Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Margaret (1489-1541)
MARGARET TUDOR (1489–1541), queen of Scotland, the eldest daughter of Henry VII, king of England, and Elizabeth of York, was born at Westminster on 29 Nov. 1489, and baptised in the abbey on the 30th, St. Andrew's day (Leland, Collectanea, iv. 252 sq.; cf. Hamilton Papers, i. 51). Her sponsors were Margaret, countess of Richmond, her grandmother, the Duchess of Norfolk, and Archbishop Morton (Green, Princesses, iv. 50-2). She probably passed her infancy with her brother Arthur at Farnham in Surrey. Her education was early broken off, but she could write, though she confessed it an 'evil hand,' and she played upon the lute and clavicord (ib. pp. 53, 69). On 23 June 1495 Henry VII commissioned Richard Foxe [q.v.], bishop of Durham, and others, to negotiate a marriage between Margaret and James IV of Scotland in the hope of averting his reception of Perkin Warbeck, the pretended Duke of York (Fœdera, xii. 572; Spanish Calendar, i. 85; Pinkerton, History of Scotland, 1797, ii. 26). The offer failed to prevent James from espousing the cause of Warbeck, but was renewed the next year with the support of Spain. The commissioners of 1495 received fresh powers to arrange the marriage on 5 May, and again on 2 Sept. 1496 (Bain, Cal. of Documents relating to Scotland, iv. No. 1622; Fœdera, xii. 635). James was not at this time willing to give up Warbeck and it was not until after the departure of the pretender, and the truce of 30 Sept. 1497 with England, that the marriage was again suggested. The Tudor historians make James himself renew the proposal to Foxe when sent to arrange a border quarrel at Norham in 1498, which threatened to terminate the truce (Green, p. 57). Henry is said to have quieted some fears in his council by the assurance that, even if Margaret came to the English crown, 'the smaller would ever follow the larger kingdom' (Polydore Vergil, xxvi. 607). Peace until one year after the death of the survivor was concluded between Henry and James on 12 July 1499, and Scottish commissioners were appointed to negotiate the marriage (Cal. of Documents, iv. No. 1653). On 11 Sept., three days after his ratification of the peace, Henry commissioned Foxe to conduct the negotiations (Fœdera, xii. 729). They were some- what protracted. It was not until 28 July 1500 that the pope granted a dispensation for the marriage, James and Margaret being related in the fourth degree, through the marriage of James I with Joan Beaufort, and there was a further delay of nearly eighteen months before James, on 8 Oct. 1501, finally empowered his commissioners to conclude the marriage (Cal. of Documents, iv. No. 1678; Fœdera, xii. 765). At length the marriage treaty was agreed to at Richmond Palace on 24 Jan. 1502. Margaret was secured the customary dower lands, including Stirling and Linlithgow, to the amount of 2,000l. a year, but the revenues were to be paid to her through James. A pension of five hundred marks was, however, to be at her own disposal. Henry undertook to give her a marriage portion of thirty thousand gold 'angel' nobles (ib. xii. 787; Green, pp. 62, 109). A treaty of perpetual peace between England and Scotland was concluded on the same day (Fœdera, xii. 793). The ratifications were exchanged in December (ib. xiii. 43, 46, 48-52), and the espousals were celebrated at Richmond on 25 Jan. 1503. The Earl of Bothwell acted as proxy for James. The union was proclaimed at Paul's Cross, and welcomed with popular rejoicings (Green, pp. 63-6). The death of Queen Elizabeth, however, on 11 Feb. threw a cloud over the festivities.
