Margaret Douglas

by Mary McGrigor

  It was only as he bowed before her that Leicester became aware of another presence in the room. A little girl was sitting on the floor by the fireplace, playing with a small dog. She looked up laughing, totally nonplussed by this magnificent stranger, who for his part recognised the likeness both to her now dead father and to the grandmother standing before him who had been such a beauty in her day.

  It is probable that Leicester came to talk to Margaret about money, sent by Queen Elizabeth, who told of her cousin’s destitution at least viewed her situation with concern. All that is known is that he dined with her, and presumably her daughter-in-law, the widowed Elizabeth, perhaps off one of the scraggy chickens that wandered about the place. They were waited on by the man called Fowler who had long been in her employ, though probably now without wages.

  Leicester said farewell to Margaret and rode off, leaving her with her little granddaughter, apparently in good health. The two of them, old Fowler behind them, probably standing in the doorway to see him mount, before doffing his velvet cap from the saddle. Then, with his mounted attendants following, he put spurs to his horse and rode away.

  Margaret had shown no sign of illness other than the stiffness of her joints, and yet that very night, suddenly and mysteriously, she died. She was sixty-two, an age which in those days was considered to be old.

  Inevitably, the suddenness of her death resulted in talk of poison. Suspicion at once fell on Leicester.

  According to a common news or scandalmonger, the death of the Countess of Lennox was laid, by popular report, on the Earl of Leicester, who was considered to be so able a poisoner that, if he invited people to dine with him, or invited himself to dine with them, and any one of them died within a month after, he bore the blame of putting a pinch of poison into their food. He had the imputation of poisoning Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, having invited him to dinner, and powdered a salad with poison; likewise of poisoning the Earl of Essex and M. de Simmiers. He visited the Countess of Lennox at Hackney, and as soon as he was gone she fell into a colic that killed her; and she and all her servants near her were fully of opinion that my Lord Leicester, being there, had procured her dispatch.1

  So did Leicester kill Margaret as was commonly supposed? Certainly he was known to have disposed of others, including his wife. But if he did kill Margaret by slipping something into her food or drink, what would have been the purpose? How would he, or Queen Elizabeth for that matter, have benefitted from the death of an impecunious, aged lady, whose only possible threat to them could have been that, as a Catholic, she might have been exploited by zealots opposed to religious reform; it seems more likely, in view of the fact that in her letter to Cecil written ten years previously, on 27 January 1558, she had complained of her ‘old colic’, that she died of some internal complaint. Ironically, it was Queen Elizabeth, with whom she had been at odds for so many years of her life, who, told by Leicester of her destitution, paid for a funeral entirely fitting to a queen. The vault in which Charles Lennox had recently been interred was reopened and Margaret was buried beside him.

  Margaret lies in Westminster Abbey, where twenty-five years after her death, an altar tomb was erected by her grandson, then James I of England. Her alabaster effigy, showing her hands raised in prayer, is painted in polychrome and adorned with a golden coronet. Inscribed are details of her lineage, proving her close relationship to the Crown. On the sides of the tomb, her sons kneel as weepers, wearing the full jointed armour of the time. Henry, in ermine lined doublet, has a crown above his head denoting his royal status, while beneath him details of his brief kingship and tragic death are inscribed. On the right-hand side of the foot of the tomb Margaret’s lineage is detailed.

  This ladye had to her great-grandfather King Edward 4, to her grandfather King Henry 7, to her uncle King Henry 8, to her cousin-german King Edward 6, to her brother King James of Scotland the 5, to her grandchild King James 6. Having to her great-grandmother and grandmother two queens, both named Elizabeth [Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York] to her mother Margaret, Queen of Scots, to her aunt Mary ye Frenche Queen, to her cousin-germanes Mary and Elizabeth, Queens of England.

  On his accession, King James had the bodies of both his parents reinterred. His mother, Mary Queen of Scots, originally buried in Peterborough Cathedral, was removed to Westminster Abbey. Likewise the body of his father, hastily buried in the Royal Chapel at Holyrood following his murder, was laid in the family vault in Westminster Abbey, as is proved by the main inscription on Margaret’s tomb which reads:

  Here lyeth the noble ladye Margaret, Countess of Lennox, daughter and sole heir of Archibald Earl of Anguyse, by Margaret Queen of Scotland (her that was eldest daughter to Henry 7th), who beare unto Matthew, Earl of Levenox, her husband, 4 sonnes and 4 daughters. Henry, second sonne to this lady, and father to James IV, now King. This Henry was murdered at the age of 21 years, and is here entombed.

  Note

  1 Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, quoting Philipp’s Commemoration, p.398

  49

  DISPUTED INHERITANCE

  Margaret died in such poverty that she had virtually nothing to leave. Only the few jewels which had not been either sold or pawned were bequeathed to her little granddaughter, Arbella, when she reached 14. In the event of her dying before that, they were to go to her other grandchild King James VI of Scotland. It would seem that Margaret had sent some jewels to her grandson already, described in the Royal Wardrobe Inventories of his reign.

