Morgan Ring

Margaret Douglas was more sinned against than sinning.

Douglas was the second child of Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII of England. Margaret Tudor had been married as a teenager to King James IV of Scotland; their one child was the future James V of Scotland. But soon after James V was born, James IV went off and got himself killed at the Battle of Flodden (1513), leaving Queen Margaret a young widow. She quickly became involved with Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus; Margaret Douglas was their child. But, because Scottish politics was so complicated, Margaret Tudor had to flee Scotland while pregnant with Douglas; she ended up having her child shortly after crossing the English border to take shelter with her brother.

None of which would have mattered much were it not that Henry VIII was... Henry VIII. The children of Margaret Tudor were next in line for the English throne after Henry's own children, and while Margaret Douglas was, by the laws of primogeniture, junior to James V of Scotland, she was born in England, which in some people's views meant James was a less suitable heir.

What all this boiled down to was that Margaret Douglas stood very high in the English succession after Henry VIII. For a while, she was next in line after Henry's daughter Mary (later Queen Mary I). When Henry (in his own mind at least) annulled his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, then Margaret was actually Henry's heir until Elizabeth was born, whereupon Elizabeth became heir. But then Henry got tired of Anne Boleyn, and so both Henry's daughters were illegitimate, and Margaret was in position to move up again. Then the future Edward VI was born -- and, meanwhile, Henry got mad at Margaret for falling in love with someone he didn't approve of. Margaret periodically found herself in the Tower of London (four times in all), for making Henry angry, or later for making Elizabeth angry.

On the other hand, it's hard to blame Margaret for trying to find a way to stop going up and down the succession like a yoyo!

Eventually she marred Matthew Stewart, the (Scottish) Earl of Lennox, in what seems to have been one of the happiest marriages ever forged by Renaissance nobles -- though people at the time looked askance at it, because they were a true team, taking advice from each other as well as being deeply affectionate. They had eight children, but all but two died young. One of the two was Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. Margaret schemed, with success, to get him married to Mary, Queen of Scots (the daughter of James V, and hence Margaret's half-neiece). That is its own story which I won't get into here (though it is covered, briefly but adequately, in this book).

But note that word "schemed." Margaret eventually stopped scheming to personally succeed to the English throne -- and started scheming for Darnley, or for Mary and Darnley's son James (the future James VI and I). That scheming was not appreciated by those in charge -- it's one of the reasons she ended up in the Tower so many times. And it meant that she and Lennox ended up quite poor -- the Scots deprived him of his lands, and she had few possessions of her own. As consolation, Margaret saw her grandson become King of Scots. She did not live to see him become King of England as well.

This is a highly readable, sympathetic biography. I came out of it genuinely liking Margaret. Yes, she was a schemer -- because she was independent-minded, intelligent, and headstrong. In many ways, she was more like a modern woman than a woman of the sixteenth century; I think I would have liked her. She suffered for her independent thinking, as this book amply documents it. On the other hand, every King of England and Scotland since James VI and I has been descended from her, and so are most other current European monarchs. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I may not have trusted her, but I don't think they were very fair. And certainly she, or her descendants, are having the last laugh.… (plus d'informations)