Mary McGrigor shares the history of Margaret Douglas,
who masterminded the marriage of her son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, to
Mary Queen of Scots.
She was born, on 7 October 1515, as her mother fled from enemies, in a
castle with a leaking roof. Margaret, named after her mother, was the
daughter of Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII of England and widow
of James IV of Scotland killed in the battle of
Flodden in 1513.
She had remarried the nineteen year old
Archibald, Earl of Angus greatly
to the fury of her late husband’s cousin, John, Duke of Albany, acting
as regent since his death. Now as she was escaping with Angus, to the
safety of brother’s court, her baby was born prematurely in the border
fortress of Harbottle Castle, where the wind blew through cracks in the
walls.
She did reach England eventually, with her red-haired baby girl to whom
Henry VIII took an instant liking, calling her little ‘Marget’ as he
tossed her above his head.
Returning to Scotland, she was seized by her father from her mother, to
live with him at Tantallon Castle in East Lothian, where, riding above
the sea, her red hair flying in the wind, he taught her to fly his
famous Tantallon hawks.
Then forced to escape from the sea gate as her father’s enemies
approached, she lived like a gypsy, her clothes in rags, until rescued
by Lord Strangeways, the Governor of Berwick-on-Tweed. Eventually, given
her uncle’s permission, she lived at Beaulieu, with her cousin, Princess
Mary (later Mary I) who, like herself a Catholic, became her lifelong
friend. In charge of them was the pious Lady Salisbury(? 2), later to die a
martyr for her faith.
AT THE TUDOR COURT
Imprisoned in the Tower of
London, by the unpredictable King Henry, for falling in love with the
poet Thomas Howard, uncle of Anne Boleyn, Margaret was then restored to
favour, to the point where when Henry disowned both his daughters, she
briefly became his heir. As first lady of the court, she was bridesmaid
to Jane Seymour and following Jane’s death, was sent to meet Anne of
Cleaves. Then, when Henry married Katherine Howard she was once again in
disgrace. A brief romance with Charles Howard, brother of his
unfortunate fifth wife, being enough to make her tyrannical uncle send
her once more to the Tower.
Restored yet again to favour, Henry found a use for her in marrying her
off for political reasons to Matthew, Earl of Lennox. Descended from a
daughter of James II of Scotland, Matthew, sent as boy to France, was
both charming and urbane.
Surprisingly, the arranged marriage turned into a
love match and most unusually for those days, they used each other’s
Christian names. The King granted them
Temple Newsam, land forfeited
from a Catholic family in Yorkshire, where they lived in great state
during the subsequent reigns of Edward VI and Queen Mary, at whose
wedding to Philip of Spain Margaret was maid of honour as Mary’s trusted
and closest friend.
But when Mary died and her half-sister the Protestant Elizabeth became
queen everything drastically changed.
Margaret incurred the enmity of Queen Elizabeth, not only on account of
her Catholic religion, but because Elizabeth blamed her as being party
to her own imprisonment and disinheritance by her father. A spy placed
in her household reported all that was happening to Elizabeth’s
secretary William Cecil, later to become Lord Burleigh, who reported it
back to the queen.
Because of fighting in Scotland Margaret, at her father’s request, gave
sanctuary to their Douglas relations who included his illegitimate son,
George Douglas. Little could she then guess at the part this
half-brother would play in the dreadful conspiracy which would end the
life of Henry, her own precious son.
Elizabeth was merciless to Margaret, summoning her to leave Yorkshire
for London in the dead of winter when two of her children, thought to
have been girls, died during the journey. Reaching London however, at
his mother’s instigation, Henry Lord Darnley, her eldest son,
mysteriously disappeared. A tall youth, easily recognized, he
nonetheless reached France, where, for the first time, he met the young
dauphiness, who, in her own right, was Mary Queen of Scots.
Meanwhile the Lennoxes, released from house arrest, in the Tower of
London and elsewhere, returned home to Settrington, the house where they
were now living, to find themselves ruined, thieves having ransacked
their property and stolen sheep and cattle and all else they could find.
On Queen Mary’s return to Scotland, in 1561, Margaret, with great
ingenuity, sent Henry to join his father, at that time struggling to
save his own lands in the west of the country stretching from Loch
Lomond to Glasgow. The Queen, infatuated with Darnley, married him to
his parent’s intense joy. Elizabeth however, was furious, claiming that
as her subject, he had acted without permission for which, in her
estimation his mother, Margaret, was to blame.
IMPRISONED AGAIN
Imprisoned yet again, on a charge of treachery, Margaret was told that
both her son and her husband had died. This, in the case of Matthew,
proved untrue. But Henry, strangled in the garden at Kirk o’Fields, on
the outskirts of Edinburgh, was most certainly dead. Blaming Mary for
participation in Henry’s murder, Margaret was so prostrated with grief,
that Elizabeth, for once showing compassion, sent her own doctor to
attend to her before setting her free.
Despite her mistrust of Margaret, Elizabeth did then agree to Matthew
Lennox going to Scotland supposedly to bring back their little grandson
James VI. Arriving there, however, he was persuaded to become regent
over a country divided in loyalty between adherents of the now
imprisoned queen and her five year old son James VI. Attending a
parliament in Stirling with the little boy, Matthew was shot in the back
by an assassin. Carried into the castle his last words were for the care
of his dear wife Meg.
Heartbroken by the assassination of both her husband and her son,
Margaret commissioned the famous Lennox jewel, now in the Queen’s
gallery at Holyrood. Reduced almost to penury she struggled on in a
grace and favour house at Cold Harbour(1) near London. Still however she
was scheming, arranging on a visit in a carriage pulled by mules to the
Countess of Shrewsbury, the famous Bess of Hardwick, for a marriage
between her younger son Charles and Bess’s daughter Elizabeth.
Once again Queen Elizabeth was enraged because she had not given
permission for the marriage to take place. Margaret was again sent back
to the Tower, imprisoned, as she put it, ‘for the third time for love.’
Strangely, while incarcerated, she became reconciled to another
prisoner, Mary Queen of Scots. The two exchanged both letters and pieces
of embroidery, some of it stitched with Margaret’s once lovely red hair,
now by age and anxiety turned grey.
Sadly both Charles and his wife Elizabeth died tragically young, leaving
their orphaned daughter Arbela, to become the joy of Margaret’s old age.
Indomitable as ever, but living again very frugally at Cold harbour, she
was 68, old for those times, (She was 61 or
62) when Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the Earl
of Leicester, came to visit her.
She died the same night, supposedly poisoned by him, although, on the
evidence of her own letters, she had long been suffering from colic,
possible a gastric ulcer. Sadly her adored granddaughter Arbela did not
long survive, but Margaret was to have her revenge on the cousin who had
so misused her, when, on the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603,
Margaret’s grandson, King James VI of Scotland, inherited the throne of
England as James I.
Mary McGrigor is the author of The Other Tudor Princess, published by
History Press.
Mary McGrigor tells this compelling and exciting part of Tudor history
for the first time with all the passion and thrill of a novel, but this
is no fiction – the untold story runs through the course of history, and
Margaret secured the throne for her Stuart ancestors for years to come.
Editor's note: I have corrected obvious errors.
See also:
•
Margaret, Countess of Lennox
Notes:
1. There are several places names Cold Harbour in
or near London. I have not identified which one this might be.
2. Salisbury? Or Shrewsbury?
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