  Received fra my lady Countess of Lennox ane chain of red and enamelled gold, made with little pillars, set with pearls; ane little torquoise; the number of the pearls is fourscore eighteen, and of the cannons of gold twenty-two, and of the little knobs between them twenty-two and enamelled with red, with a tablet and a great pearl hanging thereat, set with diamonds, containing of them twenty-five pieces.

  Mair, received of the same lady, a hawk glove set with twelve rubies, and seven garnets, and fifty–two great pearls, and the rest set over with small pearls.

  Received also from her ladyship ane ring, set with ane pointed diamond.

  Item, another ring, having four sparkles of rubies and a diamond.

  Margaret had made Thomas Fowler, the servant and sometimes messenger whom she obviously trusted implicitly, the only executor of her will. From her prison, in the autumn of 1579, Mary Queen of Scots, in her own hand, sent him a warrant authorising him to give the jewels left to Arbella to Bess of Hardwick.

  Be it known that we, Mary, by the grace of God queen of Scotland, do will and require Thomas Fowler, sole executor to our dearest mother-in-law and aunt … to deliver into the hands of our right beloved cousin Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, all and every such jewel.1

  Queen Mary’s instructions were totally ignored. Thomas Fowler, apparently on the order of King James, instead travelled to Scotland where he claimed he was set upon and robbed. However, as the jewels eventually came into the king’s possession, his story may have been an invention to pacify Lady Shrewsbury, indignant as she must have been at her granddaughter being robbed of her rights.

  The twenty items in all included ‘a jewel set with a fair table diamond, a table ruby and an emerald with a fair great pearl … a clock set in crystal with a wolf of gold upon it … buttons of rock rubies to set on a gown’.2

  Deprived as she was of her granddaughter’s jewels, Lady Shrewsbury used her influence with Queen Elizabeth to make certain that both her widowed daughter Elizabeth and Arbella, her granddaughter, were given pensions; Elizabeth’s amounted to £400 annually, while Arbella had only half that sum.

  By the autumn of 1578, six months after her grandmother Margaret Lennox had died, Arbella was living with Lady Shrewsbury.3 Writing to Sir Francis Walsingham from Sheffield, whither she must have gone to supervise the care of Queen Mary, Bess told him that she had ‘left my little Arbel at Chatsworth’.

  Three years later, in 1581, when Arbella was 7, she spent Christmas at
Sheffield with both her widowed mother, Elizabeth, and Bess, her grandmother. But twelve days later, as the Twelfth Night celebrations were taking place, Elizabeth suddenly collapsed with an undiagnosed illness. Six weeks later, knowing she was dying, she made her will. Bess, her mother, who was with her, testified that ‘she did most earnestly sundry times recommend to her Majesty’s great goodness and favour that poor infant her only care’.4

  Elizabeth died, after only seven weeks of illness, on 21 January 1582.* Having left requests to Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Burghley, Sir Francis Walsingham and Lord Leicester, then the most powerful men at court, to show favour to her ‘small orphan’, she left Arbella to her mother’s custody.

  Arbella grew up tied to the apron strings of her formidable grandmother as with ropes of steel. As next in line to her first cousin King James of Scotland, she was used as a political pawn. Several husbands were suggested for her, including Queen Elizabeth’s favourite, the Earl of Essex, stepson of the Earl of Leicester, a notorious womaniser who ended his life on the block. An attempt to escape from Hardwick ended in failure; it was only when Queen Elizabeth was dying, in the early spring of 1603, as dissident Roman Catholics tried to kidnap her with the aim of making her queen, that at last she was moved from Hardwick to a house in Kent.

  From that time onwards Arbella did have some life of her own. Summoned to the court of King James, she became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne. But her troubles were far from over as, almost immediately, Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to raise a rebellion and make her queen. Convicted of treachery, Queen Elizabeth’s great adventurer was to spend the next twelve years in the Tower before being released to search again for the fabled land of El Dorado. Failing, he was executed on the old charge of having tried to make Arbella queen. Cleared of all suspicion, in this instance Arbella herself was mercifully spared punishment.

  Arbella was already 35 when, without the king’s permission, she secretly married William Seymour, grandson of the Earl of Hertford.

  James was furious and put William into the Tower while ordering Arbella’s house arrest. Both managed to escape, and Arbella even got as far as the French coast before being forcibly taken aboard a warship sent in pursuit. Imprisoned in the Tower, she died there in 1615, by then reputedly insane.

  So ended the sad and unproductive life of a girl who, like her Scottish grandmother, had she been more fortunate could have been queen of the two countries, united in 1603.

  Arbella Stuart, or Seymour to use her married name, although rumoured to have had a child, did not leave any known descendants. King James VI of Scotland and I of England, on the other hand, is the ancestor of the house of Windsor. Therefore it is through him that the genes of the courageous, formidable and once famously beautiful Margaret Douglas, the grandmother whom he never met, continue in the lineage of the British royal family of today.

  Notes

  * Gregorian Calendar.

