The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas by Alison Weir
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Brooke House in 1920.
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The chapel at Brooke House in 1642.
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One of the early-sixteenth-century wall paintings in the chapel.
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Margaret’s son Charles as a child. “He is somewhat unfurnished in qualities needful.”
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Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox. He was “inclined to love with a few days’ acquaintance,” with disastrous results.
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The redoubtable Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose intrigues with Margaret provoked the wrath of the Queen.
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Margaret’s granddaughter, Arabella Stuart, age two. The portrait shows her as Countess of Lennox.
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“A Scottish lady at length in mourning habit,” who may be Margaret.
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Margaret’s grandson, James VI, King of Scots. In her later years all her dynastic hopes were invested in him.
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Margaret’s tomb in Westminster Abbey, showing the kneeling figures of her sons, Henry, Philip, Charles, and Darnley, with the crown of Scotland suspended above Darnley’s head.
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Margaret’s tomb effigy, completed by October 1578. Her epitaph calls her “a lady of most pious character, invincible spirit and matchless steadfastness.”
To Tracy Borman
and Tom Ashworth
to mark their marriage.
Notes and References
Abbreviations
APC Acts of the Privy Council of England, 1542–1631
Cecil Papers Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House
CP The Complete Peerage
CSP Haynes A Collection of State Papers, relating to affairs in the reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, from the year 1542 to 1570. Transcribed from original letters and other authentic memorials
CSP Milan Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts existing in the Archives and Collections of Milan, 1385–1618
CSP Murdin A Collection of State Papers relating to affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
CSP Scotland Calendar of the State Papers relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547–1603
CSP Simancas Calendar of Letters and State Papers relating to English Affairs, preserved principally in the Archives of Simancas
CSP Spain Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State Papers relating to Negotiations between England and Spain, preserved in the Archives at Simancas and Elsewhere
CSP Vatican Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs in the Vatican Archives
CSP Venice Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs preserved in the Archives of Venice and in the other Libraries of Northern Italy
CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic
CSPF Calendar of State Papers Foreign
CUL Cambridge University Library
GWA The Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII
LP Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII
LQS Lives of the Queens of Scotland
LRIL Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies of Great Britain
NA National Archives
NAS National Archives of Scotland
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
PPE Henry VIII Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII, 1529–1532
PPE Mary Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, daughter of King Henry the Eighth, afterwards Queen Mary, with a memoir of the Princess, and notes
SP State Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII
VCH Victoria County Histories
Where more than one book by an author is listed in the bibliography, the work is indicated by initial letters after the author’s name.
Introduction
1. John Phillips
Prologue
1. Leland ARBC 4, 258–62
2. Vergil, online edition, XXVII
3. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
4. LP 2, 1113
5. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
6. Ibid.
7. LP 2, 1350
8. CSP Venice 2, 667
9. Harbottle; Harbottle Castle; Goodall; Renn. Harbottle Castle was crumbling and uninhabitable by 1541, and only a few ruins remain today.
10. Chapman SHVIII, 99
11. LP 2, Preface, Section 4, 1672, 1380, 1294
1. “A Fair Young Lady”
1. William Fraser 4, 171
2. Lindsay, 120
3. Prebble, 140
4. LRIL 1, 107
5. LRIL 1, 150
6. LP 2, Preface, Section 4; LP 2, 846, 885
7. LRIL 1, 151; LP 2, 885
8. LP 2, Preface, Section 4; LP 2, 833; LP 2, 872
9. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
10. LRIL 1, 146; LP 2, Preface, Section 4
11. LRIL 1, 151
12. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
13. LRIL 1, 151
14. Cotton MS. Caligula B.VI, f.81; LP 2, 885
15. Cotton MS. Caligula B.VI, f.14
16. LP 2, Preface, Section 4; LP 2, 885
17. LP 2, Preface, Section 4; LP 2, 885
18. Original Letters 1, 265–67; LP 2, 1044
19. LP 2, 1044
20. John Phillips
21. Henderson; LRIL 2, 283–84
22. Original Letters 1, 265–67
23. Levine, 105
24. LP 2, 1011
25. LP 2, 1011, 1027
26. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
27. Original Letters 1, 265–67
28. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
29. Ibid.
30. Morpeth Castle. Morpeth Castle was ruinous by 1600, and today only its gatehouse and part of the curtain wall survive.