In May Margaret's attorneys received seisin of her dower lands (Fœdera, xiii. 62, 64-71, 73). Henry had stipulated that he should not send his daughter to Scotland before 1 Sept. 1503. But on the request of James she left Richmond on 27 June. In her suite was John Young, Somerset herald, whose very full and quaint account of the journey is printed by Hearne (Leland, Collectanea, iv. 258 sqq.) Her father took an affectionate farewell of her at Collyweston in Northamptonshire, and, escorted northwards in state by the Earl of Surrey, and gathering a great train, she entered Scotland on 1 Aug. and reached Dalkeith on the 3rd. She received daily visits of ceremony from James until her state entry into Edinburgh on Monday, 7 Aug. They were married on 8 Aug. in the chapel of Holyrood, by the Archbishops of Glasgow and York (ib.) Miss Strickland (p. 58) prints a manuscript epithalamium. The court poet, William Dunbar, composed his allegorical poem, 'The Thistle and the Rose,' in which he exalted the lineage of the (English) rose above that of the (French) lily. Dunbar became a constant attendant of Margaret, and dedicated several of his poems to her. After several days' festivities her English escort returned home, carrying a rather petulant and homesick letter to her father (Green, p. 100). A northern progress occupied the rest of the year, and in March 1504 Margaret was crowned in the Parliament Hall.
The somewhat querulous young queen was childless for several years, and James, who had dismissed his mistress, Jane Kennedy, before his marriage, though not unkind, resumed his irregularities and acknowledged his illegitimate children (ib. pp. 99, 119). But their relations improved with the birth of a son, on 21 Feb. 1507, which brought upon Margaret a most violent disease, her recovery from which was ascribed to a special journey James made to the shrine of St. Ninian at Whithern (ib. pp. 124-5). But the child, who was christened James, died on 27 Feb. 1508. A daughter, born 15 July in that year, died almost immediately, after again nearly costing Margaret her life, and a son born 20 Oct. 1509, and christened Arthur, lived only to 15 July 1510. But a son born on Easter eve, 10 April 1512, survived to be king as James V (ib. p. 148 ; Letters and Papers, i. 3882). A daughter born prematurely, in November of the same year, hardly outlived its birth (ib. 3577, 3631 ; Memorials of Henry VII, p. 123; Green, p. 154). A son, Alexander, created Duke of Ross, was born on 30 April 1514, after her husband's death.
As early as 1508 James was again leaning towards a French alliance. The relations between England and Scotland grew more and more strained, and when. Henry VIII joined the Holy League against France James entered into an alliance with Louis XII on 22 May 1512 (ib. p. 150). Margaret, who had assured Ferdinand of Aragon in March of her husband's desire for peace (Letters and Papers, i. 3082), supported Angus Bell-the-Cat and the English party, although Henry risked this support and gave a pretext to James for his change of front by withholding a legacy which she claimed. The statements of Buchanan, Lindsay of Pitscottie, and Drummond that this legacy was one of jewels, &c., bequeathed her by Prince Arthur, may perhaps be reconciled with those of Margaret and Dr. West, the English envoy in Scotland, that it was a sum of money left by Henry VII. by supposing that Arthur had left them with the understanding that they were to belong to his father during his life. West's letters seem to imply that the sum was a valuation. It was first formally demanded in 1509. Henry seems to have been afraid that it would be used to supply James's want of money (Green, pp. 151-2 ; Letters and Papers, i. 3883, 4403).
By 1513 James had made up his mind to join in the war on the side of France, and told West, who was sent in March to promise payment of the legacy if he would keep the treaty of peace, that he would pay his wife himself (Green, p. 157). It was in vain that Margaret tried to deter him from war with England by dreams and prearranged miraculous warnings (ib.) Yet in his will he appointed Margaret, in the event of his death, sole regent and guardian of the young James, contrary to the custom of the realm by which the minor was left to the guardianship of the next in succession, and besides her dower bequeathed her one-third of his personal revenues for life. He also unwisely empowered her, without the knowledge or consent of his council, to dispose of a subsidy of eighteen thousand crowns lately received from France (ib. p. 163). He had refused to take her with him, and she remained at Linlithgow, sending to ask for Queen Catherine's prayers, until the news of Flodden and her husband's death arrived (Letters and Papers, i. 4424 ; cf. 4549). Retreating to Perth, she wrote to her brother deprecating further hostilities, and, summoning nobles and clergy, performed the 'Mourning Coronation' or James V within twenty days after his father's death (Strickland, p. 95; Green, p. 173). But her position was a most difficult one. In face of the strong French feeling in Scotland, her success in obtaining a truce from Henry only decreased her influence, and she was unable to veto the recall from France of the next heir to the crown after her sons, John Stewart, duke of Albany [q.v.], whom the French party were already plotting to substitute for her as regent (ib. pp. 177-80). The council resented her application to Rome for power to confer vacant bishoprics. At last there was an open split, and she withdrew with her supporters to Stirling. Strengthened by the accession of James Hamilton, second earl of Arran [q. v.], and Lord Home, she effected a temporary reconciliation of parties in July 1514, and Scotland was comprised in the treaty between France and England signed on the 29th of that month.