  1 Gristwood, S., Arbella, England’s Lost Queen, p.30

  2 Ibid.

  3 Ibid.

  4 Ibid., p.31

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Manuscript Sources, British Library and Museum

  Black Letter Tract, British Museum (London, John Charlewood, 1678)

  Forbes Papers, Public Record Office SP/1223 MNo.14; deposition of William Forbes

  Haynes Burghley Papers, 1562. A Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in the reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, left by William, Lord Cecil

  Historical Letters, edited by Sir Henry Ellis, 2nd series, Vol. II, The British Museum (Harding, Triphook and Lepard, 1824)

  Philips, J., A Commemoration of the Lady Margrit Douglasis Good Grace (London, John Charlewood, printer to the Earl of Arundel, 1578)

  Sadler’s State Papers, The State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, Knight-Bankeret. Edited by Arthur Clifford Esq. (Edinburgh, Archibald Constable and Co., 1802)

  State Papers, Vol.V (published by royal commission)

  State Papers, Vols IV and V (printed by commission, Scottish Correspondence)

  Statutes of the Realm, Vol.III

  Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary. Afterwards Queen Mary – A Memoir of the Princess and Notes by Frederick Madden Esq. F.S.A., assistant keeper of the mss. in the British Museum (London, William Pickering, MCXXXiii)

  The Cotton MS. Manuscripts collected by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton (1571–1631), British Museum Library

  Unpublished Pieces and Documents relating to the History of Scotland, Harleian Manuscript, British Museum (printed for the Bannatyne Committee)

  Secondary Sources

  Ashdown, D.M., Tudor Cousins, Rivals for the Throne (Sutton Publishing Ltd., 2000)

  Bingham, C., Darnley: A Life of Henry Stuart Lord Darnley Consort of Mary Queen of Scots (London, Constable, 1995)

  Bingham, C., The Making of a King: The Early Years of James VI and I, (Collins, London, 1968)

  Campbell, A., A History of the Clan Campbell: From the Battle of Flodden to the Restoration Vol 2: From Flodden to the Restoration (Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2002)

  Chalmers, G., Mary Queen of Scots, founded on manuscript by Whitaker, J., Manchester historian (London, J. Murray, 1818)

  Denny, J., Anne Boleyn (London, Portrait, an imprint of Piatcus Books Ltd., 2004)

  Duncan, A.A.M., Scotland the making of the Kingdom, The Edinburgh History of Scotland, Vol.I (Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1975)

  Encyclopaedia Britanica, 11th ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1911)

  Fraser, Lady A., The Six Wives of Henry VIII (London, George Weidenfield and Nicolson Ltd., 1992)

  Gristwood, S., Arbella, England’s Lost Queen (London, Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers, 2003)

  Guy, J., My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (London, Fourth Estate, 2004)

  Lodge, Sir E., Illustrations of English History, Vol.I, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911)

  Lovell, M.S., Bess of Hardwick (London, Little Brown, 2005)

  Sir James of Hallhill, The Memoirs of Melville, edited by Donaldson, G. (The Folio Society Ltd, 1969)

  Myers, A.R., England in the Later Middle Ages ( London, Penguin Books, 1952)

  Nicholson, R., The Edinburgh History of Scotland: The Later Middle Ages, V.2 (London, Penguin Oliver & Boyd, 1974)

  Robertson, W., A Critical Dissertation Concerning the Murder of King Henry, History of Scotland, Vol.2 (Cambridge University Press, 1990)

  Spottiswood’s Ecclesiastical History (Edinburgh, The Spottiswood Society, 1845)

  Strickland, A., Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, Vol.I (Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood & Sons, 1850)

  Strickland, A., Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses, Vol.II (Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood & Sons, 1850)

  Zurich Letters, second series (pub. for Parker Society by Cambridge University Press, 1842)

  PLATES

  1. Henry VIII – after Hans Holbein the Younger. (National Portrait Gallery)

  2. George Douglas, 1st Earl of Morton. (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

  3. Henry Darnley at the age of 9, by Hans Eworth. (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

  4. James VI of Scotland and I of England as a child. (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

  5. Queen Elizabeth I, by an unknown continental artist. (National Portrait Gallery)

  6. Mary I, by an unknown artist. (National Portrait Gallery)

  7. Lord Darnley and his brother Lord Charles Stuart. (Royal Collection, by kind permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)

  8. Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox – English School of Portrait Painting in the eighteenth century. (Bridgeman Art Library)

  9. The Darnley or Lennox Jewel. (The Darnley Jewel, from ‘Historical Notes on the Lennox or Darnley Jewel, the Property of the Queen’, by Patrick Fraser Tytler (1791–1849), published 1843)

  10. Edinburgh Castle. (© Roy Summers)

  1
1. Engraving of Lady Margaret Douglas, 1795. (Bridgeman Art Library)

  12. Lady Margaret Douglas painted by Sarah Countess of Essex. (Courtesy of National Galleries, Scotland)

  13. Linlithgow Palace. (© Roy Summers)

  14. Mary Queen of Scots. (© Roy Summers)

  15. Stirling Castle. (© Roy Summers)

  16. Tantallon Castle. (© Roy Summers)

  17. Temple Newsam House. (Bridgeman Art Library)

  18. View of Temple Newsam House around 1750 (oil on canvas) by James Chapman (Fl. 1750). (Bridgeman Art Library)

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in 2015

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port

  Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG