In this post, we are going to discuss the life of one of the most formidable european Queens of the 16th century. Who was Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland? And why is she forgotten by History? Perhaps because her deeds were not as infamous as of her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, or even more those of her youngest sister Mary? Here we intend to give a light to this woman who struggled against the common sense to make herself happy first and foremost when her duties were complete.
Margaret Tudor was born into a new dynasty, the Tudors, at the 28th day of November 1489. She was the oldest daughter of King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth of York. From her father's side, she inherited the Welsh lineage and part of the Plantagenet blood through the Beaufort line of John of Gaunt; from her mother's, she inherited the full blood of a long line of Plantagenets kings, aside of French and Castilian's monarchs. Being the first of four daughters, she was named after her paternal grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and her childhood was marked by the transition of Middle Ages to the beginning of the Modern Age.
Most of her early days were spent first at Richmond Palace, then at the household of Eltham, chiefed by Elizabeth of York, who hired very good tutors to all of her children, choosing those she trusted to give a proper education to them. What is also known of Margaret's childhood is that she was very skilled in archery, played the lute, learned French and Latin, besides learning about household, embroidery and sewing, a typical education expected for a royal consort or princess.
From the age of six, negotiations to marry Princess Margaret to the King of Scots, James IV, began as an instrument to keep peace between the two realms since James was supporting Perkin Warbeck, who was possibly the worst pretender to the English throne that Henry VII came to face. Finally, in 1502 the marriage was arranged and Margaret, at her father's court, was already styled as Queen of Scots. After the familiar tragedies, with the death of her older brother Arthur and later her mother the Queen, Margaret was married to the King of Scots in 1503.
Some sources claim she was thirteen or fourteen by the time they were married and, despite bearing seven or eight illegitimate children before their marriage, the King and his English rose had a very loving relationship. She gave him six children, but only one of which survived childhood and became James V, father of the famous Mary, Queen of Scots.
About her arrival in Scotland and their first meeting, "Margaret's train on the journey north by York, Durham, Newcastle and Berwick was headed by the Earl of Surrey, with his Countess as the princess's chaperone. John Young, Somerset Herald, was sent along to make an official record. The ladies rode on palfreys or were drawn on litters, escorted by gentlemen, squires and pages, with trumpeters, drummers and minstrels. The party crossed the gorder into Scotland on August 1st, 1503, to be greeted by the Archbishop of Glasgow and a thousand Scottish lords and gentlemen 'in rich jewels and massy chains'. At Dalkeith Castle on August 3rd, King James himself, in a crimson velvet jacket, rode in with a train of horsemen. Margaret curtsied deeply and he bowed low and they kissed in greeting. They talked together privately and sat together at supper and afterwards he played to her on the clavichord and the lute. Two nights later she played for him.(...)"
In general, we observe about their marriage that, despite their affection for one another, Margaret had spent few happy moments in her new realm as we can see below, when she had homesick for the first time.
"It looks as if James may quietly have delayed the consummation in consideration of his wife's age, but there were days of festivities at great expense, though the English guests took care not to be impressed. The new queen wrote a homesick note to her father ('I would I were with your Grace now and many times more') before her husband took her on a tour of his realm. At Stirling Castle she was taken aback to find a whole nursery of royal bastards being brought up together, James being an affectionate father. The strait-laced Margaret never accostumed herself to the free ways of the Scots court and the boldness of the women. (...)"
In April 10th 1512, a healthy son was born and would be followed by a posthumous son, Alexander in the next year. James was named after his father, who was killed in a battle against England, and succeeded him in the next year as King James V. Margaret was left a widow at the age of twenty and two and, as such, a prosperous bride to suitors as the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and the King of France, Louis XII. However, uneasy at being a pawn to her brother's will, she secretly married a man of her choice: Archbald Douglas, Earl of Angus.
Although this was a marriage many consider having been done following romantic terms, the tenderness of the relationship is not what we see when the next years proved not to be as respectful as it was with her first husband. Perhaps there was a slight fondness or passion between Douglas, whose family's history in Scotland did not make the man popular among the earls, but soon afterwards whatever sentiment between them faded away.
Yet, we observe that "the consequences of this marriage were to alienate many of the most powerful of the nobility, especially the earls of Arran and Home, and to make Margaret entirely dependent on the house of Douglas; while it furnished the council with a pretext for removing her from the regency and guardianship of the king in favour of Albany in July 1515. Albany had to blockade Margaret in Stirling Castle before she would surrender her sons. After being obliged to capitulate, Margaret returned to Edinburgh, and being no longer responsible for the custody of the king she fled to England in September, where a month later she bore to Angus a daughter, Margaret, who afterwards became countess of Lennox, mother of Lord Darnley and grandmother of James I of England."