But Henry's failure to bind Louis not to allow Albany to return to Scotland left Margaret's position insecure, and almost forced her to lean more and more upon the Douglases. In what proportions passion, policy, and the pressure of the house of Douglas contributed to Margaret's decision to surprise the world by a marriage with the handsome young Archibald Douglas, sixth earl of Angus [q . v.], grandson of Archibald Bell-the-Cat, it is not easy to determine. She was certainly of a susceptible and impetuous temperament. Henry had defeated the Scottish idea of marrying her to Louis XII, and had induced the Emperor Maximilian, whose secretary went to Scotland and brought back a favourable report of her, to declare his willingness to marry her (Letters and Papers, i. 5208), but on 6 Aug. she was privately married to Angus in the church of Kinnoull, near Perth, by Walter Drummond, dean of Dunblane, nephew of Lord Drummond, justiciar of Scotland, and maternal grandfather of Angus, who is said to have promoted the match. Margaret was already seeking to advance Gavin Douglas the poet, uncle of Angus, to high preferment, and the secret soon leaked out. Henry VIII accepted the marriage, though he, too, had been kept in the dark, and he wrote to the pope in support of Gavin Douglas's claim to the archbishopric of St Andrews, which became vacant some months later. But Margaret found she had made a most imprudent step, for she had alienated the other Scottish nobles and strengthened the party of French alliance, led by James Beaton [q. v.], archbishop of Glasgow, and Forman, whom they successfully supported for the archbishopric of St. Andrews. Margaret was obliged to sign an invitation to Albany to come over as governor, and the privy council on 18 Sept. resolved that she had by her second marriage forfeited the office of tutrix to her son (Green, pp. 186, 189). She maintained herself in Stirling, and procured the bishopric of Dunkeld for Gavin Douglas ; but Albany arrived in May 1515, was invested with the regency, and broke up the party of the Douglases. Margaret, after an attempt to work upon the loyalty of the besiegers by placing James on the ramparts in crown and sceptre, had to surrender Stirling early in August, and Albany obtained possession of the young princes (see under Douglas, Archibald, sixth Earl of Angus; Green, pp. 185-211 ; Letters and Papers, i. 5614, 5641, ii. 67, 574, 705, 779, 827).
Margaret was kept under watch at Edinburgh, and her dower revenues were withheld. Henry had since the beginning of the year been urging her to fly to England with her sons, but she had feared to imperil James's crown (ib. ii. 44, 62, 66 ; Green, p. 198). Having now no further control over them, she obtained permission to go to Linlithgow to 'take her chamber,' and thus contrived to make her escape to the borders, and was admitted alone into England by Lord Dacre, under Henry's orders, on Sunday, 30 Sept. 1515. Eight days later she gave birth, at Harbottle Castle, Northumberland, to a 'Christen sowle beyng a yong lady,' Margaret Douglas [q. v.], afterwards countess of Lennox and mother of Lord Darnley (ib. pp. 223-4 ; Ellis, Letters, 2nd ser. i. 265). She was again at the point of death. On 26 Nov. she was removed, suffering agonies from sciatica, to Morpeth, where Angus joined her (Green, p. 228 ; cf. Letters and Papers, ii. 1350). Her sufferings were somewhat relieved by a 'wonderful love of apparell' (ib.} 'She has two new gowns held before her once or twice a day. She has twenty-two fine gowns and has sent for more.' The news of the death of her favourite son Alexander, on 18 Dec., aggravated her illness. It was English pressure that made Margaret sign accusations against Albany of aiming at the crown and driving her from Scotland in fear of her life. At the dictation of Lord Dacre she demanded not only the government of her children, but the regency. A more reasonable" letter from herself was followed by the release of Gavin Douglas, whom Albany had imprisoned, and Dacre in alarm advised her removal southwards (Green, pp. 232-6). Angus preferred the generosity of Albany, and escaped, 'which much made Margaret to muse' (Hall, p. 584). She set out from Morpeth on 8 April, received a flying visit from the remorseful Angus, and on 3 May entered London and was lodged at Baynard's Castle. On the 7th she joined the court at Greenwich (Green, p. 240). Henry, who aimed at the entire elimination of French influence in Scotland, impeded her reconciliation with Albany. But in 1517 she was allowed to return to Scotland. She was promised the restoration of her dower revenues and liberty to see her son, now in Edinburgh Castle, but she was not to stay the night. Angus was induced to sign a document undertaking to cease to interfere with her lands (ib. pp. 242, 253, 260). But Henry neglected to secure an effective guarantee for the performance of these promises. On 7 May Margaret joined with her sister Mary and with Queen Catherine in saving the lives of all but one of the apprentices condemned for the riots of 'Evil May day' (ib. p. 254). On 18 May she left London, re-entered Scotland on 15 June, was met by Angus at Lamberton Kirk, and made her entrance into Edinburgh on the 17th (ib. p. 260).
