that Angus felt the same about him. They were rivals—and they always would be, for Janet was a woman whom it was difficult to forget.

Angus too suffered from tormenting jealousy. The Stuart was one of the handsomest fellows in Scotland. Such looks and charm, and a crown to go with them! No wonder Janet had been tempted,

“What is it you wish?” James asked. “To add my pleas to those of the Queen on this matter of war,” Angus told him.

“My mind is made up,” replied the King coldly.

“Sire, the English have always been a formidable enemy.”

“I am well aware of the strength of my enemy, my lord. But as it happens the flower of the English army is at this moment engaged in attacking my friend and ally, the King of France. And this seems an opportune moment for me to wipe out old scores. As you doubtless know, I have already declared war on the King of England.”

“Sire, will you not call together your old counselors?”

“Your friends?”

“They will set their reasons before Your Grace, as I will do.”

The King shrugged his shoulders. “I am in no mood to listen to your advice, Angus. My plan shall go forward.”

“At least,” put in Margaret, “Your Grace should listen to what these tried and trusty men have to say.”

“Very well,” replied James. “I will hear you. Let there be a council meeting of those who share your views, and I will attend it; but I warn you, I shall not agree with your arguments and you are but wasting your time and mine.”

“Your Grace is good,” murmured Angus. “I will bring to the Palace certain members of my family and my friends who share my views, that we may parley with Your Grace.”

“As you will,” said James, but his lips were set in the obstinate lines which Margaret understood; and she knew that he had already made up his mind.

The Douglases came to Linlithgow in their strength. Margaret met the eldest son of Bell-the-Cat, George, Master of Douglas, who was the father of Archibald. She had a glimpse also of the younger Archibald himself, and there was an opportunity of exchanging a word with him.

“I rejoice to see your grandfather at Linlithgow,” she told him when she met him as if by chance on his way to the council meeting.

“I thank Your Grace,” murmured the young man, bowing over her hand.

“I pray that he will persuade the King from this enterprise.”

“I will add my prayers to those of Your Grace.”

“Thank you,” she said, and smiled at him in a manner which embarrassed him slightly because he was not sure of the meaning behind her looks.

It was said in the Palace that the Queen and old Bell-the-Cat were allies, more because of Janet Kennedy than the English.

But there was another thing which was said, and that was that there was a party in the country opposed to war; and this became known as the Queen's and the Douglas faction.

James listened to the objections to war and swept them all
aside. He had made up his mind. He was going to march against England.

The King had gone to the Abbey Church of St. Michael with some of his ministers to pray for a successful enterprise and was attending vespers in St. Katharine's Chapel there when an extraordinary incident occurred.

James was kneeling in prayer when, out of the dimness of the chapel, a strange figure appeared. This seemed to be an aged man dressed in a blue gown, with a roll of white linen tied about his waist; his hair hung in yellow locks about his face and fell to his shoulders.

His voice rang through the chapel so that all could hear: “James, King of Scotland, listen to me and take heed. Sir King, I charge you—do not go where you plan to go. If you ignore this warning, you will not fare well—nor shall any that follow you. Beware. Follow not the counsel of women. Do this, Sir King, and you will be confounded and brought to shame.”

There was a brief silence and before any had time to detain the man he had disappeared.

James rose to his feet. “Who spoke then?” he cried.

His friends were clustering about him.

“Did you see a figure…a strange figure in blue and white?”

“I thought so.”

“Where is he now?”

“He was there one moment… and gone the next.”

Frightened glances were exchanged. None was as eager to go to war with England as the King was.

James said: “Bah! A madman.”

“Perhaps so, Sire, but where did he go?”

“We have other things with which to concern ourselves than the antics of madmen,” said the King.

Margaret awaited the return of her servant.

He was trembling, for he had feared he would not escape. He had planned what he would say if he were caught; he would tell the King that the Queen had commanded him to act as he had; and he
knew the King well enough to believe that he would shrug his shoulders and laugh aside the incident.

But he had not been caught. The Queen had planned carefully. It had been possible to emerge from the shadows to say his piece; to step back; to slip behind the curtains and out through the little door at the side of the altar to the privy stairs which led to the Palace.

“Well done,” said Margaret.

She waited now to hear that her husband and his friends had been shaken by what they must have thought was a supernatural vision.

But she was disappointed.

James had gone to Edinburgh, there to supervise his artillerymen who were bringing the military equipment from the Castle where it had been stored. Among this was the great cannon which the King had recently had made and which was known as the Seven Sisters.

It was at this time that the second strange incident took place.

The army was now assembled on the plain of Borough Moor near Edinburgh, ready to march, when at midnight a voice was heard ringing out, it seemed, from the Market Cross.

“These men are summoned to the Bar of Pluto within forty days!” cried the voice. Then there followed a roll call of the names of certain illustrious men who were following the King into battle.

Many of the people of Edinburgh lay cowering in their beds as they listened to the voice; but some ran out into the streets and, although they made their way to the Market Cross, they could not discover whence the voice came.

This was an evil omen, they said. They had heard how a strange figure had appeared when the King was at his devotions. Clearly he was being warned against going to war.

When the King was awakened from his sleep at Borough Moor and told of the voice at Market Cross he merely yawned. “There are some who are misguided enough to attempt to divert us from our purpose,” he said, and he smiled, somewhat tenderly thinking of one.

Was she responsible for the voice, as he was ready to believe she had been for the mysterious figure in the chapel? He knew of the door beyond the curtain which led to the Palace. His Queen was a woman of imagination and she believed that she could unnerve him through his superstition. But he was only superstitious when he felt he had acted unworthily; and the more he contemplated the war into which he was plunging his country, the more right and logical it seemed to conquer the old enemy at a moment when, by conducting this foolish war on the French, he was at his weakest.

