‘I will never allow him any share in the regency when I get it back!’ Mother thundered, as if the regency was almost within her grasp, which it wasn’t. Then she began to talk of divorce. She had to explain to me what that was. ‘I have grounds!’ she declared. ‘My marriage is bigamous because King James was still alive when we wed.’ Even I knew that to be a lie.

When Father continued to trespass on Mother’s property, she allied herself with his enemies. He complained she had deserted him; she pretended she was having a love affair with the Regent, the Duke of Albany. Maybe she was behind Albany’s attempt to arrest Father for treason, although, when he was sentenced to death in his absence, she did plead for his life and have his sentence commuted to exile. Father went to France and thence to England, where my uncle granted him asylum. Of course, he wanted something in return, and that was Father’s agreement to form a party friendly to the English in Scotland.

I was nine when Albany was overthrown and Mother was made regent again. That was the state of affairs when Father returned to Scotland that year. Mother would have nothing to do with him; she believed he had been turned by the English and was now spying for them. She also feared he might snatch me from her. By then, she had fallen for the charms of Harry Stewart, a young, ambitious man eleven years her junior. Young as I was, I understood what adultery was, and shrank, humiliated, from the scandal. In truth, Mother was so blinded with folly that she didn’t care.

Father was still involved with his mistress – talk about the pot and kettle – but he hated Harry Stewart and was outraged that I was being exposed to such an undesirable and immoral influence. More to the point, he wanted the regency. He stormed into Edinburgh, intending to force his way into Parliament – and take me away – but Mother ordered her soldiers to open fire on him, so he fled to his stronghold of Tantallon on the east coast and proceeded to rally many lords to his side.

I was torn. I was aware that Mother and Henry Stewart were doing their best to poison my mind against Father. Half of me was glad when Father staged a coup, occupying Edinburgh, summoning Parliament and seizing control of King James, who, having been under Mother’s influence, regarded Father as something akin to the Antichrist. But, now that Father was in power, Mother was forced to establish a fragile accord with him – if only for James’s sake. In private, however, she was still badgering him for a divorce.

Worn down, he agreed, and Mother petitioned the Pope on the grounds that, before their marriage, Father had entered into a precontract with his mistress.