Albany had left Scotland on 8 June on a visit to France, but had taken effective precautions to prevent Margaret's recovering the regency. Her dower rents were still withheld, and she was refused access to her son on suspicion that she intended to convey him to England [see under James V of Scotland]. She besieged the English council with complaints. In the contest for power between Angus and Arran, the head of the Hamiltons, Margaret at first sided with her husband. But Angus broke his promise as to her jointure lands. Arran took her part, and in October 1518 she wrote to Henry hinting at a divorce (Letters and Papers, iii. 166). Angus, she said, loved her not, but she does not allude to the 'gentill-woman of Douglasdaill,' with whom, according to Lesley (p. 112), he was now living. Henry failed to arrest her breach with Angus, and she joined Henry's adversaries in a request to Francis I for the return of Albany, which fell into her brother's hands (Letters and Papers, ii. 4547, iii. 373, 396). Taxed with it by Wolsey she pleaded (14 July 1519) her sore plight and the pressure of the lords (ib. iii. 373, 381). She had now access to her son (ib. 889). But next year she once more changed sides. Angus got possession of Edinburgh by the fray of Cleanse-the-Causeway, on 30 April 1520 (Lesley, p. 115, but cf. Green, p. 300), and Henry in August sent Henry Chadworth, minister-general of the Friars Observants, to chide her for living apart from Angus to the danger of her soul and reputation and for her reported 'suspicious living,' and urged her reconciliation (ib. p. 292 ; Letters and Papers, iii. 467, 481-2). At the same time Arran and his party were opposing her resumption of the regency at the desire of Albany, whom Francis had promised Henry to keep in France (ib. iii. 467). She therefore joined Angus in Edinburgh on 15 Oct. (ib. 482, misdated). But before 8 Feb. 1521 they had quarrelled again, and Margaret rejoined Arran's party. According to the Douglas account she stole from Edinburgh by night escorted only by Sir James Hamilton, but this she denied (ib. iii. 1190 ; Green, p. 296). When Henry sided with Charles V, Francis allowed Albany to return to Scotland on 18 Nov. 1521. Albany and Margaret were now closely associated, and Dacre accused her, truly or falsely, of being 'over-tender' with the regent. He and Wolsey had circulated a rumour that in soliciting at Rome a divorce between Margaret and Angus Albany proposed to marry her himself. Albany, however, 'had enough of one wife' (ib. p. 311). So strong was the combination of the regent and the queen-mother that Angus either consented to retire to France or was kidnapped thither by Albany, as Henry asserted, and Lindsay of Pitscottie also states.