31. LRIL 1, 151; LP 2, Preface, Section 4; LP 2, 885
32. LP 2, 1672
33. Cotton MS. Caligula B.VI, f.59
34. LP 2, 1672
35. Vergil, online edition, XXVII
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
39. LP 2, 1350
40. LP 2, 1387
41. LP 2, 1380; CSP Venice 2, 671
42. LP 2, Preface, Section 4
43. LP 2, 1672
44. Cotton MS. Caligula B.VI, f.272
45. Cotton MS. Julius A.XVI, f.266
46. Hall
47. Green 4, 238
48. Cotton MS. Caligula B.III, f.32
49. Demolished between 1608 and 1660, it stood in the grounds of the present Jacobean Forty Hall; the royal apartments were excavated in the 1960s.
50. The remains of his house are the earliest surviving parts of Bruce Castle, which was named after the family of Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, who owned the land in the Middle Ages; it was also known as Lordship House.
51. Thomas Allen to the Earl of Shrewsbury, May 6, 1516, Talbot MS. A, f.31, College of Arms; A Calendar of the Shrewsbury and Talbot Papers in Lambeth Palace Library and the College of Arms
52. Newton; Stow; Panton; Davey: The Pageant of London; Thornbury. Margaret Tudor was the last royal personage to live in Scotland Yard. After she left, Henry VIII allowed it to fall into decay, and it was turned into tenements in Elizabethan times. Ruinous by the seventeenth century, most of it was demolished after the Act of Union of 1707, to make way for Whitehall offices. In the early nineteenth century only a few arches and turrets survived, but they have long vanished. After 1829 the site became famous as the headquarters of London’s Metropolitan Police, which was moved farther along the Thames embankment in 1890, and to Broadway, off Victoria Street, in 1967.
53. Weir EY, 284
54. LP 3, 524
55. LRIL 1, 154; LP 2, Preface, Section 4
56. LP 2, 3136
57. Cotton MS. Titus D.X, f.92b
&nb
59. LP 4, 4969
2. “Disdained with Dishonour”
1. CSP Scotland 3, 508
2. A condensed version, his Epitaph, appeared in print at the same time.
3. LP 3, 1, 166, 373
4. Perry SK, 171
5. Cotton MS. Caligula B.I, f.157
6. Cotton MS. Caligula B.III, f.110b
7. James CP, 136; Marshall MQSTL, 39; Bingham, 16; Schutte, 16
8. LP 4, 792
9. LP 4, 1004
10. LP 4, 835
11. LRIL 1, 234
12. SP 4, 272
13. Chapman SHVIII, 136
14. LRIL 1, 249
15. Herbert, 133
16. Lindsay, 133
17. William Fraser 1, xx
18. LP 4, 4130
19. Perry SK, 171
20. Strickland LQS 2, 66
21. Cecil Papers 1, 848
22. Strickland LQS 2, 78
23. Cotton MS. Caligula B.VI, f.194; LP 4, 4131
24. Strickland LQS 2, 66; Schutte, 17
25. Lisle TFS, 177; Lisle KHN
26. The actual spelling is “disherest.” It is unlikely to mean “diseased,” as in LRIL 1, 252, listed incorrectly under 1525.
27. Strickland LQS 2, 66; Marshall MQSTL, 39; Schutte, 12
28. Cotton MS. Caligula B.II, f.368
29. Reduced by Oliver Cromwell’s troops in 1651 and abandoned by the end of the seventeenth century, Tantallon is now an impressive ruin, its remaining three towers still nearly eight feet high; the Douglas Tower survives, but its west side has collapsed.
30. Strickland LQS 2, 66; Schutte, 12; Lefuse, 6. Dalkeith Palace, as it later became known, was largely rebuilt in 1702.
