Margaret Douglas

by Mary McGrigor

  Haughty she may have been but Margaret was certainly a young Amazon, riding a horse with perfect balance, with a falcon carried on her wrist. The bird was one of her famous Tantallon hawks, bred specifically for hunting and famed as far as England for their power and beauty in flight. Margaret rode with her father, an expert horsemen and falconer himself. Together they raced over the gently rising ground above Tantallon, Margaret loving the thrill of it, her red hair streaming in the wind. Before them, hounds, noses to the turf, flushed birds from reeds and long grass. At sight of one rising for the sky, she would free her hawk from its jesses to let it fly in pursuit. She was, so her father claimed, as good a rider and falconer, if not better, than most of his men.

  Notes

  1 Donaldson.G., The Edinburgh History of Scotland, Vol.III, p.35

  2 Ibid., Vol.I, p.167

  3 Ibid., Vol.II, p.251

  4

  THE BATTLE FOR THE KING

  Yet Angus was seldom at Tantallon. King Henry had brought him back from France expressly to head the English Party in Scotland against the French.

  On 1 August 1524, King James, now 12 years old, was present at the council that brought Albany’s governorship officially to an end. On 5 August James signed a letter to his ‘derrest and richt inteirlye weilbelufit uncle, the king of Inglande’, telling him that he had ended the control of Albany ‘under quhais governans oure realme and lieges hes bene richt evill demanyt’.1 Following this, in September, arrangements were made for a Scottish embassy to go to England to conclude a treaty of peace. King Henry actually paid for 200 soldiers as a bodyguard for the young king of Scotland, and having done so, he sent two English residents to Edinburgh.

  Despite this ostentatious display of concern for the security of his nephew, Henry met strong opposition in Scotland. Forming up against him were James Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews and five of his bishops. They, along with Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll; Argyll’s cousin George Gordon, de facto Earl of Moray; and John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Lennnox, the grandson of James II, remained loyal to the Aulde Alliance with France. Along with the Bishop of Aberdeen, Beaton was actually imprisoned for his intransigence but his nephew David, arriving from France, brought new hope to the Francophiles with a message of support from King Francis.

  King Henry had sent his envoy, Doctor Magnus, Archdeacon of the East Riding of Yorkshire, to his sister at Holyrood in an attempt to dissuade her from divorce. Writing from there to Cardinal Wolsey on 16 November 1524, Magnus told him how Angus, riding to Edinburgh with the Earl of Lennox, Scott of Buccleuch and 400 Border cavalry, had contrived to scale the walls of the city and open one of the gates. Together with Queen Margaret, at Holyrood he had heard the screams of people fleeing before the swords of horsemen galloping wildly through the streets. Next he had been told that Angus had reached the Mercat Cross, from where he had ordered his herald to proclaim that he had come to take control of the government and to keep the peace.

  Doctor Magnus, trying to mediate with Queen Margaret over the subject of her divorce, was told by her to mind his own business and be gone. Facing an emergency at Holyrood, the queen, abetted by her son the king, showed all the courage she possessed in defying her alienated husband. Knowing that she could not reach Edinburgh Castle because he held the Royal Mile, she ordered the two small cannons at Holyrood to be fired. A priest, an old woman and two merchant sailors were unlucky enough to be killed.

  Later in the day Angus and Lennox, on the orders of the young king, left the city of Edinburgh for the Douglas castle of Dalkeith. Magnus was then able to describe to Wolsey how, by torchlight, King James, his mother (with a servant carrying her jewels) and the men and women of both their households rode up the hill to Edinburgh castle under the escort of Harry Stewart (rumoured to be the queen’s paramour), in command of their royal guards.

  A bizarre situation then developed in which the king, Queen Margaret and the Earl of Arran held the castle of Edinburgh, and Angus and Lennox the town. In February the estates named Angus as one of the queen’s counsellors, and subsequently, with the earls of Lennox and Argyll, he controlled the ruling of the government.

  This was enough to throw his estranged wife Queen Margaret into collusion with the French party, now headed by Arran, who felt himself ostracised by the English.