Margaret acted as intermediary in the truce negotiations between Dacre and Albany in September 1522. After Albany's return to France on 27 Oct. Margaret sought to form a party of her own round the young king with the support of England. Anti-English feeling ran high in Scotland after Surrey's devastation of the lowlands, and the queen professed herself ready, if need be, to enter England 'in her smock' to labour for the security of her son (ib. pp. 327-9 ; Letters and Papers, iii. 3138). When Albany did not return at the date promised (August 1523), Margaret, who had provided for her retreat into England, urged the English government to action, but they preferred to let events decide. The Scottish parliament of 31 Aug. would have emancipated James and come to an arrangement with England, but for the news that Albany had sailed from Picardy, which Margaret stigmatised as Hidings of the Canongate.' After this rebuff she 'grat bitterly all day' (Green, pp. 334-5). The king, too, 'spoke very sore for one so young,' and from all Surrey could hear the queen 'did that she could to cause him so to do.' On Albany's arrival, 20 Sept., Margaret requested the promised refuge in England, but Surrey and Wolsey agreed that it would be better and less costly to keep her in Scotland (ib. p. 345). Her treacherous confidant, the prioress of Coldstream, reported that she was 'right fickle,' and that the governor had already 'almost made her a Frenchwoman.' Another report says that 1 since nine hours to-day she has been singing and dancing, and the Frenchmen with her' (ib. p. 349). But her private opinion was that the governor, 'who can say one thing and think another,' would be 'right sharp' with her when the 'hosting' was done (ib. p. 351). Albany discovered that she was completely in the English interest, and the parliament of 18 Nov. separated her from her son. If we may believe Margaret, she refused a pension of five thousand crowns from Albany (ib. p. 362). But a rumour that Henry was promoting the return of Angus to Scotland seems to have induced her to enter into a bond with Albany by which she undertook to recognise the parliamentary arrangements for James, and to forward his marriage with a French princess, being assured of a residence in France for herself if necessary (ib. p. 367). A copy falling into the hands of the English she disavowed it. Albany, after failing to get Margaret's promise not to enter into alliance with England, or even to consent to peace, left Scotland at the end of May 1524, promising to return by 31 Aug. (ib. p. 372). Margaret, supported by England, though she could not get perfectly satisfactory assurances on the subject of Angus, who had arrived in England on 28 June, carried off James, with Arran's help, from Stirling to Edinburgh on 26 July 1524. The step was popular, and parliament on 20 Aug. received with favour her proposal to abrogate Albany's regency, in spite of the opposition of Beaton and the Bishop of Aberdeen, whom she cast into prison (ib. pp. 386-387). But she threw away the fruits of her triumph by her arbitrary employment of the king's English guard now formed, by close alliance with Arran and wanton offence to Lennox and others, and by her over-favour to Henry Stewart, a younger brother of Lord Avondale, who now came to court as master-carver to the king, and was thrust by the queen into the offices of lieutenant of the guard and treasurer (ib. p. 389). Hearing that Margaret and Arran were leaning to a French alliance and had alienated all the lords, Henry at last allowed Angus to cross the border (about 28 Oct. 1524).
The parliament, which met on 14 Nov., recognised Margaret as the chief councillor of the young king, and imposed restrictions upon Angus, who, losing patience, broke into Edinburgh with four hundred men on the morning of Wednesday, 23 Nov. Margaret fired upon him from the castle, and he retired to Tantallon (ib. p. 420). But she continued to act with imprudence, and as her adherents would not begin civil war except round the young king, she, on 21 Feb. 1525, admitted Angus into the regency, but next day wrote to Albany as ' governor,' to Francis, and to the pope urging her divorce from the earl (ib. p. 439). Finding the influence of Angus rapidly growing, she personally, and through the king, pressed him to consent to a divorce. Whether from want of evidence or fear of a counter-charge, she did not accuse Angus of infidelity, but on the desperate plea, first brought forward early in 1525, that James IV had lived for three years after Flodden (ib. pp. 445, 450). After Pavia, Henry, who had intercepted her letters to Albany and Francis, and no longer feared her joining the French party, sent her ' such a letter as was never written to any noble woman.' The parliament of July, which she refused to attend, alleging fear of Angus, practically deprived her of all authority, but on the 'remonstrance of James gave her twenty days' grace. This was, however, of no avail. Angus was now master of the king's person and of the government. Margaret organised resistance in the north, but Angus foiled the junction she had planned for 17 Jan. 1526 at Linlithgow with Arran and other opponents of the Douglases, and she retreated to Hamilton with Arran, who soon made terms with Angus (ib. p. 454). On receiving assurances of personal freedom, Margaret rejoined her son in Edinburgh in February, but was soon again moving the council against Angus for withholding her rents. Finding her influence gone, she went to Dunfermline, where she was presently joined by Lennox and by Beaton, from whom Angus had taken the seals. After the failure of two attempts to rescue James by force from the constraint Angus put upon him, Margaret undertook to be guided by Angus, and to renounce the company of Henry Stewart (Letters and Papers, iv. 2575). Angus on his side is said to have withdrawn his opposition to the divorce (Green, p. 462).
