Виктория Холт: The Thistle and the Rose

One could not mourn forever. That long winter was passing and with the coming of May the King sent for his eldest daughter.

“Your husband grows impatient for his bride,” he told her. “It is time you joined him.”

“Yes, Sire,” answered Margaret.

“Preparations shall begin,” the King told her. “Make yourself ready. In June we will leave Richmond together, for I plan to accompany you on the first stages of your journey.”

Fear showed itself briefly in Margaret’s eyes. Now that the time of departure was coming near she did not want to go. It was pleasant being a queen in her father’s Court where she had spent her childhood, teasing Henry, flaunting her new importance before little Mary; but to go away to a foreign land was a different matter.

The King did not notice her fear. His mind was on other matters. He wanted a new wife, more children for whom advantageous marriages should be arranged. When he looked at his daughter he did not see a tender young girl so much as a means of keeping the peace with the tiresome warlike people who had made trouble at the Border for as long as any could remember.

The marriage pleased him; therefore Margaret pleased him.

“You may go now,” he told her gently. “Remember what I have told you.”

She curtsied and left him; then she hurried to her bedchamber.

She told her attendants that she had a headache and wished to rest, and when she was alone she began to weep silently.

“I want my mother,” she murmured into her pillows, for now, when she would never see the Queen again, she realized that from her alone could she have received the comfort and understanding of which she was in such need.

So Margaret, remembering that she was a bereaved little girl, forgot that she was also Queen of Scotland; and for a long time she lay sobbing because she had lost her mother.

To the Court, however, she showed a brave face, and on the sixteenth day of June, riding beside her father, acknowledging the cheers of the people who had come to watch her pass, she left Richmond Palace on the first stage of her journey to Scotland.

James IV of Scotland was not awaiting his bride with any great excitement. His counselors had advised him that the marriage was for the good of Scotland and he must needs agree to it.

And so, he thought, I must take this child to wife.

Not so long ago he would have refused to do so, no matter that she was the daughter of the King of England and peace between the two countries was desirable. He had been in love and had made up his mind whom he would marry; and so deep had been his feelings that he would have insisted on having his will.

But passions ran high in Scotland and lives were cheap.

I should have taken greater care of her, he told himself again as he had a hundred times before. Then he would have been the husband of another Margaret.

But the deed had been done and there was no going back. He had now to think of greeting this child whom they were sending him from over the Border, for it was no fault of hers.

They were saying that England and Scotland were united at last; and the Rose and the Thistle could now grow happily side by side. But could that ever be achieved? Was even the union of Tudor and Stuart capable of working such a miracle?

James stroked his auburn curling beard, and his hazel eyes were momentarily melancholy.

He had lost the Margaret he loved, and now must endeavor to make a success of union with her namesake.

And even as he prepared himself for the journey which would end in his meeting with his bride, he was thinking of his first meeting with that other Margaret at Stobhall, her father’s mansion on the banks of the Tay.

The banks of the Tay! The wild water cascading over the rocks; the sound of birdsong, and the trees in bud! And beside him, Margaret. Never had he believed such happiness existed in the world.

To be fifteen again… and in love for the first time. For the first and last time, he had told her; for she was the only one he would ever love.

She had listened earnestly, believing him. Then he had been a handsome youth. Not dark like his father; not yellow-haired like his Danish mother. It was said that he had inherited the good points of each, and the result was auburn hair which shone as gold in the sunshine; and hazel eyes that could be serious but more often merry; the sensitive mouth of a poet, sensual as a lover’s; and a hint of recklessness in the expression which hinted he would be brave in battle.

Margaret was tall and golden-haired and all the world seemed as beautiful as the banks of the Tay to the lovers.

In the beginning they strolled among the trees while he talked to her of his childhood which had been a strange one. He tried to explain to her how he and his brothers had lived almost like prisoners in the Castle of Stirling.

“Whenever I see Stirling I shall remember. What a prison! There it stands on that precipitous hill, and my brothers and I used to look down from our windows on to the Forth. We were always expecting our father to come. We talked continually of him. I remember so well that whenever a stranger came to the castle and he was tall and handsome we would run to him and ask him if he were our father. ‘Please, please, sir,’ I used to say, ‘tell me you are my father.’ And always I was assured that he was not.”

“Poor James. How strange it must have been.”

“My mother tried to console us. We were fortunate in her.”

“The King has behaved badly not only to you, James, but to the whole of Scotland.”

Had anyone else made such a statement he would have been shocked, for he and his brothers had always been taught that kings should not be judged by their subjects; but since she was Margaret who could do no wrong, he listened.

“I have heard it said that it is no easy matter to be a king,” he replied with a hint of melancholy.

“You will be the best King Scotland has ever known.”

She gave him such adoring looks that he believed her.

“Queen Margaret,” he said, and kissed her hand.

He saw her eyes shine with the excitement he shared; at fifteen it had been pleasant to play their game of make-believe.

“It may be soon that you are crowned King of Scotland, James.”

“Nay, my father has many years before him.”

“But the nobles have risen against him.” She was well aware of that because her father was one of the rebel leaders, and it was for this reason that they had brought the heir to the throne from Stirling to Stobhall.

“It is not good that there should be civil war in Scotland.”

“It will not be for long.” She was repeating what she had so often heard. “And the King spends too much of the nation’s wealth on his favorites, and has mixed brass and lead in silver money and passed it off as pure silver. That is a bad thing to do.”

James shrugged his shoulders and, putting an arm about Margaret, kissed her; there were more pleasant things to do on a sunny afternoon than talk of the misdeeds of his father.

“You must not forget that you will soon wear the crown.”

They sat down on the bank and James thought fleetingly of his father.

“Perhaps he was led away by the company he kept. My mother told me that his greatest friends were a musician, a tailor and a smith at one time, and that he set great store by his astrologers.”

“He believed all they told him,” Margaret affirmed. “That was why he was afraid of you and your brothers as well as his own brothers.”

“I remember my mother telling me that when I was born the position of the stars and planets showed him that harm would come to him through me. As if I would ever harm him!”

“You would never harm anyone. You are too kind and gentle. You will be the greatest King Scotland has ever known.”