31. Strickland LQS 2, 67
32. Lefuse, 7
33. LP 20, Part 1, 210 (2)
34. Strickland LQS 2, 67
35. McLaren
36. LP 2, 779. Isobel’s surname is sometimes given as “Hopper.”
37. LP 4, 539–40, 567
38. Abell
39. LP 4, 4709
40. Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland 1, 4060, 4077, 4082
41. LP 4, 4830
42. Strickland LQS 2, 67
43. His son, James, would become the 4th Earl of Bothwell and marry Mary, Queen of Scots.
44. Ashdown RT, 11
45. Cecil Papers 1, 848, 1562
46. SP 5, 4; LP 4, 4830. The time scale suggests that Margaret had gone to Coldingham with Angus and been left there. There is no evidence to support a tale that she had insisted on accompanying her father on the forays he made through the Borders at this time.
47. Strickland LQS, 67
48. LP 2, 861
49. Strickland LQS 2, 68
50. Lisle TFS, 178
51. LP 4, 4923–25
52. Porter CT, 240
53. The castle fortifications and ramparts were later massively extended under Elizabeth I, but the ruins of the original castle where Margaret stayed still survive.
54. LRIL 2, 283–4; LP 4, 5794
55. LP 4, 6586
56. In August 1531 Strangeways was obliged to send a reminder to Thomas Cromwell, the man who had replaced the Cardinal in the King’s counsels, reminding him of the “£700 which should have been paid me by my Lord Cardinal, whose soul Jesu pardon.” But if the King should be pleased to pay for the completion of the Hospital of Jesus Christ at Bradford, Northumberland, “I shall also consider myself to be well paid for my costs in bringing up to London and long keeping of my Lady Margaret, daughter to the Queen of Scots” (LP 5, 365).
57. Strickland, LQS 2, 69, states that she came by invitation of her aunt, Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor, Queen Dowager of France, but there is no evidence for that.
58. LP 5, 365
59. GWA, 197; NA E.101/420, f.14
3. “The Princess of Scotland”
1. George Buchanan, cited by Strickland LQS 2, 81
2. Fraser SW, 204; Murphy BP, 167–8
3. For a discussion of Margaret’s portraiture, see Appendix 1.
4. See Appendix 1.
5. John Phillips
6. Ibid.; Strickland LQS 2, 69, 70; Hardy, 6; Claremont, 158; Martienssen, 16; Norrington, 16; Bingham, 18. Ashdown RT, 13, on the incorrect assumption that Margaret journeyed to London late in 1529, states that she stayed with Mary Tudor until Christmas. It has also been asserted that Margaret was placed in the household of her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey, but in the months before his death Wolsey had been in no position to make provision for her, for he was living in disgrace at Esher when she arrived in London, and then retired to his archdiocese of York, dying in November 1530 on his way south to the Tower and, probably, the block; there can have been no question of his taking a practical fatherly interest in his royal godchild. Even had he still been in favor, a cardinal’s household could not have accommodated a young girl.
7. Martienssen, 51. He goes on to say (p.69) that Margaret remained there until after Mary Tudor’s death in June 1533, when Anne Boleyn had “little difficulty in persuading Margaret to rejoin her at court,” but sound evidence places Margaret in the Princess Mary’s household from 1530 to 1533.
8. Wodderspoon; Westhorpe; Baldwin, 13. All that remains of Westhorpe is a three-arched Tudor bridge that once spanned the moat. The present Westhorpe Hall is a care home.
9. John Phillips
10. Ibid.
11. PPE Mary, various entries; Arundel MS. 97, ff.77, 40b
12. Loades MT, 71; Porter MT, 77; LP 6, 1199. Porter states that Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, used her influence to promote Margaret’s appointment.
13. GWA, 197
14. PPE Henry VIII, 98
15. LP 6, 1199
16. GWA, 197
17. A decorative trimming for a hood.
18. LP 5, 498; NA E.101/421, f.3
19. LP 21, Part 1, 1410; GWA, 243
20. Clarke; Porter MT, 77
21. John Phillips
22. LP 5, 686. Her gift is not described; there is a blank after her name, whereas the other ladies’ gifts are described after theirs.
