Margaret Douglas
Lady Margaret Douglas | |
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Henry VII Lady Chapel, Westminster Abbey | |
Spouse(s) | Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox (m. 1544; died 1571) |
Issue more... | Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley Charles Stuart, 5th Earl of Lennox |
Parents | Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus Margaret Tudor |
Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox (8 October 1515 – 7 March 1578), was the daughter of the Scottish queen dowager Margaret Tudor and her second husband Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and thus the granddaughter of Henry VII of England. She was the grandmother of James VI and I.
In her youth she was high in the favour of her uncle, Henry VIII, but later incurred his anger for her unauthorised engagement to Lord Thomas Howard, who died imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1537. In 1544, she married Scottish nobleman Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. Her son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, married her niece Mary, Queen of Scots, and was the father of James VI and I.
Early life
Margaret was born at
When Anne Boleyn's court was established, Margaret was appointed as a lady-in-waiting. There she met Anne Boleyn's uncle, Lord Thomas Howard (not to be confused with his brother Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk), and they began their courtship. Thomas was a younger son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, by his second marriage to Agnes Tilney.[9][10][11] By the end of 1535 Thomas and Margaret had fallen in love and become secretly engaged.[5][12]
King Henry turned against Anne Boleyn in May 1536. When in early July 1536 he learned of Margaret's engagement to Thomas Howard (Anne's uncle), he was furious. Henry had declared his daughters Mary and Elizabeth bastards, leaving Margaret very high in the line of succession; for her to contract an unauthorised marriage was politically outrageous, especially with the son of a powerful nobleman and near kin of the disgraced queen. Both Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret were committed to the Tower. On 18 July 1536, Parliament, by an Act of Attainder, condemned Thomas to death for attempting to 'interrupt ympedyte and lett the seid Succession of the Crowne'. The Act also forbade the marriage of any member of the king's family without his permission.[12] Thomas was spared execution, but remained in the Tower even after Margaret broke off their relationship. He died there on 31 October 1537.
Margaret, as a member of the Royal Family was safe from execution, but during her imprisonment in the Tower, she became ill, and the king allowed her to move to Syon Abbey under the supervision of the abbess. She was released from imprisonment on 29 October 1537.[5][12] According to G. J. Meyer in his work The Tudors, King Henry VIII had interpreted the marriage between Lord Thomas Howard and Margaret Douglas to be an attempt by Lord Howard to "make himself the king of England." However, the many love letters between Margaret Douglas and Lord Thomas reveal a true love affair wrongfully ended by the paranoia of King Henry VIII.
In 1539, Margaret and the
In 1540, Margaret was again in disgrace with the king when she had an affair with Lord Thomas Howard's half-nephew Sir Charles Howard. He was the son of Thomas' elder half-brother Lord Edmund Howard, and a brother of Henry VIII's fifth wife, Catherine Howard.[5][14]
In 1543, Margaret was one of the few witnesses of King Henry's final marriage to Catherine Parr, Dowager Lady Latimer, at Hampton Court. Margaret became one of Queen Catherine's chief ladies.[15] Catherine Parr and Margaret had known each other since they both had come to court in the 1520s.[16]
Marriage and diplomacy
In 1544, Lady Margaret married a Scottish exile, Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox (1516–1571), who later became regent of Scotland in 1570–1571. In total the couple had eight or nine children,[17][18] four boys: Henry, Henry, Philip and Charles, and four unnamed daughters, though only two sons—Henry Stuart (1546–1567), born in 1546 at Temple Newsam; and Charles Stuart (1555–1576), who later married Elizabeth Cavendish in 1574—survived to manhood; one of their other siblings was called Philip, presumably after the Spanish king and husband of Margaret's cousin, Mary I. Elizabeth Cavendish, wife of Charles, Earl of Lennox, was the daughter of Sir William Cavendish and Bess of Hardwick.[citation needed]
In June 1548, during the war of the
During the reign of Queen
Margaret succeeded in marrying her elder son, Lord Darnley, to his first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, thus uniting their claims to the English throne. Queen Elizabeth I disapproved of this marriage and had Lady Margaret sent to the Tower of London in 1566, but after Darnley's murder in 1567, she was released.[22] Margaret denounced her daughter-in-law, but was eventually later reconciled with her. Her husband assumed the government of Scotland as regent, but was assassinated in 1571.
On 3 August, the governor of Scotland,
In 1574, she again aroused Queen Elizabeth's anger by marrying her younger son Charles to Elizabeth Cavendish, the stepdaughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. She was again sent to the Tower, unlike the Countess of Shrewsbury, but was pardoned after her son Charles' death in 1576.[citation needed]
Lady Margaret's diplomacy largely contributed to the future succession of her grandson,
Death and legacy
After the death of her younger son, she helped care for his daughter,
Although she died in debt, she was given a grand funeral in Westminster Abbey, at the expense of Queen Elizabeth I, with a hundred poor women in attendance.[24] She was buried in the same grave as her son Charles in the south aisle of Henry VII's chapel in the Abbey.[25] It has been said that her grandson erected the fine monument, but it was commissioned in October 1578 by her executor and former servant Thomas Fowler.[26] Her recumbent effigy, made of alabaster, wears a French cap and ruff with a red fur-lined cloak, over a dress of blue and gold. On either side of the tomb chest are weepers of her four sons and four daughters.
