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Margaret Tudor: life of the week
00:45:08
Helen Newsome-Chandler charts the life of the medieval queen and mother through her letters and correspondence
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- [00:01]
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- [01:01]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
When.
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- [01:59]
Emily Brifitts
Hello and welcome to Life of the Week, where leading historians delve into the lives of some of history's most intriguing and significant figures. From ancient Egyptian pharaohs and medieval warriors to daring 20th century spies. Margaret Tudor was the daughter of a king, the sister of a king, and the wife of a king. But she was a political power player in her own right, too, carefully balancing family loyalties to both the crown of England and the crown of Scotland. She also left us an extraordinary legacy of correspondence detailing her life as a princess, queen regent and mother. I spoke to historical linguist Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler to find out more about Margaret's life from from start to end, we're going to be delving into the life of Margaret Tudor. Could you introduce us to her?
- [03:00]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
So Margaret Tudor was the eldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth York, King and Queen of England. She was born on 28 November 1489 at Westminster Palace. And when she was 13 years old, she married James IV, King of Scots, to become Queen of Scotland. And what's interesting about it is we have an unusually large collection of correspondence that charts Margaret's life from her shortly after her arrival in Scotland until just before her death in 1541. And this correspondence offers such an interesting insight into the challenges she faced as Queen of Scots, especially after her husband, James IV, was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. And it charts her marital difficulties through her subsequent marriages to Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and Henry Stuart, the first Lord of Methen. And she's just a famous, fascinating and tenacious character, and she's been very much overlooked in our understanding of British history. She's been very much overshadowed by her brother Henry viii, her niece Elizabeth and her granddaughter Mary, Queen of Scots. So she's just a really fascinating character. And such a large resource of her letters survives to offer kind of a very fascinating insight into the life of the late medieval queen and deserves a lot more attention that she hasn't really had to date.
- [04:18]
Emily Brifitts
Now, you've done a lot of research into Margaret's letters. Well, obviously they're quite special. What can they tell us about Margaret's personality, about who she was?
- [04:29]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
So what I will know is Margaret's surviving letters. There's about 240 letters in total. As part of that archive, there's 111 letters which are written in Margaret's own hand. And this is often referred to as holograph or autograph writing. I prefer holograph. And this is the largest collection of holograph correspondence written in the languages of English or Scots. So vernacular languages to survive any medieval or early modern queen to date. So it is a unprecedented archive in comparison. So for Margaret's sister, Mary Tudor Brandon, we have 38 letters. I think eight or nine of those are holograph and written in English. So she very much kind of dominates and dwarfs or the kind of letter of representation for the queens. And what's so interesting about that is they, as I've mention, are written over a 38 year period. So the first letter is written just after she marries James IV in Scotland, just in August 1503. And the final letter survives, I think it's in March 1541, so five months before she dies of a suspected stroke. And what's interesting is in these letters, Margaret is often Writing to England, asking for financial support from Henry viii, because she really struggles with receiving the regular payments of the rents from her dower lands, which is kind of pretty poor for an early modern qu. But she's also very much integral to negotiations of Anglo Scots politics and diplomacy of the period. She is kind of brandished herself as the mediator between England and Scotland and very much uses her letters to try and negotiate peace between England and Scotland. So you get an insight into the challenges that she faced as a queen, but also kind of her importance and the role and kind of power that she played in relations between England and Scotland in the period. And through those letters, this massive body of correspondence, you get a real kind of insight into her character and her personality. And very much like her tenacity, she was very adamant that she deserved respect and kudos and regular financial payments as befitting her status of Queen of Scots. And that's what's so fascinating about it. You really get a strong sense of her personality through her letters and her voice.
- [06:45]
Emily Brifitts
A real political player, then. Now we're going to be using these letters, I'm sure, as we're talking to her life and drawing upon them as a source. But if we go back to the starts of her life, how was her early life shaped by being a Tudor princess?
