Margaret Douglas

by Mary McGrigor

  A balas ruby, with a diamond table cut, set over it like a glass, with several middle sized pearls pendant from the same. Another large balas ruby, and a diamond, with one great pearl – but the diamond was taken out to set in a girdle buckle. A brooch of gold with a large sapphire: a brooch of gold with a George of diamonds. A brooch of gold with a balas ruby, and the History of Susanne, painted in miniature. Likewise others with the history of David, of Noah’s flood, set around with many rubies and diamonds, and finally one with the history of our Saviour, healing the man with the palsy, which was a table diamond set in the gold embossing.2

  The evidence of the date, subscribed on Margaret’s dower lands, suggests that she had barely a fortnight to get to know her bridegroom before their marriage took place. The results of their meeting seem to have been favourable. Tall and handsome, with the exquisite manners he had learnt at the French court, Matthew was far from the ogre she had pictured in her mind. Being much the same age – Matthew, born in 1516, was just a year younger than she – they certainly made a handsome couple. Even George Buchanan, John Knox’s biographer and tutor of James VI, usually sparing with his praise, describes her as ‘a princess renowned for the beauty and comeliness of her person’ while Matthew’s ‘valour, his beauty, his lofty stature, and skill in all martial exercises had rendered him one of the most admired cavaliers in France’.3

  King Henry, evidently delighted at so successfully disposing of his niece to his own benefit, was munificent in his reward to her bridegroom who had so conveniently acceded to his will. In return for Matthew’s surrender of both Dumbarton and Rothesay castles, he gave him property in England valued at an annual rate of £1,700 sterling.

  These were the lands of Temple Newsam, near Leeds, which had recently fallen into his hands by the forfeiture of Lord D’Arcy and Meynel, one of the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Henry himself dictated the letters of naturalisation for both Matthew and his secretary, Thomas Bishop, on the 6 July 1544.

  This was the day when Margaret and Matthew were married in the chapel of St James’s Palace. The ceremony was conducted with all the pageantry and colour so dear to the Tudor heart. The women wore square-necked dresses with v-shaped waists and embroidered sleeves, the skirts spread out over panniers, called farthingales, to give a regal effect. Probably, it being summer, the materials were satin and silk. The fashion for brides to wear virginal white being not then in existence, Margaret, it is fair to imagine, wore a gown and train of the much prized cloth of gold.

  King Henry attended the wedding together with his queen, Catherine Parr, his daughter Mary and probably, as Margaret had been head of her household, the little red-haired Elizabeth. A wedding feast followed the ceremony when minstrels played and wine flowed.

  By marrying Margaret, Matthew, already in line to the Scottish throne, was now in place to the English succession, as well did her uncle know. The monarch, raising a toast to his niece, then famously and publicly declared that in the case of his own children failing to succeed him, he would be ‘right glad if heirs of Margaret’s body succeeded to the crown’.4

  The feasting over, the jollity continued as the couple, treated like royalty, were publicly put to bed. At least in this instance they were adults instead of, as happened so frequently, being hardly of consenting age. Margaret and Matthew, although still virtually strangers, found each other so conjugal that rapidly they fell in love.

  Their newfound happiness, however, was short lasting, for only a few days later, Henry, with the army withdrawn from Scotland, embarked for France. Matthew, following his orders, with the 500 men who could be spared, then took part in a naval expedition sailing to the west coast of Scotland.

  Notes

  1 Donaldson, G., The Edinburgh History of Scotland, Vol.3, p.69

  2 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, pp.238–9

  3 Ibid., p.235

  4 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, p.201

  17

  ‘EVERY DAY LIKE SUNDAY’

  On 8 August 1544 King Henry, by then in France, made Matthew Lennox his lieutenant for the north of England and for southern Scotland where an English army, under the Earl of Hertford, had already caused ruthless devastation during the summer months.

