Margaret was still at Beaulieu at the time of the Duchess’ death, and summer was turning to autumn when they heard that on 7 September a daughter, not the longed for son, had been born to the king and queen.
On 1 October King Henry made the new princess his heir. Declaring his elder daughter Mary illegitimate on the excuse that his marriage to her mother had been illegal, he forbade her to call herself princess. Mary, not surprisingly, reacted with such violent fury that her father, whose temper she had inherited, sent her to live at Hertford while forbidding her to see her mother, lest the two should conspire against him.
The fact that Mary was now proclaimed illegitimate meant that Margaret Douglas, second only to the newly born Princess Elizabeth, was Henry’s nearest heir. His new queen, conscious of her position, required the attendance of the daughter of the king’s eldest sister, the Queen of Scotland, as her right. Subsequently, without delay, Margaret was summoned to court.
Then at Beaulieu there was much commotion, with Margaret’s servants running up and down the stairs, and to and fro the rooms. At last all her gowns and jewels were packed and carried downstairs to the carts and carriages in which she and her entourage would travel to London. Inevitably, she must have marvelled at the quantity and richness of possessions acquired since her arrival three years before, penniless and with hardly a decent gown to her name.
Amongst those who watched the departure of the girl whose deportment and manners had shocked everyone when she first came, was the governess she had shared with Princess Mary, as she had then been known. Dignified as ever, in black robes and an old-fashioned headdress shaped like a tent above her face, Lady Salisbury may have been sad to see Margaret – who had arrived like a tousled haired gypsy and who now was second in line to the throne – leave the protection of her care. Margaret Salisbury’s own father and brother had been executed by Henry VII for the danger of their nearness to the throne; she must have murmured a prayer for this vibrant young woman, who, despite all her warnings, still had no real knowledge of the peril that awaited her in, what to Lady Salisbury, was the cesspit of the new queen’s court.
Note
1 Denny, J., Anne Boleyn, p.175
8
SO MUCH DESTROYED BY DEATH
Margaret was certainly surprised by the personality of Queen Anne. Instead of the frivolous young woman who, through gossip and Lady Salisbury’s dire predictions, she had come to expect, she found someone who was serious and intelligent, with a very good knowledge of the political situation both at home and abroad. Anne was not only astute, she was also a fashion icon of her day. During her early years spent in France, she had learned how to dress with great style. It was she who had introduced the latest French fashions, including the entrancingly pretty headdresses of snoods bordered with pearls; one she had worn to hold back the long auburn hair, famously reaching to her waist, so long that she actually sat on it as she drove to York Place, where her wedding to the king had taken place on 25 January.
It was fortunate for Margaret that she now had some money to buy herself new gowns of satin and velvet, with the square necks cut low enough to give a provocative hint of a woman’s breasts, as were presently in vogue.
If almost stupefied at first by the magnificence of the clothes of the men and women with whom she mingled in the rooms and corridors of Greenwich Palace, Margaret was quick to recognise a subtle atmosphere of mistrust. Through the smiles, extravagant compliments and courtly gestures, her sharp mind perceived the undercurrents of jealousy and distrust. Men who bowed to each other or over a lady’s hand would slide away unobtrusively to find quiet corners in which to confer so quietly that their whispers were drowned by the rustle of taffeta and silks.
Strange as she must at first have found it, Margaret did become accustomed to the routine of the court. The queen, surprisingly, belied her former reputation put about by her enemies of using her powers of duplicity and manipulation to ensnare the king. Queen Anne, to outward eyes, was now a model of virtue and restraint. She insisted on good behaviour, telling her ladies ‘to take especiall regarde, and to omit nothing that may seem to apperteigne to honour’.1 A fervent evangelist, she insisted that all of her household should attend a religious service every day. To encourage them in the Protestant faith, she gave each of them a book of Psalms in English. Soon she was reproaching her cousin Mary Shelton for using hers as a jotter for romantic verse. Mary was only one of the many young ladies inspired by the poet Thomas Wyatt, whose own work, amongst those of his protégées, is now in the Devonshire Manuscript of the British Museum. Amongst them are verses which for their levity were first ascribed to Anne Boleyn; now, analysis of the handwriting has proved them to be by Mary Shelton and Mary Howard, both cousins of Queen Anne and also, most significantly, by Margaret Douglas.