- [07:00]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
So you've got to think, in this period, all royal children, and especially princesses, were born with the understanding that they would play a very important diplomatic role throughout their lives, often through foreign marriages. And Louise Wilkinson actually really nicely summarises. She says that royal marriages in the late medieval and early modern period formed really important tools in a king's diplomatic armoury. So there was no better way of cementing a political allegiance than through a personal dynastic bond. So royal marriages for kings and leaders in this period were kind of one of the main ways they could secure peace and secure bonds with foreign neighbours. So Margaret's marriage prospects would have been central to her education and upbringing. And as soon as she was born, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York would have been very actively thinking about who they would marry Margaret to and what kind of unions would be most diplomatically useful and advantageous to them. So she would have been brought up understanding this and being educated with the idea of being a queen consort as soon as she was born. And that was very much kind of shaped her education, she would have been taught how to read and write in English and in French, potentially Latin, and she would have understood how to be part of ceremonies at court and different interactions. So she was very much educated and brought up with this understanding that she would one day be a queen.
- [08:25]
Emily Brifitts
What was the political significance, then of her marriage to James IV of Scotland in 1503?
- [08:32]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Scotland and England have had various different political alliances and peace treaties, and there's been more numerous royal marriages between England and Scotland through the medieval period. But there'd been quite a lot of tension between England and Scotland at the end of the 15th century. And when Henry VII became king of England in 1485, his reign was a little bit dubious. It was on very dubious lines. So he was trying very hard to establish, like, the legitimacy of his rule in the Tudor dynasty. And Margaret's marriage to James iv, King of Scots, was an inherent part of that. And negotiations of a potential marriage between James IV and Margaret began, I think, as early as June 1495. So when Margaret was six years old, they started to discuss this marriage. So it was very much, incredibly important politically for both England for the success of Henry VII's dynasty, but also for Scotland because James IV had been on the throne for 15 years as a bachelor by the time he marries Margaret. So all of the people of Scotland would be very kind of aware of the need to have an heir to the Scottish throne. So for both England and Scotland, the political significance of this marriage was huge.
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Emily Brifitts
How was her marriage to perceived at the time? Obviously, you've said it's significant, but did people think it was a good match?
- [09:55]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
I think when we look at history and especially historical marriages, we bring with them our modern conceptions of a successful marriage and, you know, a love match between people who are very much kind of aligned in their mindset and their backgrounds. And that very much was not the case for medieval marriages, especially royal marriages. It wasn't about kind of fit. It was, you know, what's the political significance of this and will it be successful in terms of will they have children? So it wasn't really kind of perceived in such a way, but culturally, there was lots of celebrations about this marriage. One of the Scots Maccas, or poets of the period, William Dunbar, wrote lots of celebrationary poetry about this union and referred to Margaret as being, I think it was our peace, our plain felicity. So there's lots of very positive feelings about this marriage, not only politically but also in terms of culture. You know, Scotland wanted an heir, so, yes, it was very well received, but not necessarily a romantic love match that we might necessarily want it to be.
- [10:59]
Emily Brifitts
What kind of queen consort was Margaret? How did she navigate life in the Scottish court?
- [11:05]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
It depends how you Want to kind of define what it means to be a successful Queen consort. I guess that's the big question. And it's a very complicated topic. Most of all, the most kind of important pressing issue was the demands that a Queen Consort produce healthy heirs for the throne. As I mentioned, this is the most kind of dominant issue and very much Margaret's marriage. Over the course of the 10 year marriage with James IV, they had six children. One of them survived to adulthood, James V, but they had lots of heirs. Margaret was very successful in terms of bearing children, even though she might not be regarded as quite successful as you might like, because they didn't all live to adulthood. We don't know lots about her time as Queen Consort. There's only a few letters that survive. There's some foreign correspondence written in Latin to people like Ferdinand of Aragon, where Margaret is kind of part of diplomatic negotiations with these foreign leaders. And she seems to be very much acting on behalf of James IV and acting with these wishes. And she's part of this kind of on the European diplomatic stage, she's very much