  On 3 August the council issued a declaration that the queen would lose all authority unless she agreed to abide by the ruling of the lords of whom it was comprised. By now it had been arranged that the king should remain in the care of each of the leading lords in turn. Angus would take the first period, lasting until November, at which point, by firmly refusing to release him, he held him hostage for his power. In June of the following year of 1525 he issued a statement to the effect that all government was now in the king’s hands, in fact meaning his own.

  Angus then made a demonstration of necromancy oblivious to the fury of his foes. In July he removed the great seal from Archbishop Beaton, before taking the office of chancellor for himself. His uncle Archibald Douglass became treasurer and provost of Edinburgh; his brother George – ever a menacing presence by his side – was created master of the household; James Douglas of Drumlanrig was made master of the wine cellar; and James Douglas of Parkhead was created master of the larder.

  Now regarded as a dictator, Angus was increasingly resented by Argyll and Lennox, with whom initially he had formed a triumvirate of power.

  Backed by the queen, Moray and Glencairn, together with others, tried to organise the king’s rescue. The first attempt, near Melrose, was made by Scott of Buccleuch. It failed, but on 4 September 1527 John, Earl of Lennox led an army to Linlithgow. Defeated by Arran at a battle which took place at Linlithgow Bridge, Lennox, despite having actually surrendered, was treacherously stabbed to death by Sir James Hamilton, the man with whom the queen had ridden from Linlithgow to Edinburgh alone and so secretly at night.

  Rivalry between the families of Lennox and Hamilton had existed for over sixty years. Princess Mary, daughter of James II, had married James, first Lord Hamilton, as already described, by whom she had a son and a daughter. The son was created Earl of Arran, while the daughter married the second Earl of Lennox. Thus, through the laws of primogeniture, Arran had the better claim to the monarchy should the existing line fail. But his heir was doubtfully legitimate. The Lennoxes’ offspring was unquestionably lawful and therefore they claimed predominance in the line of inheritance to the throne. This rivalry, always hostile, was further inflamed by this murder into a deadly dispute, destined to cause destruction to both the families involved.

  Angus was now so feared and hated that hardly a single earl attended the council. But he remained omnipotent as long as the king stayed a prisoner in his hands. His brother George, arrogant with pride, boasted quite openly that ‘should the king’s body be torn apart in a rescue attempt, the Douglasses would still keep one part of it.’2

  James thus remained in captivity until, in May 1528, he managed to liaise secretly with his mother, who alerted the governor of Stirling Castle to be prepared for his approach. At Falkland Palace, under cover of the night, he crept down the stairs and out to the stables. Disguised as a groom, he rode at full speed to Stirling, where the guards on watch at the castle raised the portcullis as had been previously arranged. Galloping beneath it into the castle courtyard, the young King of Scotland was free.

  On 6 July King James entered Edinburgh at the head of a large concourse of nobles. Expecting at least some resistance, they found only acclamation from the people in the streets who watched them pass. Warned of their coming four days previously, Angus had already disappeared. On 13 July he was summoned for treason; in September, to the blast of a trumpet, as a herald proclaimed banishment, he was put to the horn.

  Notes

  1 Ibid., p.38

  2 Ibid., p.40

  5

  HUNTED AS AN OUTLAW

  His lands and his titles proscribed, Angus holed himself up in Tantallon, prepared to
withstand a siege. With him, in addition to his bodyguard and the garrison, were his daughter, Margaret, and the Douglas relations who looked after her. The older women were apprehensive, voicing their fear in whispers to each other so that the child should not be alarmed. Their caution was quite unnecessary. To Margaret herself it was an adventure, one she would share with her father, who, whatever their enemies attempted, she knew would always keep her safe.

  Excited by all the commotion, she watched as the well-practised ritual for preparation against a blockade began. Provisions were dragged into the courtyard on horse-drawn carts to be stored in the vaulted cellars, cold enough to preserve them for months. They included not only sacks of flour and tubs of salted meat but fish and young gannets, brought by boat across the short strip of sea from the Bass.