On 20 Nov. she came to the opening of the new parliament, and soon regained her old influence over James. Beaton was recalled to court, and a new revolution was expected. But her request for the return of Henry Stewart was refused by James, and she retired in dudgeon to Stirling, which she had placed in Stewart's hands (Letters and Papers, iv. 2777, 2992). She was now 'entirely ruled by the counsel of Stewart,' who, if not a married man, had only lately divorced his wife in the hope of marrying the queen. At last, on 11 March 1527, Albany's efforts to promote her divorce were crowned with success, and the Cardinal of Ancona, appointed judge by Clement VII, gave judgment in her favour (State Papers, Henry VIII, iv. 490). Owing to the disturbed state of the continent, Margaret did not hear of the sentence until December (Maitland Club Miscellany, ii. 387). It was soon whispered that she had contracted a secret marriage with Stewart, and in March 1528 she openly dedared it (Letters and Papers, iv. 4134). Lord Erskine, in the name of the king, appeared before Stirling, and Stewart was given up by Margaret and put into ward. Wolsey wrote in Henry's name to remind her of the 'divine ordinance of inseparable matrimony first instituted in paradise,' protesting against 'the shameless sentence sent from Rome' (ib. iv. 4130-1). It was probably now that Angus separated her from her daughter (Green, p. 471). When James threw off the tutelage of Angus in June, and the earl was driven into England, Margaret and her husband became his chief advisers. Lands and revenues were showered upon them, and James created Stewart Lord Methven, and master of the artillery, 'for the great love he bore to his dearest mother.' Margaret, who went everywhere with her son, recovered possession of her Stricklands (1532) and entrusted them to Methven. She successfully used her influence in favour of a truce with England, and Magnus reported her very favourable to the proposed marriage of James with the Princess Mary. But Lord William Howard of Effingham [q. v.], who was sent to Scotland to promote this match in 1531, when Mary's position in England had become a very dubious one, met with open opposition from Margaret (ib. p. 481 ; Strickland, p. 243). She, however, helped to bring about the peace with England concluded on 11 May 1534 (Hamilton Papers, i. 2, 8 ; Fœdera, xiv. 529). The proposed interview between Henry and James, first suggested in the autumn, received her warm support, and she wrote to her brother and Cromwell on 12 Dec. boasting that, 'by advice of us and no other living person,' James had consented to the meeting (State Papers, v. 2, 12). The prospect of taking a principal part in a splendid spectacle, and appearing before the world as mediator between her son and her brother, powerfully appealed to Margaret's vanity, and though already deeply in debt, she spent nearly 20,000l. Scots in preparations for the interview. When James was induced by the Scottish clergy, well aware that Henry intended at the meeting to urge a reformation in Scotland upon his nephew, to qualify his consent, Margaret allowed her disappointment to carry her to the length of betraying her son's secret intentions to Henry (ib. v. 38). This coming to James's ears was naturally connected by him with the gifts which Henry, in response to her importunity, had recently sent her, and he roundly accused her of taking bribes from England to betray him (ib. pp. 41, 46-7 ; Hamilton Papers, p. 31). She begged Henry to allow her to come into England, 'being at the most displeasant point she could be, to be alive,' but was told that she must get her son's consent (State Papers, v. 55 ; Letters and Papers, xi. 111-12). She was so irritated by this reply being conveyed through James's ambassador, Otterbourne, that she wrote a letter to Cromwell, which he called 'insolent,' and for which she afterwards apologised (State Papers, v. 56; Green, p. 488). Her suggestion that Henry ought to defray the losses the border wars had cost her, and her expenditure for the abortive interview, was coldly and firmly refused (State Papers, v. 56).