an active member and part of these negotiations and kind of maintaining positive relations with foreign allies. On a practical level, we just don't have as much documentary evidence for her in that early period of her life during her queen consortship as we do for other queens. So, for example, like Mary of Gelders, she did lots of architectural patronage. We don't necessarily have the same evidence for Margaret. So I think she was, I guess, to some degree, a successful consort. One thing that's kind of interesting about her navigating life at the Scottish court is we have evidence in her correspondence of her adapting her language use. So in this period, there was sort of late 15th, early 16th century, we start to see lots of evidence of Scottish writers acquiring features of English in their writing. This is known as the Anglicization of Scots. And this happens for lots of different reasons. The union of the crowns with James vi, the Reformation. It's very complex sort of landscape. But the overarching pattern is that lots of Scottish writers start to acquire features of English in their writing over the 16th century. But Margaret is one of the few examples that we have of an English writer acquiring features of some Scots into her writing. And that is very significant because it tells us that she's very consciously or unconsciously acquiring features of the language of the nation of Scotland into her writing. She perceives it as being part of the Scottish identity. It's seen as being the language of the nation. So the fact that she's acquiring features of Scots into her writing shows that she is attempting to linguistically change her identity and show that she is a queen of science, Scotland. So a very complex kind of topic. But it would have been essential for her to integrate herself and to be seen as a queen of Scotland as well as an English princess. And that was part of one of the challenges of being a late medieval and early modern queen was you had to kind of fuse your identity as being from one area and moving into your marital kingdom. So I think that's something that she does to some degree with success. And you can very much see it evidenced in her writing, which is phenomenal. There's a very little evidence of any.
- [14:18]
Emily Brifitts
Other people doing it, even though we don't have much for her life at this time. I suppose these are the first inklings of the diplomatic and political role that we see her play in far more detail later on.
- [14:30]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Yes, and very much on an international stage. You know, she's part of those negotiations kind of from the onset.
- [14:36]
Emily Brifitts
So this marriage doesn't last a dreadfully long time. James, unfortunately dies at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. How did Margaret respond to this?
- [14:47]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Well, I think we should give some background to the Battle of Flodden in 1513. So James IV was killed by Henry VIII's forces, so he was killed by his brother in law's army. So, you know, difficult family tensions to say the least there. And Margaret obviously wouldn't necessarily have been too pleased, given that her brother's army were responsible for killing her husband. And lots of Scottish noblemen there was like mass and wiping out of a lot of Scottish noble people in this period. Again, we don't have a lot of documentary evidence about it. So Margaret was pregnant at the time of the Battle of Flodden, and there's rumours that she was at Linlithgow, one of her palaces, and apparently she was at the top of the Tower in Linlithgow waiting for news of James IV and the Battle of Flodden, hoping that he would return. And there was news that obviously he did not, he died. And that would have put Margaret in a very vulnerable position for, you know, she was 24 at the time, pregnant, got a young child and her husband's just been killed. And as part of the decree in James IV's will, Margaret became governing regent of Scotland. So she was required to rule on behalf of her very young son, James V. And in that she was ruling Scotland, she was in effect, like the leader. And that would have been really Challenging for anyone, but it would have been especially challenging for a 24 year old woman because this was very much a period where women were regarded with suspicion and there was a lot of kind of intolerance to women being in positions of power. She would have gone from receiving news about the death of her husband to immediately being forced into a position of significance and power and having to rule on behalf of young James V and kind of get the government in order. So it must have been very difficult, but I don't think she'd have had much time to really think about it. She'd have been straight into action, kind of having to perform very complex and difficult roles. There is actually an interesting letter that survives from Margaret sent her Catherine of Aragon in November 1513. And in it she thanks Catherine of Aragon for sending a chaplain to comfort her. And she says, you know, thanks for your compassion and your condolence in the adversity that I face. So she's writing about the challenges that she faces, but was in a nice personal diary where she kind of opens up her heart. But it must have been a very difficult and challenging time for her for so many different reasons.
- [17:10]
Emily Brifitts
Sounds incredibly tough now. She then almost, I think it's a year later, gets remarried. How did that affect her authority, her reputation?