  Matthew, in the meantime, was aboard an English vessel, which was part of a naval expedition sent to harry Scotland’s west coast. On 10 August he landed at Dumbarton Castle, where, expecting to be welcomed into his own fortress, he instead nearly lost his life. He was actually in the chapel, explaining his contract with King Henry, when the captain of the castle, suddenly drawing his sword, called him a traitor and demanded his immediate surrender to the Scottish government. Matthew, astounded, barely understood the man’s words, but his secretary, Thomas Bishop, standing by his side as usual, had the presence of mind to seize a pair of pikes from the wall.

  Thrusting one into Matthew’s hands, the pair of them, their armour protecting them against the most vicious blows, fought their way out of the castle and to the boat lying against the steps below. Waiting at the ready, the oarsmen pulled out to the warship lying in deeper water off the castle rock, where, once aboard, the loaded cannons were enough to put off pursuit.

  Seizing the chance of rebellion against the governor and the council, a consortium of Highland chiefs formed a ‘rebel council’. It included the Macleans of Duart and Lochbuie; the MacLeods of Harris and Lewis; MacKinnon of Strathardle; MacNeil of Barra; MacIan of Ardnmurchan; Clanranald, chief of South Uist; and Donald Dhu MacDonald, in de factum the last Lord of the Isles.

  From the mouth of the Clyde, the fleet of galleys, carrying the Highland warriors – fierce, bearded men, armed with axes and awesome claymores – sailed south through the Brennan Sound. Guided by the jagged mountain of Goat Fell, landmark of the Island of Arran, they landed on the Hamilton’s island to raid and burn the little farming villages, plundering all they could find.

  Next, after pillaging Bute, they headed back to Argyll to continue their marauding campaign along the coast. Then, as a scout reported the approach of sails on the skyline, they put out to sea to intercept some French ships returning from an expedition from Newfoundland to France.

  Tom Bishop, sent to report these proceedings to the English king, sailed over to France where Henry had just taken Boulogne. Henry, ecstatic with his own success, reportedly received him with open arms, but, told of Matthew’s failure to take Dumbarton, he expletively expressed his anger, denouncing him as incompetent for failing to achieve an easy task.

  As all this was happening, Margaret remained at the court of Queen Catherine, made regent during Henry’s absence in France. No two women could have been more different than the last of her uncle’s wives. Whereas Catherine Howard had been plump and small, Catherine Parr was as tall as Margaret. Catherine Howard had been pretty. Catherine Parr, if not exactly ugly, was plain.

  The difference did not end with their appearance. Catherine Howard, wilful and capricious as a child, had been self-centred, whereas Henry’s new wife, childless despite two previous marriages, was a mother figure who drew his family together under her protective wing.

  ‘Her rare goodness made every day like Sunday, a thing hitherto unheard of in royal palaces,’ wrote Francis Goldsmith, her chaplain. Writing to her from France in his own hand, King Henry added the postscript, ‘Give in our name our hearty blessings to all our children.’1

  It was largely thanks to Catherine’s influence that, by special act of parliament, the illegitimacy of both Mary and Elizabeth was revoked. Mary, now again entitled princess, was to remain in her household throughout her reign as queen.

  Queen Catherine was more nurse than wife to her husband, now grossly overweight. She made many potions herself to try and heal the ulcer in his leg from which he suffered greatly. Although not a beauty, she was possessed of great elegance, the only thing that she had in common with her predecessor being that she loved dancing and beautiful c
lothes.

  On 17 February 1544 the Spanish Duke of Najera, special envoy to the Emperor Charles V, arrived at court. The king was ill but the queen and Princess Mary, to whom he was conducted by Eustace Chapuys, the Spanish ambassador to England, graciously received him. The duke’s secretary, Pedro de Gant, left an engaging description of a ball at which he was a guest.

  Catherine looked regally magnificent in a gown of rich crimson and cloth of gold with a golden girdle and a train two yards long. Round her neck she wore two crucifixes and a jewel set with magnificent diamonds while other stones sparkled in her headdress.

  After the duke had kissed the queen’s hand, she led him into another room, where he was entertained for several hours with music and much beautiful dancing. Although the queen herself was feeling unwell, she danced most beautifully with her brother, William Parr, now made Earl of Essex, the title of Thomas Cromwell, recreated by the king. All eyes then switched to watch the small dark figure of Princess Mary, in cloth of gold and purple velvet, as she partnered the tall, red-haired Lady Margaret Douglas, also beautifully attired.