The Lennox Jewel[29] was most likely made for Lady Lennox in the 1570s[30] although the date and occasion of its commission is the subject of some controversy.[6][30] In 1842, the jewel was bought by her descendant, Queen Victoria.[31] The locket, considered "one of the most important early jewels in the Royal Collection", is on display in the Holyrood Palace.[30]
Poetry
Margaret Douglas is known for her poetry. Many of her works are written to her lover,
Ancestry
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References
- ^ Cody, E. G., ed., The Historie of Scotland by Jhone Leslie, vol. 2 (Blackwood: Edinburgh, 1895), p. 159.
- ^ "Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
- ^ State Papers Henry Eighth, vol. 4 part 4 (London, 1836), pp. 510, 518 Northumberland to Wolsey, 9 October 1529.
- ^ State Papers Henry Eighth, vol. 4 (1836), pp. 509-510, 539–40, 567: Letters & Papers Henry VIII, vol. 4 (London, 1875), no. 4709: Cameron, Jamie, James V (Tuckwell, 1998) pp. 36-7 & fn.24
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- ^ a b Stedall, Robert (14 March 2014). "Lady Margaret Douglas and the Lennox Jewel". MaryQueenofScots.net.
- ^ Maria Hayward, 'Dressed to Impress', Alice Hunt & Anna Whitelock, Tudor Queenship (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 91.
- ^ Nicolas, Nicholas Harris, Privy Purse Expences of Henry VIII, 1529–1532 (London, 1827), pp. 98, 183, 281. It may have been stakes for her to play card games; or for her to give as alms.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- ^ Richardson, Douglas (2004). Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 236–237.
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- ^ Nichols, John Gough, ed. (1846). The Chronicle of Calais in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII. London: Camden Society. p. 170. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
- ^ Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. p. 437.
- ^ Linda Porter. Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII, Macmillan, 2010. pg 207-8.
- ^ Kimberly Schutte. A Biography of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, 1515–1578, Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002.
- ^ The Tudor Times article about her mentions eight children, with her youngest two called Philip and Charles, who was later Earl of Lennox
- ^ Tudor Place states that the couple had nine children.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), 127–8, 172–3.
- ^ Calendar of State Papers Spanish. Vol. 11. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1916.
- ^ Stevenson, Joseph, ed. (1865), "Appendix to Preface", Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth. 1559-1560, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, pp. cxviii, cxix, cxxii
- ^ Morgan Ring, So High A Blood: The Life of Margaret, Countess of Lennox (Bloomsbury, 2017), pp. 160–161, 200–211.
- ^ Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1571-1574, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1905), p. 604.
- ^ Morgan, Ring (14 March 2018). "Spy chief, lover, poet, plotter - 'a woman lost in history'". The Scotsman. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
- ^ "Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox". Westminster Abbey. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster. Retrieved 19 August 2013.
- ^ Kent, Francis W.; Zika, Charles, eds. (2005). Rituals, Images, and Words: The Varieties of Cultural Expression In Late Medieval And Early Modern Europe. Brepols. p. 190.
the tomb was inscribed, "This work was completed at the charge of Thomas Fowler, the executor of this lady, 24 Oct 1578"
- ^ HMC Report on the Manuscripts of Lord De L'Isle & Dudley at Penshurst Place, vol. 1 (London, 1925), pp. 260-1.
- ^ HMC 6th Report: W. G. C Cumming (London, 1877), p. 682.
- ^ "The Darnley Jewel or Lennox Jewel c. 1571-8". The Royal Collection. Retrieved 5 October 2023.
- ^ a b c "The Art of Monarchy: The Darnley Jewel or Lennox Jewel, c. 1571-8". The Royal Collection. Retrieved 27 February 2017.
- ^ Aschengreen Piacenti, Kirsten; Boardman, John (2008). Ancient and Modern Gems and Jewels in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen. London: The Royal Collection.
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lennox". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 419.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Stewart". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 911.
Further reading
- de Lisle, Leanda (2012). Tudor: The Family Story. Chatto & Windus.
- de Lisle, Leanda (August 2013). "King Henry's Niece". History Today. 63 (8).
- de Lisle, Leanda (2013). Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1610393638.
- Denny, Joanna (2005). Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy. Portrait. p. 8. ISBN 978-0749950736.
- Ring, Morgan (2017). So High a Blood: The Life of Margaret, Countess of Lennox. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781408859667.
- Stevenson, Jane (2001). Early Modern Women Poets (1520–1700): An Anthology. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199242573.
- Weir, Alison (2001). Henry VIII: The King and His Court. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-43659-8.
- Weir, Alison (2015). The Lost Tudor Princess: A Life of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. ISBN 9780345521392.
External links
- Margaret Douglas: The forgotten Tudor princess, BBC History Magazine, 18 November 2015 at 5:00 pm