Surprisingly, the queen, so renowned as a merciless schemer, was a devoted mother: the little princess Elizabeth was kept with her as much as possible and lay on a velvet cushion on the floor beside her throne. When told that the princess must have her own household, she begged to be allowed to keep her at court, but in this matter Henry was adamant. Protocol must be maintained. Nonetheless, he did allow that the baby princess should have a young woman in charge of her, not, as so often happened, a matriarch with rigid, old-fashioned ideas.
It was three months after her arrival at court, when the Christmas festivities were just about to begin, that Margaret Douglas was told that she was to be first lady in Princess Elizabeth’s own household at Hatfield in Hertfordshire. Taken there, away from her mother, the little princess was carried through the streets of London to show her to the people. Behind came her own household, headed by Margaret, together with a mounted escort of much of the nobility of England.
Reaching Hatfield, Margaret was soon to be informed that Princess Mary, now on her father’s orders known only as the Lady Mary, was to join her infant half-sister’s domain. Since Mary had been declared illegitimate, Margaret was now her superior in rank, but so close was their friendship that this was one of her many humiliations that Mary never resented. Margaret, for her part, was bitterly angry at the way in which Mary was treated. Allowed to keep none but a few of her own servants, she realised the full extent of her vulnerability as even the devoted Lady Salisbury, offering to serve her at her own expense, was ruthlessly told to be gone. Given only a back room, poorly furnished, in Hatfield House, Mary, eldest daughter of the King of England, was hardly more than a servant.
The new Queen Anne, devoted as she was to her own child, was bitterly jealous of her stepdaughter. The situation might have been eased had Mary acknowledged her as queen. But Mary did not. Small and thin as she was, Mary had all the stubbornness of the great figure of her father. Urged on by his new wife, Henry, although secretly admiring her spirit, so much akin to his own, tried by these means of degradation to break the defiance of this elder daughter. But Mary insisted that her mother still was queen. Still more insulting, she doggedly refused to acknowledge that he, despite an act of parliament, was head of the Church of England.
Confused and bewildered as to how to tackle Mary’s obduracy, Henry ordered Anne’s uncle and aunt, Sir John and Lady Shelton (parents of the poetess Mary), who had been put in charge of her, to try and starve her into submission. Secretly, she sent messages to her mother, whom she was not permitted to see but who somehow contrived to send her a letter, smuggled in by one of the few of her own servants whom she was allowed to keep.
When Henry visited his other daughter, the little Princess Elizabeth, Mary was locked into her room, where the windows were sealed with nails. Forbidden even to walk in the garden, she was left imprisoned at Hatfield when Princess Elizabeth, with her household, was moved to the different palaces of Hunsdon, Chelsea, Kensington and Havering Bower, both for the purpose of house cleaning and for a change of air.
Margaret, in addition to her duties as head of the princess’ household, was also in attendance on Queen Anne. With her slim form and striking colouri
ng, she quickly excited attention amongst the courtiers, most of whom, married or not, were always ready for the chance of a romance. While spurning the advances of most of them, philanderers, as she knew them to be, she was attracted by one young man with whom she shared a love of verse.
Thomas Howard was the eighth child of the Duke of Norfolk, whose sister, Elizabeth, was the mother of Anne Boleyn. Thus, although being the second son of his father’s second marriage, and therefore close to her in age, he was actually the uncle of Queen Anne, who by now was renowned for promoting her own relations at court. Having made a good match for her cousin Mary Howard to Henry’s illegitimate son, whom he had created Duke of Richmond, she now set about trying to arrange another between Margaret Douglas and her young uncle.