  Mary, obviously in vivacious form, then paired up with some gentlemen of the court, one of whom, a Venetian, danced galliards ‘with such extraordinary activity that he seemed to have wings on his feet. As the evening drew to a close, the queen summoned a Spanish-speaking nobleman to present her gifts to the duke, then rose and offered Najera her hand to kiss. He would have kissed that of the Princess Mary but she offered her lips and so he saluted her and all the other ladies.’

  Obviously this was an evening that the Spanish secretary, for one, would never afterwards forget!

  Note

  1 Fraser, Lady A., Six Wives of Henry VIII, p.372

  18

  SADNESS UNFORESEEN

  Despite his anger with Matthew, Margaret was still in favour with her uncle; even with his preoccupation with matters of state, Henry asked frequently after the well-being of his now pregnant niece. Ironically, this most unpredictable of men, who had thrown Margaret in prison for falling in love with a man not of his choice, seems to have had genuine affection for his niece, perhaps because her height and red hair that was so very Tudor in appearance or because he recognised in her a spirit as staunch as his own. Nonetheless, even if flattered by his enquiries for her, Margaret was always aware that her true value to her uncle was that of her renewed importance as a bargaining counter in his dealings with the recalcitrant Scots.

  There is no evidence whatever that Henry, despite his avaricious nature, constrained by the rules of consanguinity, made amorous advances to Margaret himself; the fact that she remained in his fickle favour suggests that since her politically convenient marriage, arranged so adroitly by himself, he had recognised that the only daughter of his sister should be given the status due to her close proximity in line to the throne.

  This seems to have been the main reason why, either during his absence or after his return from France, King Henry allowed her to live in Stepney Palace. And it was here in February 1545 that her first child, a son whom she tactfully named after Henry, was born.

  Again Princess Mary, so much happier than before, was delighted. As her jewel inventory proves, she sent Margaret a lace of goldsmith’s work set with little sparks of diamonds and rubies and twenty-one pearls to ornament her son’s christening robe. The child was certainly born healthy, but, sadly, as happened so frequently at that time due to lack of medical knowledge, he did not survive infancy. The little boy, Henry, Lord Darnley, the first to bear that name, died when he was only 9 months old. He was buried at the end of the chancel at St Dunstan’s church in Stepney. A brass plaque with an inscription placed above the pathetic little grave was inscribed with the words:

  Here lieth Henry Stuart Lord Darnley, at the age of three quarters of a year, late son and heir to Matthew, Earl of Lennox, and the Lady Margaret his wife, which Henry deceased the twenty-eighth day of November, in the year of God 1545, whose soul Jesus pardon.

  The sorrow of his parents was intense, made more so because, having been forced by circumstances to leave him when he was only a few months old, neither was beside him when he died. Little Henry had been left at Stepney as a hostage to ensure his parent’s fealty while their fortunes were once more plunged into jeopardy. His maternal grandfather, Angus, infuriated by the destruction of Douglas graves at Jedburgh, having turned his coat to give his allegiance to Scotland, had defeated the English army at Ancrum in the same February that little Henry Darnley was born.

  King Henry planned a reprisal, intending to send an army of an estimated 36,000 men both overland and by sea to overwhelm the country he was determined to annexe to his own in a yet unprecedented show of strength.

  The Scots, aware of the threat they faced, assembled a large army within the space of under a year. The attack came in September as Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, made another devastating war of aggression on the Border lands south of Edinburgh, burning everything in his path. At the same time Matthew Lennox, joined by Highland clans, rebellious to the government, was causing yet more destruction in the islands of Bute and Arran, and on the west coast of Argyll.

