Lady Margaret Douglas was Henry VIII’s niece, so naturally she spent a significant portion of her life locked in the Tower of London at various times.
This book by Alison Weir has been sitting on my shelf for I don’t even know how long. Probably at least a decade. I first picked it up because I love reading about Tudor England, and who wouldn’t be intrigued by the promise of a lost princess?
It turns out Lady Margaret Douglas wasn’t lost to her family, just lost to history, which is ironic considering how hard she worked to ingratiate herself into both the Scottish and English lines of succession. But as happens too often with women, it’s her male heirs who reaped the benefits of her hard work, while her own name has largely been forgotten. I certainly had no idea who she was before picking up this book, although I of course had heard of her son, grandson, and less-fortunate great-grandson.
Margaret’s mother was Margaret Tudor, daughter to Henry VII of England and sister to Henry VIII. She was originally married to King James IV of Scotland. From that union, she gave birth to a boy who would become King James V of Scotland, whose daughter was none other than Mary, Queen of Scots.
After James IV died, Margaret eloped with the Earl of Angus, from which union she gave birth to Margaret Douglas. That marriage was much more contentious, and ended in divorce. My favorite part was her brother, Henry VIII, lecturing her on the sanctity of marriage and urging her not to leave her husband, even as he was preparing to leave his wife, Katherine of Aragon.
The result is young Margaret was the subject of a medieval custody battle, and of course her dad won. The two grew quite fond of each other and he successfully turned her against her mother, who died when young Margaret was still a child.
But of course the Earl wasn’t equipped to raise a daughter, so she was sent to live with her Uncle Henry. He was also not equipped to raise a daughter, much less a niece, but he had lots of people in his court on whom he could foist his young niece.
Margaret ended up spending a lot of time with her cousin Mary. In addition to being young women of an age and growing up nobility in Tudor England, they also shared a faith: they were both Catholics in an increasingly Protestant country.
That served Margaret well when her BFF Mary was on the throne, but after Mary’s death, it worked against her when the heretic Elizabeth was in charge.
Poor Margaret spent a lot of time in the Tower of London. First, for falling in love with the wrong boy, who had his own claim to the throne of England. When Henry found out one of his potential heirs had maybe promised herself to the son of a rival, he was furious. It was as a result of that scandal that he created the law that no one in line to inherit the throne of England was to marry or engage themselves to anyone without the king’s express permission. He then applied that law retroactively to consider beheading her!
Of course, she escaped with her life, but her young lover wasn’t so lucky. He fell ill while imprisoned in the Tower and died.
Margaret’s second love affair was equally doomed. Fortunately for her, her uncle decided the safest course of action was to arrange a marriage for her. He married her off to Matthew Stewart, the fourth Earl of Lennox. Fortunately for them, in addition to being a power match, it also turned out to be a love match and the two appear to have remained affectionate, maybe even very much in love, for the rest of their lives.
Unfortunately for Queen Elizabeth, they also turned out to be quite the power couple among Catholic dissenters in the north of England.
Then, while promising Elizabeth they had no intention of marrying their eldest son, Henry Darnley, to Queen Mary of Scotland, they were working very hard to achieve that very objective.
If you know anything about poor Queen Mary, you know that marriage was not a happy one and that Henry was murdered in a plot that has never been solved. He was secreted out of a castle that was blown up in the middle of the night, only to be stabbed to death by an unknown assassin.
Margaret blamed Mary for her son’s death, though Mary always insisted on her innocence. It didn’t help that she married Henry’s biggest critic and likely assassin or patron of his assassin, but it’s unlikely Mary entered into that second marriage willingly.
Of course it didn’t end well for Mary, either.
Margaret lived to a ripe old age for the time, having outlived all her children and her husband. Apparently there were some rumors around her death (some thought it suspicious she seemed to take ill so soon after eating a particular meal…)
But that’s probably nothing more than rumor mongering. Margaret achieved everything she wanted in her life, and who among us can say that?