When sitting down to write a book about a well-known historical figure you have to be sure of your subject. My latest book The Forgotten Tudor Royal focuses on the life of a lesser-known member of the Tudor royal family, Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox. Not many will have heard of her and to be perfectly honest I didn’t know too much about Henry VIII’s favourite niece when I began my research but I just knew she was a woman with a story to tell.
My writing mainly focuses on ‘forgotten’ women from history, my first was on the life of a local suffragette called Edith Rigby and the second was about Ada Lovelace, both women who lived remarkable lives and for me Margaret falls into this category.
Margaret was the daughter of Margaret Tudor and Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. The marriage was turbulent and didn’t last long. When her parents finally divorced Margaret was sent by her father to the English court to be raised by Henry VIII. Whilst she was there she spent time with her Tudor cousins and forged a close friendship with the Lady Mary, both girls understood the heartache of seeing their parents marriage fall apart. Margaret came across as loving and a pillar of support to her cousin who was devastated at what her father was doing to her beloved mother Katherine of Aragon.
As Margaret grew she became a favourite at court and when Anne Boleyn became queen she joined her household as lady-in-waiting. It was here that she met and fell in love with Thomas Howard. They became engaged without the kings approval, when he found out he arrested them both and sent them to the Tower of London. Henry relented and released her to Syon Abbey but Margaret’s reckless ways nearly cost her her head.
It wouldn’t be the last time she would see the inside of a cell in the Tower, when her son Lord Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots she took the brunt of the punishment from Elizabeth I and re-entered the Tower. Margaret was only released when news reached England that Darnley had been murdered, a death that tore Margaret apart. She was an ambitious mother and it was her dream to see the thrones of England and Scotland united, a dream that would not be realised in 1603 when her grandson James VI became James I of England, sadly she didn’t live to see this.
What I found about Margaret during the writing of this book was a true Tudor woman. She had the fiery red hair and the temperament to go with it. She worked tirelessly to advance her children and cared little for the consequences, she would be back in the tower again when she negotiated a secret marriage for her younger son Charles with Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of Bess of Hardwick. Margaret knew she was going to anger Elizabeth but she has escaped lifelong imprisonment or execution so far so she chanced her luck.
You could say Margaret was reckless and I think in her younger years she was but as a wife and mother she knew no bounds. Her marriage with Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox was a loving and strong marriage. They laughed together but grieved together, they lost six of their 8 children and the two that survived died in their early twenties. She outlived her family and most of her friends but she was a strong woman and cared for her granddaughter Arbella until her death in 1578 aged 62. Queen Elizabeth was no fan of her cousin, they had never been close, but she gave her a state funeral at Westminster Abbey and I think this shows us just how well thought of Margaret was.
Why her story fell away into the historical doldrums I don’t know, maybe it is because she kept her head and died peacefully in her own bed but I hope that by reading the book people will appreciate Margaret Douglas and her role, which was central, she had within the Tudor court.
Beverley Adams
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