She did not notice that he looked momentarily melancholy.
The next day she saw a little girl in the hall of the castle. The child was beautiful and in the charge of a highborn lady. Margaret called the little girl to her and asked who she was.
Her lady guardian seemed confused and said that she was lodged in the castle temporarily.
“My name is Margaret,” the child told the Queen.
“Margaret! How strange. So is mine.”
“You are Margaret too! What else? I am the Lady Margaret Stuart.”
“That is a name which arouses my interest,” answered the Queen.
“She is such a prattler, I fear, Your Grace,” said her guardian. “And, I fear, a little spoiled.”
“I am not,” answered the child. “My father says I am not.”
“And who is your father, my child?”
“My father is the King,” was the disconcerting answer.
Margaret knitted her brows and looked at the woman, who lifted her shoulders and murmured: “She is but a child, Your Grace. You know how children prattle on… without sense.”
“Then if your father is the King, who is your mother?” asked Margaret suddenly, ignoring the woman and addressing the child.
“She was Margaret too,” the child told her. “I am named for her.”
“Is the child’s mother here?” asked Margaret.
“No, Your Grace. Her mother is dead.”
“She is not,” declared the child. “My father says she is not dead, and will never die.”
“Oh come… come… you weary Her Grace.”
Margaret did not seek to detain them; she watched the woman take the child’s hand and lead her away.
She went immediately to the King, who was in his own apartments playing his lute. Imperiously she said: “James, I wish to speak to you… privately.”
James regarded her somewhat lazily and, seeing that she was truly agitated, signed to his friends to leave him.
“Well?” he said when they were alone.
“There is a child here — Margaret — who says she is your daughter. I know that this is not so, but I like not that she should proclaim herself to be. I want you to stop this.”
James was silent for a while; then he strummed a few notes on his lute. The time had come. He would have to explain.
“The child speaks the truth,” he said. “She is my daughter.”
“Your daughter! But… ”
“I was to have married her mother, but she… died. She was poisoned with her two sisters when at breakfast.”
Margaret’s blue eyes opened wide and the color flamed into her cheeks. He noted that the fact that his mistress had been poisoned did not shock her so much as that she had existed.
“So… you had a mistress!”
“My dear Margaret! What do you expect? Not one… but many.”
“And… a child!”
“Children,” he corrected her.
She was angry. She had been hoping for signs of her own pregnancy and there had been none. And now he… her own husband… admitted not only to having had mistresses… but children.
“I am glad you know,” he said. “I visit them often. They are after all my own flesh and blood and I have always promised myself that my children should never be treated by their father as I was by mine — perhaps in the hope that they will never have to suffer the remorse I did for the part I played in my father’s end.”
Margaret stood up and went to the door. She was so angry that she knew she must escape because she had a great desire to fly at him and fight him with all her strength. She had been cheated. She saw that she had been young and foolish and that her naïveté must have been apparent to him. She felt insulted and her Tudor pride was in revolt. She had loved him too deeply, too trustingly.
He did not attempt to detain her. He shrugged his shoulders and turned idly to his lute. He strummed without hearing; the recent scene had made him think of that other Margaret and the longing for her was almost too great to be borne.
Margaret could not rest until she discovered more about her husband’s premarital love affairs. She insisted on her Scottish ladies’ telling her all they knew. So the King had been so enamored of Margaret Drummond that he had wanted to marry her against the advice of his ministers; and she had borne him a daughter, that child, Lady Margaret Stuart, who was so petted and pampered at the King’s command. And there were two children by a certain Marian Boyd: Catherine and Alexander; and the young Earl of Moray — who had been given this title when he was scarcely two — was the King’s son by Janet Kennedy.
What a family! And he so proud of them — sneaking off to visit them on the pretense that he was engaged on state affairs! And what was worse, leaving his wife in order to do so!
All her amour propre — which was very strong in the young Tudors — was in revolt.
She now saw her husband in a new light. He was not the person who in her girlish imagination she had believed him to be. This marriage of theirs could well be one of convenience to him. She had been cheated.
Yet when he came to her again — tender and kind, yet not repentant — her wounded pride was submerged by her need of him. He had aroused in her that latent sensuality which must be appeased no matter how hurt her pride.
She was passionate in her demands; and there was a new determination within her; she must have a child; and her child must be more important to him than any of his others, for the son she bore would be the future King of Scotland.
James was sorry that his wife was hurt by her discovery of his illegitimate family, and he blamed himself for not having broken the news more gently to her. He could not be sorry that he had these children, for he doted on them and it was a matter of great disappointment to him that, so far, Margaret had shown no signs of pregnancy. When she did, he assured himself, she would be more serene.
One of his greatest pleasures was to visit his children, and he planned to have them all together in one nursery, acknowledged as his, so that he could supervise their education and give them honors which as royal Stuarts he believed should be theirs.
Meanwhile he decided to compensate Margaret for the shock she had suffered and, since she was such a child and there was nothing that pleased her more than balls, plays and ballets, there should be more of these entertainments.
He brought a gift of jewels — that could always delight her — and told her that he was arranging a ball in her honor and asked how she would like that.
She clasped her hands in ecstasy and her young face lighted with pleasure.
“And you will be there, James?” she asked eagerly.
“Indeed I shall be there.”
“For it would be no pleasure to me if you were not.”
He embraced her and thought happily: She has recovered from the shock. She accepts the children as natural.
At the same time he wondered what she would say if she knew of those lapses from fidelity which had occurred since his marriage. She was so naive in many ways. Probably it was due to the fact that her father had been a faithful husband; it was said that Henry VII was a cold man — well, James IV was not. Women were as necessary to his comfort as money was to Henry VII’s.
Margaret would have to learn this, but he trusted she would not have to make the discovery until she was ready to. In a few years’ time she would become accustomed to the fact that he must have his mistresses. He would try to explain that they in no way affected his feelings for her. She was his wife and it was their duty to get children. But ever since he had been a very young man he had made no effort to curb his sexual desires; and he could not begin now. He was gentle and tolerant with her and would remain so as long as she did not attempt to restrain him.
Then they began to plan the entertainment. There should be masked dancers because it was always such fun to watch disguised performers. And there should be a play. There was one of the Queen’s attendants who was a past master at coaching players. This boy, who had come with Margaret from England, was called English Cuddy by the Scots.