- [17:20]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
There was a clause, or so it said, that there was a clause in James IV's will that Margaret could remain regent on the condition that she remained a widow. So as soon as she decided to marry Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, who was another Scottish nobleman, she renounced that right. And she was swiftly replaced by another regent, John Stuart, Duke of Albany. The Scottish nobleman sort of saw this as an opportunity to replace Margaret. You can see this marriage from lots of different perspectives and it's regarded very negatively because Marian, Archibald, Douglas and the Earl of Angus removed her from this position of regent. She was very adamant throughout her life that she wanted to be reinstated in this position. However, in. You've got to imagine for a 24, 25 year old queen with two young children, what would often happen after a queen was widowed is that there'd be discussion with her relatives about whether she would marry another foreign monarch. So Henry VIII, shortly after James IV's death, was talking about whether he could marry Margaret or someone else. And he tried to do the same with his younger sister, Mary Tudor Brandon, after her first husband, Louis xii died. And she very quickly married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suff, to force Henry VIII's hand, because there was absolutely no way Mary Tudor Brandon was being sold off and married off to another foreign monarch. And you've got to think for Margaret in this position, she's got two young children, she's lived in Scotland for 10 years, there's absolutely no way she's going to want to be married off to another foreign monarch. She's not going to want to completely uproot her life. Her life is in Scotland and by marrying another Scottish nobleman, that kind of establishes and secures her position in Scotland. So in a practical sense, it's great that she forms an allegiance with a very powerful Scottish noble family and, you know, she would want that support being a young woman in such a position of power. However, the downside of that is that because she chose to marry Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, and kind of usurp Henry VIII's efforts to try and marry her off to another foreign king, you know, she kind of escaped one fate, but as a result she lost the Regency. So it's a very kind of difficult situation that she was in and I don't think that's necessarily represented in stories of the period. So it's really difficult. I mean, it lost to the Regency and she had a very difficult marriage with the Earl of Angus. She actually got a divorce from him in 1528. So it very much affected her authority and reputation. But it's not just a clear cut situation of it was a bad move.
- [19:53]
Emily Brifitts
Margaret from here ends up in England, doesn't she?
- [19:57]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
So after John Stuart, Duke of Albany, arrives in Scotland, Margaret is up in arms about it. As I said, she's very tenacious. She feels like she has the right to the Regency of Scotland, even though she's married. When Albany arrives, she's not too happy about it. They seem to kind of get on for the first few months, but then Margaret sends a series of letters to England saying that she's been held against her will and she cannot see her children. And after this, she tries to make plans to flee into England, but taking her young sons with her. So James V and Alexander, Duke of Ross, who's very young at the moment, he was born posthumously after the death of James iv, but those plans failed. So Margaret at point this, this point is like eight months pregnant. And instead of taking to her lying in, she flees on horseback over the Anglo Scots border into England. I think she's at this point a bit concerned about her own safety and also very frustrated being held kind of against her will and not being able to see her sons as freely as she'd like. So she decides she's out of there over the border off into England for a little respite.
- [21:07]
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- [23:19]
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- [23:53]
Emily Brifitts
So what was life like in England for Margaret?
- [23:55]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
I think it was pretty nice, to be honest. She arrived in England, she's not seen her brother for over 10 years at this point. So there's lots of celebration, there's lots of feasts and kind of celebrating of Margaret being here. She got to be in the company of her sister, Mary Tudor Brandon and Catherine of Aragon. So there's this kind of collection of royal women in the courts. And I think Henry VIII put her up at, I think it's Baynard's Castle. So she was quite well cared for and had quite a nice kind of period there, although she did still struggle to receive the rents from her dowry. So basically to earn money, the way that Margaret supported herself financially is she was meant to receive rents from lands in Scotland as part of her dowry, but lots of the lords of Scotland just chose not to pay her. So she was often throughout her life, very much in a financially strapped, very difficult situation. So even when she's in England and she's being supported by her brother and most of her expenses are being paid for by the English court, she's not receiving any payments from Scotland. And she's writing about this and complaining because she knows she wants to have her own money, she wants to be able to bestow New Year's gifts to people and her servants. So she's not able to do that. So in some ways I think it was better than being in Scotland. But she had a lot of challenges there and they kind of travelled with her over the Scottish border. And also she was separated from her two young children. So I think there's lots of nice aspects of being in England and in the support of her family. But she was separated from James V and Alexander, Duke of Roth, although she did have her young daughter, Margaret Douglas, who was her first and only child with the Earl of Angus. So she did have her with her, but she was separated from her young children, so that must have been difficult.
