He laughed again. “I suppose not,” he agreed. “Well, madam, are you pleased with yer lessons so far?”
“Aye,” she told him with a grin. “I hope there’s more to learn, my lord.”
“We’ll sleep for a bit, and then if yer willing, we will review what ye have learned so far, Maggie mine,” he said to her with an answering grin.
“We should pray that the king finds the same happiness with his bride that we are finding with each other,” Maggie said softly as she cuddled next to him, her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know if we will find that emotion the poets call love, Fingal Stewart, but I know ye like me, and I surely like ye.”
“Aye,” he agreed with her. “I hope King Jamie finds his happiness too, for his road is a far more difficult one to travel than is ours.” He drew the coverlet over them.
In France the month of December seemed to fly by as James Stewart’s wedding day approached. He knew what he was doing was madness, but for the first time in his life he actually cared for another human being. His childhood had not been a happy one.
He had lost three brothers and had but two sisters. His flighty English mother had cared more for her own pleasure and position than for her royal son. He had only been seventeen months old when his father had been killed. He had no memory of James IV at all but what people had told him. Most people had liked his father, and the one trait he had inherited from the previous James was his determination to rule Scotland without any interference from his earls, or from England.
James V had come to France to seek a wife. He would be twenty-five in April, and it was time to marry. He had thought to offer for Marie de Bourbon, the duc de Vendôme’s daughter. The girl was more than noble and came with a dower of one hundred thousand gold crowns. Visiting her father’s court in disguise, James found the prospective bride small with a hunched back. He departed without revealing himself, leaving his ambassador to explain to the duc that his master was no longer interested.
At the court of King François, however, James Stewart’s eye fell upon the king’s fifth child, third daughter, Princess Madeleine. Frail from birth, the fifteen-year-old princess had spent most of her life in the mild climate of the Loire region. The French king loved her dearly. When Scotland’s king asked for her hand, King François refused.
This child of his heart was too frail to survive the harsh Scottish weather. James Stewart was unhappy to be declined. He wanted a French wife to solidify the auld alliance that had existed for centuries between Scotland and France. He turned his attention in another direction.
Marie de Guise, the duchesse de Longueville, was the daughter of the duc de Guise and his wife, Antoinette de Bourbon-Vendôme. She was three years younger than James Stewart. Marie had recently been widowed, and was the mother of two sons, the second born two months after her husband’s death. The Scots king found that he liked her, but she was not ready to be courted or to even consider another marriage.
Late in the autumn, James saw Madeleine de Valois at a court ball again. Drawn back to her, he realized he was in love. And to his surprise, Madeleine admitted her love for him. They went together to King François and pleaded with him for permission to wed. Unable to deny his favorite child her heart’s desire, and influenced by his second wife, Eleanor of Austria, the French king finally agreed. The wedding was celebrated on the first day of January at Paris’s great cathedral of Notre Dame.
The delicate princess was fortunate in that she did not resemble her father. King François could not under any circumstances be called handsome, his best features being his charm and his power. But his first wife, Queen Claude, had had the same beauty as Madeleine, his favorite daughter. Claude, Duchess of Brittany, had been the daughter of King Louis XII and his wife, Anne of Brittany. Claude was fair to look upon with reddish blond hair and blue eyes. So was Madeleine, but it was her sweetness and firm character that had entangled themselves in James Stewart’s cold heart.
For the next few months the young couple were feted and entertained, but their return to Scotland was inevitable. Finally in mid-May the royal couple sailed for Scotland. The young queen had not been well in prior weeks. Exhaustion had been an inescapable result of all the celebrations in their honor. King François knew as he bid his daughter a tender farewell that he should never see her again in this life. He might have regretted his decision to allow her marriage but that she was so very happy, and so very much in love with James Stewart, and he with her.
The voyage was not an easy one, and Queen Madeleine was quite ill by the time their ship reached Leith. Word of the king’s arrival spread quickly. The queen could go no farther than Edinburgh. Only the fact that the French king had given his daughter an extremely large dower portion kept the more civilized of the king’s lords from complaining aloud of his poor choice of a wife. And plans were already in the works to find a new wife for James Stewart.
When Scotland’s king had departed for France the previous summer, he had seen his then-mistress, Janet Munro, married to Matthew Baird, Lord Tweed. James had agreed to acknowledge his child by Janet, and settle a dower portion on it if a female. Lord Tweed had agreed to raise the child as if it were his own. He was not unhappy to have Janet Munro for his wife. Her connection with the king and the generous dower her family provided made her an excellent choice.
And Janet Munro was not unhappy with her new husband. While closer to forty than thirty, he was a satisfactory lover, and told her he expected her to give him bairns eventually. Their home and their income were comfortable. In the very early spring of 1537, Janet gave birth to a daughter who was christened Margaret. Lord Tweed sent word to his king in France of his daughter’s birth, but he heard nothing.
“We will travel to Edinburgh when the king returns, for that will be the first place he goes. We will ask for Margaret’s portion then,” Janet said to her husband. “I want the matter settled before his queen has any bairns.”
But when Matthew Baird and his wife, Janet, went to Edinburgh, they found their new queen seriously ill, and the king unable to deal with anything other than his wife. He never left her side, sitting with her for hours on end. Janet Munro was sad for the man who had fathered her child, but she was a practical woman. She wanted what had been promised to her baby daughter. A lass needed a dower to wed respectably.
“I must go to Brae Aisir to my cousin, Fingal Stewart,” she told her husband.
“Why?” Lord Tweed asked. “What can he do to help ye resolve this matter?”
“I need to remind the king that it was I who brought Fin to his attention, and thereby gained him another means of support. I want the income James Stewart promised for my Margaret, and only the king can make it so. And if Fin is with me when I ask the king, the matter can be settled immediately.”
“What a clever puss ye are, my dear,” Lord Tweed said.
“This queen is dying, Matthew,” Janet continued. “He is in love with her. Everyone says it. When she dies he will be devastated. Ye don’t know him, my lord, but I do. James has never loved anyone in all his life. He is a charming man, but his heart was always a cold one until he met this princess. She is his first, and possibly his only love. He will not be easily amenable to anything after she dies. He will mourn her as deeply as he loves her. He is not a man to do things by halves,” Janet said.
“We have not been able to even see him ourselves. Few have,” her husband reminded her. “How do ye expect to reach out to him even if yer cousin comes?”
“I’m not certain,” Janet admitted, “but I believe I have a way. I have to do this for my wee Margaret’s sake. James has not yet received so much as a groat from Fingal. By giving that income to my daughter, it actually costs the king nothing. He will appreciate the subtlety in that, my lord, if I can but point it out to him.”
Matthew Baird, Lord Tweed, laughed heartily at his wife’s reasoning. “God’s nightshirt, Jan, ye are far cleverer than I had realized. Will yer cousin agree?”
“Fingal is a good man,” she replied. “He will not refuse me. He will see the wisdom in what I suggest.”
“But will the king?” Lord Tweed asked seriously.
Chapter 8