In the meantime King Henry, on the suggestion of the queen, sent Thomas’ elder brother, Lord William Howard, previously Princess Mary’s chamberlain, to Scotland to win the compliance of Queen Margaret to what was presumed to be her daughter’s imminent marriage. Both Margaret and Thomas were in waiting at Westminster Palace in the early months of 1536, where, although living in separate apartments, they were now committed to each other by a solemn act of betrothal; this amounted virtually to a secret marriage, which may even have taken place. At this point, King Henry, much under the influence of Anne, with whom he was still deeply in love, was acquiescent to their wish to marry.
On 11 March 1536 the king got his way: the Bill for the Dissolution of the Monasteries was passed. The money raised from this act proved to be the first reason for contention between Anne and Thomas Cromwell, with whom she had formerly been on good terms. While Anne wanted to spend the money on providing education and relief for the poor, Cromwell had other ideas for its use. Resentful of Anne’s influence, he began to formulate a scheme by which to undermine her power.
Through her close attendance upon Anne at court, Margaret was to witness how it was her independence and persistent involvement in politics, rather than any lack of sexual charm or, as has been so persistently claimed, her failure to produce a male heir, which was to prove her downfall. Anne was a passionate believer in the reformed religion and it was she who encouraged Henry to make an alliance with Guelders, Cleves and the Schmalkaldic League with the object of making the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V’s hold over the Netherlands almost untenable. Under her influence, Henry secretly financed Lübeck, a free Imperial state, but his sway in the politics of Europe diminished when the Duke of Oldenburg seized the throne of Denmark, which subsequently became allied to the Schmalkaldic League.
This was enough to make Cromwell change his mind about forming a Protestant alliance. Anne never forgave him and from this time on they became implacable enemies. Cromwell realised that she would destroy him with her hold over the king. He set about to ruin her by any possible means.
Cleverly, he began to implant suspicion into the king’s mind, insinuating that it was now being put about that he ruled only through his wife. Henry did not need much persuasion. Anne’s decisive character, shrewd remarks and ready wit which had once so intrigued him were now becoming an irritant, as Cromwell had rightly perceived.
It was on 18 April 1535 that Eustace Chapuys, the Vatican’s ambassador and spymaster, received a special invitation from Henry to meet the queen. Chapuys had never met Anne, whom he refused to acknowledge as the king’s wife and Queen of England. As predicted, he refused the summons but Cromwell, by subterfuge, arranged that he would find himself face to face with her soon afterwards. Overcome with embarrassment, the ambassador had no alternative but to bow to her in front of the whole court. Later, Chapuys had an interview with Henry, purportedly to deliver a message from his master, the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V that he was willing to liaise with him against the French; during the interview he was unwise enough to raise the subject of the treatment of Princess Mary. Henry was furious, saying the emperor should mind his own business, and reminding him that as head of the Church of England he was now no longer obedient to the Pope. Having railed against the unfortunate legate, he then turned on Cromwell saying he had acted without his authority in arranging the meeting with the Queen.
Cromwell had hoped to humble Anne, but by the public abeyance of the Pope’s ambassador and Henry’s castigation of himself, he knew she had won the first round.
Nonetheless, thanks to Cromwell’s insinuations, Henry had an uneasy mind. Not only did he perceive his wife to be a rival to his own power but, ageing and unattractive as he now knew himself to be, he began to imagine that he was being cuckolded by some of the young men with whom, through their official appointments, she was inevitably in contact at court.
Having forsworn the idea of a Protestant alliance, Cromwell then allied himself to the Seymours, who as hereditary Catholics disliked Anne for her Protestant convictions. On 3 March Edward Seymour was appointed to the Privy Chamber and forthwith contrived to draw the king’s attention to his sister Jane, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, whose docile character made her the antithesis of Anne.
The court was at Greenwich Palace for the May Day festival, when, as contestants were jousting, thundering down the lists, Queen Anne was seen to drop a handkerchief, supposedly a secret sign to a lover.