- [25:39]
Emily Brifitts
Was at this point, Margaret still vying for the regency. Cause this time in England, it's actually quite a few years, isn't it?
- [25:45]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Yeah, it's about 18 months, just under two years that she was out of Scotland. She returned, I think it was in June 1517, and she fled over the border in autumn 1515, just a few months after the Duke of Albany's arrival. So as soon as Margaret left Scotland, she was vying for the Regency again. This just after she'd had her child, Margaret Douglas, literally just after her birth, she was sending letters to the Duke of Albany saying that she wanted the tutoric ship or the regency of the realm. You know, she felt that it was her right. And probably for about 10 years, until she has her young son, James V, declared kind of full ruling rights. So in theory, he's king, even though he was only 12 at the time, not in practice, not actually full fledged king for that 10, 12 years, she was constantly vying for it and she felt that she had the authority and the right to this position. And that was very much something that she was, as soon as she left Scotland, right until 1524, that she was constantly trying to negotiate and leverage.
- [26:53]
Emily Brifitts
And do her letters tell us about these political ambitions?
- [26:57]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Yes, very much so. They offer a very nuanced, detailed insight into what Margaret was doing at the time, how she was trying to persuade the lords of Scotland to support her in being the region and getting Henry VIII to again support her political ambitions. And what's interesting is that Margaret's very much being dismissed politically as being important in this period. But the fact that all of her letters from this period, which dispute the nuances of Anglo Scots politics and which talk about Margaret trying to have an influential role in them, have been preserved. So the fact that they've been preserved provides evidence to suggest that her involvement in this period in the political negotiations between England and Scotland was important.
- [27:43]
Emily Brifitts
With James V declared officially king, how did that affect his relationship with his mother going forward?
- [27:50]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
So I think, to start with, it remains quite positive. James V was very much quite close with his mother. And when Margaret negotiated this full ruling rights declaration, she was, in effect, head of the government again. And this was in place until her second husband, the Earl of Angus, returned from exile in France and sought to take the regency from her, which he was successful in doing in early 1520. And he held James V captive in his protection for three years. So their relationship during that period, I think, was still very close. She still tried very hard to get him out of the Earl of Angus's rule. She often wrote to Henry VIII asking for his help in the matter. So I think until 1528, their relationship was quite close, but he was only very young at the time. So he's like 15 when he escaped Angus's clutches and kind of started to rule very much independently and establish his own government. It's kind of difficult to evidence because there's research that's been done that suggests that James V didn't really take Margaret's input in Anglo Scots politics and diplomacy, because Margaret was very pro England and James V was very pro France, basically. So this research suggests that he kind of paid no attention to her involvement and her advice, and he took her advice in matters of decorating his castles, basically. But actually, he did call on her in December 1534 to write to Henry VIII on his behalf and discussed the details of a potential diplomatic meeting between James V and Henry viii. So Margaret was still involved in, I guess, in some ways, intricacies of James V's kind of rule and in his diplomatic relations, especially with England. And in the sort of later months of Margaret's life, James V is married for a second time and him and Marie de Guise have had two children and they both die very unexpectedly. And Margaret writes in her letters that she's there, confident, she apologizes to Henry viii, that she hasn't written for a while because she's been with James V and Mary de Guise, comforting them for the fact that they've lost their children. So I guess we don't have lots of evidence to kind of see what the nuances of the relationship was. James V must have regarded Margaret with some suspicion because of her allegiances with England and the fact that she's sister to the King of England, who James V has a very complex relationship with. But there's still evidence to suggest that they did, in some situations, have a close relationship and she was very much part of his family dynamic and was supporting them in the times when they needed her most. So a very complex relationship, but still close in some ways.
- [30:34]
Emily Brifitts
It sounds as if many of her relationships must have been quite complex, that balancing between family relations over in England, family relations in Scotland. Obviously, we've had the Battle of Flodden. How do you think she managed that balance?