  Margaret, in his absence, had been away from London when their baby died because she had gone north to Yorkshire to take control of the lands of Temple Newsam in the West Riding, granted to them by Henry in the previous year. Included in his bequest were the domains of Jerveaulx Abbey, once one of the most important churches in Yorkshire but now, since the desecration of the monasteries, merely a magnificent shell. The Cistercian monks had long vanished. The only relic of their order being the name of the last Abbot, Adam Sedbar, scratched on the wall of his cell in the Tower of London when imprisoned there for heresy in 1537.

  But at Temple Newsam, where the knights of the Order of the Temple had also long been gone, all was bustle and commotion as Margaret began setting the house, vacant since the forfeiture of the family of Lord D’Arcy, into a home once more. It was here at Temple Newsam that her second son, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, named after the elder brother who had died just three months before, was born on 7 December 1545.

  The baby, when only a few months old, was put into the care of a reliable middle-aged man named William Taylor, chosen by Margaret because of his Catholic religion, who was to stay with Henry throughout his life. Little could Taylor, when accepting his prestigious appointment, have foreseen the horrendous circumstances under which he would die for his loyalty, together with his precious charge.

  In trusting him with the care of her little son, Margaret knew that she could rely on Taylor at a time when she was fighting against the jealousy of Tom Bishop, that enigmatic man, described as her husband’s secretary, who seems to have had a hold over Matthew for reasons which are largely obscure.

  The corps of his ongoing feud with Margaret seems to have been that of religion. Margaret, a devoted Catholic, was struggling to make Matthew adhere to her creed, while Bishop, a Protestant, urged him continually to accept the reformed religion as a means of furthering his influence over the English king. Why Margaret tolerated Bishop in her household is an unexplained mystery. Presumably, having come from France with Matthew, he was an old retainer. However, in his letter to Cecil describing the fracas at Dumbarton Castle, he makes derogatory remarks about his employer, implying he showed cowardice as they fled, at Matthew’s instigation, beating off their attackers with pikes in their ungainly retreat to the sea.

  That Margaret failed to get rid of him proved nearly fatal for her. Once installed in Yorkshire where the Catholic religion prevailed, Bishop, seething with resentment at feeling himself isolated amongst enemies, became an English spy. Lurking in corners and behind tapestries covering the walls, he listened to private conversations between Margaret and Matthew; he reported what was said in letters, somehow smuggled to William Cecil, the clever young lawyer who under the protection of Edward Somerset, brother of the late Queen Jane, was able to pass on their contents to King Henry.

  Consume
d with his hatred of Margaret, Bishop wrote that she was encouraging her husband to correspond with certain of the king’s enemies in Scotland. On receiving this information Henry became, as Bishop had rightly predicted, almost insane with rage. Determined to punish her for what he saw as wilful betrayal, her uncle, now a very sick man and often confused in his mind, decided to change his will. Despite what he had said in that jovial speech at her wedding, he now demoted her in the rights of succession. By declaring that the descendants of his younger sister Mary, the Duchess of Suffolk, should supersede those of his elder sister Margaret, lately the Queen of Scotland, he robbed Margaret, the niece he had once acknowledged as the second lady in England, of her rightful place in the line of accession to his throne.

  Margaret and Matthew, knowing this and realising the danger in which they stood, can only have been greatly relieved when they heard that on 28 January 1547 Henry VIII, whose gross obesity is thought to have been the cause of his suffering from type two diabetes, had died in his Palace of Whitehall.

  19

  ‘LET A TRUMPET BE BLOWN ON THE MARCHES’

  Taking their 2-year-old son with them, the Lennoxes made their way south to make their obeisance to the young King Edward VI. The difference between the two boys was most noticeable. Despite being eight years younger than Edward, Henry Darnley was a strong child, exceptionally tall for his age. Edward, in contrast, although the son of a gigantic father, was unnaturally pale and thin.

  The Lennoxes had many good connections. Matthew was a close friend of Robert Dudley, son of the all-powerful Northumberland. He was also companion-in-arms to Edward Seymour, the former Earl of Hertford, now made Duke of Somerset, who, in the young king’s minority, had become Protector of the Realm. Yet despite knowing men of such influence, the Lennoxes, on arrival both at Hampton Court and St James’s Palace, were very coldly received.