Margaret Tudor arrived in Edinburgh in August 1503, a fourteen-year-old English princess about to marry a king she had never met. Her mother had died just weeks earlier, and her father, Henry VII, had ordered her north to seal a peace treaty between two nations that had been enemies for generations. Her groom, James IV of Scotland, was thirty years old, but he was charismatic, clever, and generous. When he mounted his horse at the city gates, he ignored the stirrups and invited his young bride to ride beside him, a gesture that delighted the watching Scots and gave Margaret a brief glimpse of what her new life might hold.
Margaret was the first Tudor princess, born in 1489 to Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. Her father had taken the English throne by force, killing Richard III at Bosworth Field, and because his claim rested on conquest rather than divine right, he needed alliances with other European powers. Daughters were his currency, and Margaret was his most valuable asset. She was betrothed to James IV before she turned six.
The marriage was intended to keep the peace between England and Scotland, though many of Henry’s councillors feared it would do the opposite, giving the Scots a claim to the English throne through Margaret and her descendants. The wedding took place at Holyrood Abbey on August 8, 1503. Over the next decade, Margaret bore six children, but only one survived infancy, a boy named James. Then came the spring of 1509, when her father died.
Her younger brother became Henry VIII, and the fragile peace between England and Scotland began to crumble. Henry VIII allied himself with France’s enemies, while Scotland clung to its old friendship with France. Within a few years, Margaret’s husband and brother were on opposite sides of a war. Margaret, caught between them, supported her husband, and her enraged brother threatened to disinherit her.
In 1513, as Henry VIII prepared to invade France, James IV prepared to invade England. Margaret, pregnant and terrified, stayed at Linlithgow Palace. According to the accounts of her household, she dreamed that James fell from a great height. On September 9, 1513, the dream proved prophetic.
At the Battle of Flodden, the Scottish army was shattered, and James IV was slain alongside ten thousand of his men. His blood-stained coat was sent to Henry VIII as a trophy. Margaret, now a widow at twenty-four, was left as regent for her infant son, as the dead king’s will had stipulated, but only on the condition that she remain a widow. That condition she soon violated.
The court had little enthusiasm for a female regent, and Margaret was further burdened by being the sister of the man who had killed their king. Yet she had her own reasons for defiance. She had fallen in love with Archibald Douglas, a young nobleman whom even his own family called a witless fool. In August 1514, she married him, and she signed away her crown.
The Scottish nobility promptly demanded she surrender the regency to the Duke of Albany, a French-based nobleman who was next in line for the Scottish throne. Worse, they insisted that Margaret hand over her two sons to Albany’s care. Broken by the loss of her authority and her children, Margaret appealed to her brother for help. Henry VIII arranged her escape to England, though not out of kindness.
With Henry VIII still childless, Margaret was his heir, and he needed her to remain pliable. Margaret fled Scotland pregnant by Douglas, who had stayed behind to curry favor with Albany. She gave birth to a daughter, then learned that her youngest son, Alexander, had died before his second birthday. Grieving and furious, she accused Albany of poisoning the boy.
She spent years moving between courts, always under her brother’s watchful eye. Henry VIII needed her in Scotland, influencing her son, the future James V, to favor England. By 1517, she was back. Douglas had taken an old mistress and was living extravagantly at Margaret’s expense.
She began divorce proceedings, a slow and torturous process in the sixteenth century. Meanwhile, Douglas seized control of her property, barred her from her lands, and maneuvered his allies into control of Scotland’s government. In 1521, Margaret struck back. She joined forces with her former enemy, the Duke of Albany, and staged a coup against her own husband.
Douglas was stripped of his titles and driven from power, watching helplessly as Margaret rode into Edinburgh beside Albany. The alliance scandalized the court, and rumors flew that the queen and the duke were lovers. Margaret also discovered that her trusted friend, a nun named Isabella Hoppringle, had been spying for Henry VIII all along, selling Scottish secrets whenever tensions rose. Margaret intervened to save her friend from angry Scottish nobles, but she demanded loyalty.
The nun promised to stop, then continued spying for the English king. For years, England and Scotland drifted between war and uneasy truce. James V finally began ruling in his own right in 1524, but Margaret found herself locked in a long, bitter struggle with Douglas. She had him exiled to two different countries, threatened war to keep him out of Scotland, and still her brother insisted they reconcile.
When Margaret refused, Douglas marched on the Scottish Parliament with his men, trying to seize control from Margaret and her son. Margaret wrote to Albany, saying she would ally with him and fight England rather than take Douglas back. The letter was intercepted by Henry VIII, who gave her a sharp reprimand. Fearful of losing her brother’s support, she withdrew her words and submitted to an uneasy truce with Douglas.
In 1526, Douglas gained guardianship of the fourteen-year-old King James. He used the position to turn the boy against both Margaret and Henry VIII, effectively kidnapping the young king and refusing to let Margaret see him. Her attempts to rescue her son all failed. James V finally escaped from his stepfather’s control after three years, by his own devices.
When he was reunited with his mother, Margaret had changed. Since 1524, she had taken a new lover, a Scottish nobleman named Henry Stewart, whom she had showered with titles and made Lord Methven. She had largely withdrawn from court life; some whispered she was hiding a pregnancy out of wedlock. Desperate for a divorce, Margaret finally found a legal opening.
Douglas had been engaged to another woman when he married her, which made the marriage invalid in the eyes of the church. In 1527, her divorce was granted. Within a year, she married Lord Methven. He proved even worse than Douglas, taking a mistress and draining Margaret’s resources to support his lavish lifestyle.
Ten years after their wedding, Margaret was petitioning for yet another divorce. By this time, James V was ruling Scotland on his own, and mother and son had drifted far apart. James refused to let her divorce Methven and complained about the money she demanded from him. The real breach, though, came from Margaret herself.
She had been caught passing her son’s state secrets to Henry VIII. In 1543, she spent her remaining years petitioning her brother to return her younger daughter, Margaret Douglas, who had been raised in England and had fallen into her own scandal, landing in the Tower of London after an affair with a courtier. The younger Margaret never saw her mother again. Margaret Tudor died on October 18, 1541, after a stroke.
She had sent for her son, but James V did not reach her bedside in time. She was fifty-one years old, and by most measures her life had been a long series of bad marriages, failed political gambles, and personal betrayals. Henry VIII, horrified by his sister’s willingness to treat marriage so lightly, reportedly said that no one could live a more shameful life than Margaret. Yet Margaret Tudor had the last laugh.
Henry VIII died without grandchildren, and his dynasty died out with Elizabeth I. Margaret’s descendants, through her son James V, her granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots, and her great-grandson James VI of Scotland, inherited the English throne. Every British monarch since then descends from Margaret, the scandalous princess who lost her crown for love and was condemned by her own brother, but whose bloodline ultimately won the crown of all Britain.