Margaret, however, did not witness this. It is known from a letter from her former governess, Margaret Bryant, to Thomas Cromwell, that she was with Princess Elizabeth at Hunsdon, near Ware in Hertfordshire, during the trial and divorce of the unfortunate queen, who was beheaded in the Tower of London on 19 May.
Eleven days later, on 30 May, the king married Jane Seymour in the Queen’s Closet, a room so called for Anne, in Whitehall Palace. Henry showed off his bride at the celebrations before they made a triumphal process down the Thames from Greenwich to the city. Guns were fired and trumpeters sounded volleys as the royal barge passed by. The Tower itself, where Anne Boleyn had been buried in the chapel less than three weeks before, was now festooned with banners, bright against the sombre walls.
On 15 June at the feast of Corpus Christi, the king rode to Westminster Abbey at the head of a procession. Behind came the pale, unobtrusive Queen Jane, who, although richly dressed and much bejewelled, could not outshine her chief lady-in-waiting, Lady Margaret Douglas, whose height and striking red hair caught the eye of most of the beholders. It was Margaret, who, as the king’s niece, now took precedence over the daughters of the wives he had beheaded and divorced. Margaret, through rite of birth, as the second lady in the land, carried the queen’s train throughout the succeeding ceremony.
Note
1 Ibid., p.210
9
‘THE FAITHFULLEST LOVER THAT EVER WAS BORN’
Although high in favour with her uncle, Margaret was only too well aware that, unpredictable as he was, her own future was jeopardised to a perilous degree. The death of Queen Anne had robbed her lover, the queen’s young uncle Thomas Boleyn, of his main support. The Boleyns and their adherents were now in disgrace. Both the princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, had been declared illegitimate and thus, until his long-awaited son was born, the Lady Margaret Douglas and her half-brother the King of Scotland remained the king’s nearest heirs.
Told that it was totally out of the question for them to marry, Thomas and Margaret waited in terror, wondering if theirs would be the next heads to fall. A month passed before the expected happened as they were arrested and taken to the Tower. The trumped-up charge against them, ridiculous as it now seems, was of ‘compassing treason against the King, for taking each other as man and wife’. Immured in separate parts of the building, they waited to hear the sentence that one or both must die.
Margaret was lodged in the part wherein lived the lieutenant of the Tower. It is known that from the window of one of the rooms allotted to her, she could look down on the site of the scaffold where the grass was still stained with the blood of Anne Boleyn. Whether this was deliberate, directly ordered by the king to frighten her, will never be known. But if so, it would be in character with a man for w
hom terror was a way of extracting both secrets and obedience from his victims, as is elsewhere proved.
Margaret most certainly had the charge against Thomas read out to her by a herald, sent by the king to the Tower.
That the Lord Thomas Howard, brother to Thomas, now Duke of Norfolk, being led and seduced by the Devil … hath lately, within the King’s own court and mansion-palace at Westminster … without the knowledge or assent of our said most dread Sovereign the King, contemptuously and traitorously contracted himself by crafty, fair and flattering words to and with the Lady Margaret Douglas, being natural daughter to the Queen of Scots, eldest sister to our said Sovereign Lord, by which it is vehemently to be suspected that the said Lord Thomas falsely, craftily, and treacherously, hath imagined and compassed – that in case our said Sovereign Lord should die without heirs of his body (which God defend) then, that the said Lord Thomas, by reason of marriage in so high a blood … should aspire by her to the imperial crown of the realm, or at the least making division for the same. By all likelihoods, having a firm hope and trust that the subjects of this realm would incline and bear affection to the said Lady Margaret Douglas, being born in this realm, and not to the King of Scots her brother, to whom this realm hath nor ever had any affection.1
A private Act of Parliament, to which Henry attached his own assent, ruled: ‘That the offence shall be judged and deemed high treason, and that Thomas Howard might be attainted of high treason, and suffer such pains and execution of death to all intents and purposes as in cases of high treason.’2
Margaret Douglas Page 5