  Tantallon was better equipped that most castles to withstand prolonged assault. Thanks to the foresight of Earl William, who 200 years earlier had raised water to the courtyard well, they were safe from dying of thirst. Also it had better defences than many other buildings where walls lacked the sealing strength of lime. In the towers of the curtain wall, marksmen waited, their muskets primed; they listened attentively for a shout from the sentries on guard on the ramparts of the castle, from where, unless in mist or darkness, they could see many miles inland and across the North Sea, as far as the Isle of May and beyond the Firth of Forth.

  The massive walls of Tantallon, in places 15ft deep, gave a sense of security to those within their protection. The castle had withstood attack for so long that it seemed invulnerable to assault. But cannons, brought to Scotland from Guelders some sixty years earlier as part of the dowry of the Flemish bride of James II, had destroyed the immense Douglas stronghold of Threep on an island in the Border River Dee. And now that king’s great grandson, also James, was rumoured to be gathering an army.

  Inevitably, cannons would come from Edinburgh Castle, dragged by teams of oxen across the nearly flat land below the Firth of Forth. The certainty of this happening gripped the minds of the people in Tantallon with an ever-increasing fear.

  The sentries on the ramparts, straining their eyes into the distance behind the Berwick Law, were the first to hear it: a murmur in the far distance, born on the east wind. Looking at each other in puzzlement, they tried to make out what it was, this strange rhythmic noise such as they had never heard …

  ‘Ding doon Tantallon.’ The drums of the king’s army were beating the first known regimental march. King James is said to have sent an army of 8,000 men to overcome the strongest defence on Scotland’s east coast. The earthworks, dug by his soldiers, can still be traced to this day.

  Angus himself rode off to the Borders before the castle came within range of the approaching guns. With his intimate knowledge of the country, he knew the best ways to escape. Before leaving he told his daughter Margaret exactly what she must do.

  Following her father’s instructions, Margaret waited until the sun sank behind North Berwick Law. Then, in the deepening darkness, Margaret, her aunts and a few of their servants, clutching their most precious possessions, scrambled down the rough stone stairs. The steps, dangerous and slippery, were just visible in the light of burning torches as they climbed to the sea-gate, on the same level as the dungeons entombed in the castle’s foundations in the cliff. Opening the gate, a cold wind hit them, laced with the smell of the sea. The tide was high and the drop to the boat awaiting them, with men ready at the oars, was only a few feet. Margaret found it easy, agile at thirteen years, but her aunts, armed down by men of the garrison, tried to subdue their cries of fear.

  The exact place of their landing can only be guessed at today. Possibly it was below Whitekirk, where the Pope’s nuncio, sent on a mission to James I, had come ashore a hundred years before. All that is known for certain is that they wandered like gypsies, sleeping in barns or whatever shelter could be found. For Margaret it may have been an adventure; for her aunts it must have been terrifying and exhausting in the extreme. Not for a moment could they relax, feeling themselves safe in any way. They were always watching, listening for the bands of soldiers which Margaret’s half-brother, the king, had sent to look for her (which is what they had learned from the few local people to whom they dared to speak).

  For six months from September 1528, the families of the Borders were involved in civil war. Even as Margaret’s brother, King James, was holding an assizes on the Borders, Angus took the town of Coldringham from the Homes. But, as he must have been aware, he had powerful enemies biding their time to take a vicious revenge.

  Afraid for his daughter’s safety, on 5 September Angus sent a messenger across the River Tweed to ask Roger Lascelles, steward of the Earl of Northumberland and Governor of Norham Castle, on behalf of himself and Archibald Douglas to give sanctuary both to his own daughter, Margaret, and to the latter’s wife.

  The request is verified in a letter from Roger Lascelles to Henry VIII dated 8 September 1528, in which he tells him that ‘The Earl of Angus hath expulsed the Lord Home and his brother out of Coldinghame, and there doth remain himself.’ Significantly, he continues ‘and now the Earl hath sent unto your Grace’s castle of Norham, the Lady Margaret his daughter (which he had by the Queen your sister) who here doth remain until such time as I shall know further of your Grace’s pleasure’.1 Lascelles protested strongly, writing that the castle was in no way fit to lodge anyone, let alone high-born ladies. Water dripped through the whole building, from the roof down to the dungeons.