- [30:48]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
I think she didn't have a choice. Basically, you know, she was a young queen whose husband had died with a young son and no kind of male relatives. She didn't have a king husband to support her in Scotland at this time. So she was forced to call upon and use her relationship with Henry VIII for influence and power because he was a king and she was in a very difficult political situation. So it's kind of a necessity. I think she might have regarded Henry VIII with some hostility for the fact that it was his army that killed her husband. But her husband did decide to go to war against England. So I think it was a very complex family dynamic. But you sort of have to negotiate it for necessity, really. You know, she couldn't really afford for her relationship with Henry VIII to break down because she needed his support in trying to persuade that the Duke of Albany to support her and the Lords of Scotland and to engineer their support through his letters and machinations, I guess. But she also wasn't afraid to kind of chastise him at certain times when he allows the Earl of Angus back into Scotland after he's been in exile in France. And Henry VIII often tries to get the Earl of Angus to work against Margaret. And she's very much active in criticizing Henry viii. You know, she's not shy to tell him off, which I think is pretty cool.
- [32:12]
Emily Brifitts
And I suppose this working against is maybe one of the reasons why their marriage is annulled, isn't it?
- [32:20]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Yeah. So the Earl of Angus, they seem to have had a couple of years of like, sort of happy marriage. But after the first couple of years, you know, he starts engaging in affairs. He starts stealing the rents of her lands. So when he's sent off in exile in France, I think she's quite pleased about it, to be honest. And she tries to secure a divorce from him, like multiple years before it actually happens. And ironically, it's actually the Duke of Albany, the Regent of Scotland, who replaces Margaret, who secures a divorce for Margaret in 1527, and she finds out in 1528. So they're a very interesting relationship in itself.
- [32:56]
Emily Brifitts
I'm very curious about that relationship. It seems very back and forth, 100%.
- [33:02]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
There's lots of kind of posturing that, you know, Margaret doesn't trust the Duke of Albany. Cause she thinks that he's going to kill her children and take the crown of Scotland for himself. But they seem to kind of do this very delicate political dance where there's times when they're working in collaboration with each other. And there's times when Margaret claims that she's, you know, she doesn't trust him. So a really complex relationship. I think in reality, they kind of respected each other and they saw the benefits that each other brought to the kind of diplomatic table, I suppose. But it was very much. You get this kind of posturing like, oh, I do not trust this person. But I wonder if on some occasions that's sort of, you know, rhetorical effect in a letter to get Henry VIII to support Margaret so that she can be in a position of in Scotland. Well, I guess we'll never know the full nature of it, but the fact that the Duke of Albany secured a divorce for Margaret from the Earl of Angus shows that, you know, especially at that period in her life, they are aligned.
- [33:57]
Emily Brifitts
Now, Margaret, very soon after the divorce, did actually get remarried, didn't she, a third time.
- [34:03]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
You would think that she would learn her lesson from the Earl of Angus, but no, she marries for a third time. She marries Henry Stuart, 1st Lord Methyn. And again, this third marriage is kind of blighted with the same issues that she experienced with the Earl of Angus. Methen seals the rents from a dowerland. She's poor, very hostile between the two of them. They have no children because it's a little bit later in life for Margaret. It's just a bad marriage all round. Both the second and third marriage, I think the third marriage is even less successful than the second marriage, to be honest.
- [34:35]
Emily Brifitts
Oh, poor Margaret. What did her later life, what did she get up to in these later years?