23. LP 5, 1710
24. PPE Henry VIII, 281
25. I can find no evidence to support the claim made by Schutte, 30, that Margaret was probably among the ladies who accompanied Anne Boleyn to Calais in October 1532. At that time Margaret was still in the Princess Mary’s household.
26. Schutte, 33, asserts that Margaret “had an important role to play in the coronation,” and that she was probably one of the four ladies of great estate who, dressed in crimson velvet, were in the second chariot in the Queen’s procession, but the chronicler Edward Hall identifies them as four ladies of the bedchamber, a post that Margaret did not occupy.
27. Fraser SW, 204
28. LP 6, 1199
29. Ibid.
30. Strickland LQS 2, 70; Hardy, 6; Clarke; Fraser SW, 204; Weir HVIIIKC, 350; Wilson ALC, 392; Ashdown RT, 34; Richards, 57; Norrington, 16; Buchanan 255; Bingham, 19; Denny AB, 208 (although on the next page she states that Margaret served Anne Boleyn).
31. Porter MT, 95
32. LP 7, 9
33. John Phillips
34. LP 7, 9
35. LP 7, Appendix 13
36. PPE Mary, 86; LP 11, 1473; Strickland LQS 2, 69
37. Warnicke AB, 134
38. John Phillips
39. She was the daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by his second wife, Anne Browne, stepdaughter of his third wife, Mary Tudor, and therefore only the King’s stepniece.
40. Paris Bibliothèque Nationale MS. Français 5499, ff.191–6; LP 7, appendix 13; Brenan and Statham, 191
41. Marshall ODNB; Schutte, 13, states that Margaret showed an interest in the work of humanist scholars attached to the court, but cites no source and gives no further details. Her poems reveal humanist influence.
42. Warnicke AB, 139; Women and Power, 192. Honor Grenville was the wife of the King’s cousin, Arthur P
43. LP 8, 1028
44. Meerson
45. LP 6, 613
46. Additional MS. 17,492. For the Devonshire Manuscript see Baron (both titles); Irish; Bond; Ives AB, 87–8; Ives LDAB, 72; Southall; Brigden HH; Heale; Marotti; Remley; Seaton; Harrier; Lerer; Early Modern Women Poets.
47. Latymer, 62
48. Murphy BP, 221
49. The hands of Margaret and the two Marys were first identified by Helen Baron in 1994. Baron MHFH; Heale, 3; Irish, who compared this writing with a holograph letter of Margaret’s in Cotton Vespasian MS. 188, f.13.
50. Heale, 10, 25
51. Heale, 19
52. Heale, 1, 9; Baron MHFH, 327. The transcriptions of the poems in this chapter come mainly from Heale. A poem by Margaret’s son, Henry, Lord Darnley, who was not born until 1546, was the last to be added, in the early 1560s, which shows that the manuscript was still in Margaret’s possession many years later. The initials “S. E.” stamped on the binding may suggest that Margaret later gave the manuscript to her younger son, Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Cavendish, as a wedding gift, the initials standing for “Stuart” and “Elizabeth” (Southall), and it is likely that it was inherited by Margaret’s granddaughter, Arbella Stuart. This would explain how it came to be in the Devonshire Library at Chatsworth, where it was first recorded in 1816 and remained until being acquired by the British Museum in 1848.
53. John Phillips
54. Bond
55. Heale
4. “Suffering in Sorrow”
1. Heale, 23
2. Riordan
3. Hutchinson HT, 276, n.3
4. Hall, 806
5. LP 11, 48
6. Abernethy
7. Poems by Margaret that do not have an apparent link to events in her life are printed in Appendix 2.
8. Strickland LQS 2, 70; Sessions, 117; Lisle TFS, 201; Riordan; Bingham, 19, states that Henry even permitted the pair to be betrothed.