  Norham Castle, on the English side of the Tweed, taken from the English by James IV, had returned to them after the battle of Flodden in which the king had died. It was one of the safest places of refuge as long as the truce with England should last. Standing high above the river and with a steep slope to the north, a deep ravine to the west and an artificial moat crossed by a drawbridge to the east and south, the castle was further protected by a portcullis above the entrance to the outer ward of the keep.

  While still in Tantallon, an old servant of the Douglas family, Alexander Pringle, had revealed to Margaret that her mother, to whom she was now no more than a bargaining factor, was planning to marry her off to a brother of Harry Stewart, by now her third husband, following her recent divorce. John Stewart, captain by royal appointment of Doune Castle in Perthshire, was the man chosen by Queen Margaret to wed the daughter who, for the last seven years, she had not even seen.

  Told of the state of Norham Castle, her mother saw a chance to get her daughter back, protesting that she was living under rough conditions that were not only unsuitable to her position but probably a risk to her health. Writing yet again to Doctor Magnus on 1 November 1528, she blamed Angus for innumerable wrongs.

  We, for tender love and welfare of the Earl of Anguish [sic] and of his house, moved of good mind, humanit us to solemnize matrimony with him, trusting that he of his nobility should not have forgot that we for him was exiled from the government of this realm, the most of our goods perforce withholden, our houses and possessions always retrained from our use, and we desolate of remedy. We, not regarding these inconveniences, always procured the Earl’s weal and safety, first in this realm, and hereafter in our dearest brother’s realm in England. When it pleased our dearest brother, Henry VIII, to convey us at great expense into the realm of Scotland again, within short space after the said Earl behaved himself quite uncourteously to us, and also suffered his friends to do in like manner; and entirely, since that time, he and they have done perverse to our displeasure. In special, these three years past, having no consideration to our person, honour, nor weal, but always putting all in gueppart [jeopardy] which were piteous and great marvel to report, and aitouce [twice] would not suffer our ane daughter to remain with us to our comfort, who would not have been dishrest [distressed], she being with us.2

  Norham Castle, although so well defended, was not a safe haven for long. During the hard won peace, Henry’s warden, Lord Dacre, did not want to upset the good relationship by helping fugit
ives from Scotland who were technically rebels to the king’s dearest nephew, the King of Scotland. Told by the governor that they must leave, Margaret and the women with her, who included it seems a governess called Isobal Hopper, became vagrants once more. Moving from one house or castle to another, wherever they could find a roof above their heads, and perhaps sometimes where they could not, they were homeless while fighting continued on the Borders between the families involved in feuds.

  Nothing more is known of Margaret until a year later, when her father took her to Sir Thomas Strangeways, the Captain of Berwick. By this time her clothes were nothing but rags. Those of the Douglas ladies who were with her were likewise so threadbare that Captain Strangeways took them in out of pity, on the promise made by her father that he would pay for their keep. Another main reason for doing so was that Margaret herself told him that she was Cardinal Wolsey’s godchild, and as a young man Strangeways had been employed in Wolsey’s household.

  Sir Thomas, much perplexed by the sudden influx of women, sent the Carlisle herald to Wolsey to tell him what had occurred. Wolsey, who himself was facing a crisis in his refusal to condole the king’s divorce from Queen Catherine, replied by the herald telling him to retain his guest as was consistent with her comfort. Three months passed, and with no word of Margaret and her household of several women and a man being moved, Strangeways wrote again to the Cardinal.

  Dating his letter ‘From Berwick, the 26th July 1529’, he asked if he could give her more liberty, having been warned by her father that unless he took good care of her ‘she might be stolen and withdrawn into Scotland’. Nonetheless, despite these restrictions, ‘she was never merrier and more pleased and content than she is now, as she ofttimes repeats’. Howsoever, along with her servants and several visitors, not to mention her father, she had now been with him for all of three months and he had not, as had been promised, been paid.3