Of course it was a war against his own brother-in-law and Margaret could not bear that her husband and brother should be in conflict. It was a natural feeling. But there was no blood-tie between him and Henry, and if ever Scotland had had an enemy that enemy, he was convinced, was Henry VIII of England.

He would forgive Margaret her little essays into the supernatural. He knew them for what they were, and they were not going to move him one inch from his purpose.

On a hot August day the Scottish army began to move toward the Border. Margaret went with it, riding beside the King at the head of the cavalry. She had accepted the fact at last that it was useless to try to persuade him to give up the campaign. The light of battle was in James's eyes and nothing would deter him now.

With James rode his son by Marian Boyd, Alexander Stuart, a handsome youth in his teens who had already been appointed Archbishop of St. Andrews. Glancing at this handsome youth, Margaret was glad that her own small son was safe in the care of David Lindsay at Linlithgow; but Alexander was glowing with health and high spirits, eager to prove himself in battle, and there was no doubt that James was delighted to have his son with him.

They arrived at Dunfermline where they stayed the night. It had been decided that Margaret should go no farther but return to Linlithgow to be with the young Prince.

That was a tender night which Margaret was to remember. James had said to her: “Margaret, let us forget all rancor. Let it be as it was when you first came into Scotland.”

She had been gentle too; and as they lay clasped in each other's arms James let her know that he bore no grudge against her for the tricks she had played on him; nor had he told anyone of his suspicion that she was involved in them. “For I know,” he said, “it was but wifely concern which prompted you to act so. And, if all should not go as I hope, I have left orders that you are to be tutrix to our heir as long as you remain a widow.”

Margaret cried out in horror: “Do not say such things. It is unlucky.”

“Ah,” he murmured, “it is you who are the superstitious one now.”

“We are all superstitious where our feelings are concerned,” she told him; and she wept a little, not only because he was going to leave her, but because he had never been all that she had once believed he was.

He comforted her with soft words and told her that he would be back victorious within a few weeks. “Why, the land will be undefended. A few battles—and England conquered forever, a vassal of Scotland. And then, my love, in years to come it will be said: ‘That was the work of James IV of Scotland… and his Queen, Margaret Tudor, who was a good wife to him.'”

“And to whose counsels he paid no heed!”

“When this is over I will pay heed to all you say.”

“Ah,” she murmured, “when this is over!”

Then they made love, first tenderly, and then with rising passion.

As though, thought Margaret, they who had done these things so often now did them for the last time.

So Margaret returned to Linlithgow and James continued the march south.

It seemed that James had been right. The Border was unprotected. The flower of English chivalry was indeed in France with the King. All along the line the Scots were victorious and all through those preliminary skirmishes James kept Alexander Stuart beside him and rejoiced in his young manhood.

He wished the boy had been his legitimate son. What a king he would have made!

He told Alexander this and was delighted to see the horror dawn in the young face. “But if I were your legitimate son how could I be King while you lived? And if you are to die, I would as lief die with you, as take your crown.”

Wonderful words from a son to a father. And thus it would have been with my father, thought James, had he treated me as a father should, as I have sworn I will behave to all my children.

Those were glorious days, and James felt young again. Each morning to ride to fresh conquests, teaching his son to make war as a man, with victory crowning all their efforts. Pleasant too to watch old Bell-the-Cat fighting as one would expect such an old warrior to fight, but sour because he had not believed in the war.

He was too old for battle, too old for lovemaking. Perhaps Janet had realized that by now.

And so the war went as Scotsmen could wish. Then they came to the frontier castle of Ford.

The castle stood on the east bank of the Till stream in the north of the county of Northumberland. Alexander, riding beside his father, said: “It's a grand place, but it'll fall to us as easily as the others.”

James looked toward the two towers at the east and west fronts of the edifice and replied complacently: “More easily, my son, for the castellan is already our prisoner. He is Sir William Heron who now lies in a dungeon at Fastcastle for his part in the murder of one of our Scottish knights. I do not think this castle will hold out long against us.”

“Then here is yet another conquest!” laughed Alexander.

They were right. There was little resistance at Ford Castle. Into the courtyards rode the Scots, where the defenders of the castle were on their knees begging for mercy.

James, always a generous conqueror, called to them to have no fear, for they would not be harmed unless they acted treacherously toward him and his army. He merely wished to take the castle and rest here for a night before proceeding.

“Take me to him who is in charge,” he cried.

He stepped into the great hall where, her head high, the color flooding her cheeks, dignified yet unafraid, stood a woman and with her a young girl.

The woman was remarkably beautiful; the girl fresh and charming, scarcely out of her childhood. James's expression softened immediately, and the gallant took the place of the soldier.

“Madam,” he said, “I could wish we had met in happier circumstances.”

She did not answer but regarded him steadily.

“Have no fear,” James went on gently. “It is not our custom to harm women and children.”

“We must at least be grateful for that,” she answered.

“My men are hungry and thirsty. Could you give them refreshment?”

“We are at your mercy,” she replied gravely, and, turning, signed to her servants that they must lay the great table and feed the conquerors.

James was at her side: “While this is being done, may I have a word with you in private?”

She led him into a small parlor, and as he followed her he saw with pleasure that Alexander was seeking to reassure the frightened girl as he, James, intended to reassure her mother.

When they faced each other in the parlor James brought forth all his charm, and he could not hide the speculation in his eyes as, connoisseur that he was, he noted the beauty of her face, her slim waist, her white bosom, her rounded hips. She was a beauty and it was a pleasure to be in her company.

James laid a hand on her arm. “First,” he said, “I must teach you not to be afraid of me.”