In between these events, consequences came: Margaret was no longer regent to her son and her popularity fell when she was married to Douglas, which permitted the rise of a French faction leaded by the Duke of Albany. No longer welcomed there, she returned to England, where she spent some time and gave birth to Lady Margaret Douglas. By this time, Margaret was estranged of her husband. Whilst it was expected a woman of her position to bow her head and lead the situation in its terms, she decided to have a divorce, which were to be granted. Ironically, the one to strongly opposite in her decision was Henry VIII, but it is unlikely that a woman like Margaret were to praise him at all.
Below, it can better be perceived the situation as its whole:
"In the summer of 1516, Margaret went to her brother's court in London, while Angus, much to his wife's displeasure, returned to Scotland, where he made his peace with Albany and was restored to his estates. The rivalry between the French and English factions in Scotland was complicated by private feuds of the Hamiltons and Douglases, the respective heads of which houses, Arran and Angus, were contending for the supreme power in the abscence of Albany in France, where at the instance Henry VIII he was detained by Francis I. Margaret, quarrelling with her husband over money matters, sided at first with Arran and began to agitate for a divorce from Angus. In this she was probably aided by Albany, who had been in Rome, and who found an unexpected ally in the queen-mother, Margaret being temporarily alienated from the English party by her brother Henry's opposition to her divorce. (...)"
However, Pope Clement VII granted the divorce and, much to the dismay of her brother, the king of England, Margaret was a free woman. Following these events and furthemore, we assume she was a strong willed woman, as her youngest sister Mary was. The independence was something that differed Margaret from other Queens of her position, perhaps compared to the strenght of Eleanor of Aquitaine. However, this independence was the fall of Margaret's happiness, and it was a price she must have regretted to pay.
James V had swept off his throne the Douglas family, having Angus declared traitor, and favoured a French alliance rather than an English one. Margaret insisted to marry him off to his cousin, Princess Mary, her brother's daughter to Katherine of Aragon, but he chose instead Madeleine of Valois, daughter of Francis I of France, to be his wife. In the meantime, Margaret was already married to a man named Henry Stewart, made Lord of Methven by the king.
This was probably the closest of happiness she found in Scotland after the death of James IV, a husband she cherished. After so much struggle, she was also close again to her son, who also approved this stepfather. But this joy did not last long, as Margaret would regret. Methven took a mistress and they remained stranged, with another attempt of divorce almost reaching the Pope if were not the intervention of James V. Apparently, though, Margaret and Methven reconciled and after a turbulent life, Margaret met peace in death on the 18th day of October, 1541. She ws later buried in St John's Abbey, in Perth.
"Richard Glen Eaves writes of Margaret thus:
'It is difficult to gain a clear impression of Queen Margaret, in terms of her personality or of her impact on events... It seems clear that her years in Scotland were generally unhappy. She was only twenty-three when her first husband was killed, her two subsequent marriages both failed utterly, and she had limited contact with both her son in Scotland and her daughter in England... But in one respect she was undeniably a successful queen, for it was from her first marriage that there sprang the line that eventually united England and Scotland.'"
Margaret is overshadowed by the six marriages of her brother and the love story of her sister, but is it fair she is only remembered as the Queen whose marriage would produce descendants who were to unite the crowns of two kingdoms that were previously enemies? No. She did much more. Like her brother, she wanted for herself what her parents had: love, respect and power. And both she lost. But much she won, as mother and woman.
Ahead of her time, she bowed to no one, she fought for what she wanted. Strong willed, beautiful and headstrong, Margaret was not a merely queen and wife. She did not follow the standarts of her time and was not less dutiful than others of her sex because she pursued her happiness, but definitely braver for it. Obscured for not having found the love she wanted or not having caused enough scandals, here's a woman who was a warrior in her days and the reason why there should be more justice to her memory.
Sources:
http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/margarettudor.htm
https://tudorbrasil.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/margaret-tudor/
http://tudorhistory.org/people/margaret/
http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com.br/2013/02/scandalous-affairs-margaret-tudor.html
http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/the-death-of-margaret-tudor/
http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/marriage-james-iv-scots-and-margaret-tudor
http://conorbyrnex.blogspot.com.br/2014/08/margaret-tudor-forgotten-tudor.html
http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/stewart_10.htm