Margaret appears in a more agreeable light a month later (12 Aug.) in her intercession with her brother for her daughter, Lady Margaret Douglas, who had excited his suspicious wrath by a contract of marriage with a younger brother of the Duke of Norfolk (ib. v. 58). The English parliament professed to believe that there was a scheme to raise Lady Margaret and her husband to the throne if the king died heirless, and that in her lately projected visit to England Queen Margaret had designed a reunion with Angus, so as to strengthen the interests of her daughter by confirming her legitimacy ({sc|Green}}, p. 491). On 20 Oct. and again on 10 Feb. 1537 she begged help of Henry that she might not be disgraced before the queen (Magdalene) whom her son was bringing home from France (Hamilton Papers, i. 38-9 ; State Papers, v. 66). Sir Ralph Sadler, who was sent to Scotland in January, heard at Newcastle a rumour that Margaret had taken the veil, which he thought l no gospel.' He found her 'conveyed to much misery during her son's absence,' and 'very evilly used' in the suit she had brought for a 'decision of the validity of the matrimony between her and Methven' (ib. i. 529, v. 66, 70). To Henry she only accused Methven of having enriched his own friends out of her rents, but he is stated to have had children by Janet Stewart, daughter of the Earl of Atholl, whom he married after Margaret's death. One of these children was mother of the celebrated Earl of Gowrie, which has given rise to the absurd modern hypothesis that the mother of Earl Gowrie was really daughter of Lord Methven and Queen Margaret (Green, pp. 493-4; but cf. Reg. Mag. Sigill. Scotiæ, 1546-80, Nos. 184-5, 639-41, 1568).
Margaret seconded Sadler's report by a letter to her brother dated 8 March, complaining that the Bishop of St. Andrews delayed pronouncing sentence in her divorce, though her case was proved by 'twenty softycent prowes,' and urging her desire to be free of Methven, ' who is but a sobare man,' before the return of her son and his young wife (Hamilton Papers, i. 42). Sadler was despatched to Rouen to remonstrate with James, who, as Margaret hastened to inform her brother, instructed 'his Lordis' to do her justice with expedition (State Papers, v. 70, 74). She implored Norfolk not to make war upon Scotland until she was safely divorced, and assured him that nothing should pass in Scotland which she would not communicate to Henry (ib. v. 75). On 7 June, after James's return, she wrote to Henry to notify him that her divorce was at the giving of sentence (ib. v. 90). It was therefore with bitter disappointment that she had soon after to inform her brother that James had stopped her suit when the sentence was already written out, and proved by forty famous provers, although she had bought his promise to let it go on. She declares that Methven had offered him a higher bribe from her lands (ib. v. 103). But perhaps James's proceeding admits of a sufficiently obvious and more creditable explanation. She attempted to steal into England, but was overtaken within five miles of the border and conveyed to Dundee by Lord Maxwell, who expressed an opinion that all things would go well between the realms if she did not make a breach (ib. v. 109). According to her own account, Methven had persuaded James that she had intended to reconcile herself with Angus because she went to her lands in Ettrick. He will only allow her to depart 'bed and bwrd' from Methven, and not 'somplecytur.' She complains that she has none of her dower palaces to live in, and talks of a cloister. Henry is urged, since she is now his only sister, to take strong measures in her behalf ; she is now 'fourty years and nine,' and wishes ease and rest rather than to be obliged to follow her son about like a poor gentlewoman as she has done for twenty weeks past (Letters of 13 and 16 Nov., ib. i. 534, v. 115 ; Hamilton Papers, i. 49-51). But this mood was transient. She cordially welcomed Mary of Lorraine in June 1538, seeking to impress her by pretending to have had recent letters from Henry (State Papers, v. 127, 135). The young queen seems to have soothed Margaret's morbid vanity, and by the beginning of 1539 she was reconciled with Methven (ib. p. 154 ; Green, p. 500). Norfolk reported to Henry that 'the young queen was all papist, and the old queen not much less' (ib.) But in 1541 she was again plaguing Henry with her money troubles ; and although he was puzzled by the contradictory reports of her treatment he received, he gave some ear to her complaints, as he required a spy upon the Scottish war preparations (Hamilton Papers, i. 