“They say that my son James shall be raised a Protestant?” she queries. “It is unfortunate, but he will be with me. I can instruct him in private. He will learn to think one thing and say another as all clever kings and queens must do. We are not as normal people, my Chowsbewwy. We learn very young that we have to act a part. Even my little boy James will have to learn to deceive. We are all liars under our crowns.”

“He will be raised as a Protestant in England.” I point to the words. “En Angleterre.” Usually she laughs at my attempts to speak her language, but this time, as she understands me, the color and the smile drain from her face.

“They think they can take my son from me?” she whispers. “My boy? My little boy? They would make me choose between my throne and my child?”

I nod.

“Elizabeth would take him from me?”

I say nothing.

“Where would he live?” she demands. “Who would care for him?”

Of course the document, drawn by Cecil under instructions from Elizabeth, does not trouble itself with this most natural question from a young mother. “They don’t say,” I tell her. “But perhaps the queen would make a nursery for him at Hatfield Palace. That’s the usual—”

“She hates me,” the Scots queen says flatly. “She has taken my pearls and now she would take my son.”

“Your pearls?”

She makes a little dismissive gesture with her hand. “Most valuable. I had a great string of black pearls and my half brother sold them to Elizabeth the moment he forced me from the throne. She bought them. She outbid my mother-in-law. See what vultures I have around me? My own mother-in-law bid for my looted pearls while I was held in prison, but she was outbid by my cousin. Elizabeth wrote to me of her sorrow at the injustice that was being done to me and yet she bought my pearls. Now she would take my son? My own son?”

“I am sure you could see him...”

“She has no child of her own; she can have no child. She will soon be beyond childbearing years, if she is not dried up already. And so she would steal my son from his cradle. She would take my son and heir and make him her own. She would rob me of my heart, of all that makes my life worth living!”

“You have to think of it from her point of view. She would have him as a hostage. She would hold him to make sure that you kept to this treaty. That is why, when you agree to it, you must realize that you will have to keep to it.”