60-5, 75). On 1 March 1541 she preferred a curious request to Henry on behalf of a begging friar from Palestine (Thorpe, Cal. of Documents relating to Scotland, i. 40). On 12 May she informed Henry from Stirling of the death of the two young princes, and that she never left the bereaved parents (State Papers, v. 188). At the end of that month Henry's messenger, Ray, was in secret communication with her at Stirling (Hamilton Papers, i. 75). She was seized with palsy at Methven Castle on Friday, 14 Oct., and finding herself growing worse sent for James from Falkland Palace, but he did not arrive in time to see her alive. She is said to have extremely lamented and asked God mercy that she had offended unto the Earl of Angus as she had done,' but this rests upon the report of Henry's messenger, Ray (State Papers, v. 193-4). She was unable to make a will, but desired that Lady Margaret should inherit her goods. Ray was informed that she had no more than 2,500 marks Scots at her death (ib.} She died on Tuesday, 18 Oct., aged nearly fifty-three (Chronicle of Perth, Maitland Club, and Treasurer's Accounts for October 1541, quoted by Green, p. 504; the Diurnal of Occurrents, Bannatyne Club ed., places her death on 24 Nov.) James buried her splendidly in the vault of James I in the Carthusian church of St. John at Perth (Lesley, p. 157). Methven, by whom she had no offspring, though the contrary has been asserted, survived her some years.
Margaret had, in the words of an old Scottish writer, a 'great Twang of her brother's Temper.' Impetuous, capricious, equally ardent and fickle in her attachments, unscrupulously selfish, vain of power and show, and not without something of Henry's robustness and ability, the likeness is not merely fanciful. She listened neither to the voice of policy nor of maternal affection when passion impelled her. Yet she showed a real affection even for the daughter of whom she had seen so little, and James loved and trusted her until she shamefully abused his confidence. It was a hard part that she had to play in Scotland, distracted by internal turbulence and the intrigues of Henry VIII, but she played it too often without dignity, consistency, or moderation. It was not unnatural that in the miserable conflict of French and English influence she should range herself on the side of her brother ; but nothing can justify the cold-bloodedness with which she urged him to destroy Scottish ships and Scottish homes, and the treachery with which she betrayed her own son's counsels to his enemy. Her motives, too, were thoroughly selfish, for when her own interests dictated it she threw over her brother without scruple. Nor can we have any real sympathy with the ignoble private anxieties which she carried to her grave. If we may credit Gavin Douglas, Margaret in her youth was handsome, with a bright complexion and abundant golden hair. But Holbein's portrait represents her with rather harsh features. In middle age she grew stout and full-faced. Her portrait was frequently painted. There is a well-known one of Margaret and her two brothers by Mabuse, about 1496, in the china closet at Windsor, engraved as vignette on the title-page of vol. iv. of Mrs. Green's 'Princesses.' Minour painted one for presentation to James in 1502. A portrait by Holbein, in the possession of the Marquis of Lothian, is engraved as a frontispiece in the same volume. Another is mentioned as in the possession of the Earls of Pembroke at Wilton House. Small (Gavin Douglas, Works, vol. i. p. xci) gives a reproduction of an interesting portrait of Albany and Margaret, belonging to the Marquis of Bute, painted, he thinks, at the period when they were reproached with being over-tender. There is a portrait at Queen's College, Oxford; another, belonging to Charles Butler, esq., is described in the catalogue of the Tudor Exhibition (p. 55); and a third is engraven by G. Valck in Larrey's 'Histoire d'Angleterre' (Bromley, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, p. 7).
[Most of the authorities used have been mentioned in the text. Miss Strickland's Life is inaccurate and a little malicious. The Life by Mrs. G-reen is extraordinarily thorough and careful. The recently published Hamilton Papers have thrown some new light on the subject. Margaret was a prolific correspondent, and her letters will be found in great numbers in the State Papers, Mrs. Green's Letters of Royal Ladies, Teulet's Inventaire Chronologique and Papiers d'Etat, Ellis's Historical Letters, and the Hamilton Papers. Lesley is quoted in the Bannatyne Club edition, and Polydore Vergil in the Basle edition of 1570.]