- [34:41]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
I guess we don't really know lots about what she's kind of up to. She's writing a lot of the time, to be honest. And complaining about being poor is essentially kind of the main narrative. As I mentioned in 1534, she's writing on behalf of James V to organise this potential diplomatic meeting with Henry viii. So that takes up a lot of her time. For a couple of years she's organising the practicalities of that kind of getting herself appropriately attired for this potential meeting, which by the way, never takes place. She also will be receiving James V's wives. So he initially marries Madeleine de Valois in 1537. So she'll be preparing for those marriages and being part of the celebrations and also being part of the life of her son and his children. But also part of it is again, the main dominant kind of narrative is she's quite poor and she's moaning about it. And she's constantly writing to Henry viii, being like, please help me, you know, I need some money. I mean, she has to write to Henry VIII upon both marriages of James V, first to Madeleine Dufalois in 1537 and then de Marie de Guise in 1538 after Madeleine de Valois dies. And she writes to Henry VIII asking that he give her some money so she can dress herself appropriately for the wedding and the reception of her daughters in laws into Scotland, because, you know, she's a queen of Scotland. This is like the highest position for a woman in this period. You know, she was meant to be this icon of power and opulence and elegance. And she knows she couldn't even dress herself appropriately to receive her daughters in law because she's too poor. So I mean, it really highlights how challenging her life was. She even complains at one point saying that she's gonna have to, if she doesn't receive any more money, she's gonna have to go join a religious house because she's just so poor. And she says in another one, she's like, I've been following my son around these past 12 weeks because I can't afford to keep my own household and I've been forced to pawn my plates and to dismiss my servants. So she was poor for an early modern queen and she was very much in a situation where she felt that she deserved better. And understandably, you know, she was an English princess and a Queen of Scotland, a Dowager queen of Scotland after the death of James iv. So she deserved to be well cared for and she wasn't. So a lot of her life is just moaning about that and I kind of understand why.
- [37:08]
Emily Brifitts
So it's not just about the frivolity and frippery of having a nice dress and having some nice jewelry. It's actually, it's a status thing, isn't it?
- [37:17]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
100%. How she was dressed was inherently linked to her status and the people around her and her possessions. And the fact that she was forced to dismiss her servants, pawn her plates and her jewels and couldn't kind of dress in the sort of the expectation that kind of was befitting her state in. It's like very much a slight to her honor and it was very kind of negative. And she regarded it as being like a slight to the honor of her family and to Henry VIII and to Henry vii. So what you look like as a medieval and early modern queen and the people that you had around you was absolutely part of your station and it was essential you kind of, you know, kept up appearances.
- [37:58]
Emily Brifitts
Do you think that Margaret was perhaps underestimated by her contemporaries and by even historians going after that?
- [38:07]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Yes, very much so. It's kind of a double edged sword really. Her contemporaries, especially Henry VIII's nobleman, very much kind of criticized Margaret and her activities and the political landscape. Margaret's criticized for her political inconstancy and the fact that she's moving between supporting different factions throughout her life, but she's not doing anything different. To all the male players in the period, Henry VIII changes political affiliation all the time. At one point he's at war with France and then after that he's like, oh, we're best friends, we're having a diplomatic summit and my sister is going to marry her. It's really kind of illuminating that women of our history are judged as being constantly changed in their kind of affiliations and as a result that means they're kind of, you know, fickle. It was Thomas Wolsey, so Henry VIII's kind of chief advisor at the time said that, you know, I do not trust threads wrought by women's fingers. So this is referring to Margaret's activities in the Scottish government. So she's kind of regarded with lots of suspicion because she's a woman in this time. But then the kind of counter to that is multiple instances during her lifetime, leaders of England and Scotland are asking her to write on behalf of each realm to negotiate peace. So they're very much regarding her as being an essential aspect of the diplomatic relations between the two countries. So they ask her to write to organize peace. And that in itself is suggesting that they do regard her to some degree as being important and influential in these negotiations. So you've got a very much kind of this two sided story. You know, there's lots of criticism of Margaret by her contemporaries, but indirectly the fact that they're calling upon her to be part of these negotiations suggests kind of the otherwise and the fact that she is important and powerful in those negotiations. And unfortunately some of those criticisms have been pervasive in later receptions for Margaret especially kind of historical reception perceptions. And I've got a couple of quotes here which absolutely highlight the kind of level of criticism that Margaret's face. So one of Margaret's early editors, Mary Ann Everett Green, recurs to Margaret as being the inconstant queen. Her first biographer, Agnes Strickland, says that Margaret had no education, scarcely any religion, and was guided entirely by her instincts, which was not of an elevated character. She's described as being capricious, unstable in her affections, vain, fickle and treacherous, politically inept. Like the historical kind of accounts from the 19th century onwards have been pretty critical of Margaret Tudor. She's very much kind of downplayed in insignificance and criticised for her political involvement and her character.
- [41:04]
Emily Brifitts
I can't believe that what quotes, gosh. Instead, if Margaret Tudor was to be remembered for one lasting impact, what would you say it should be?
- [41:16]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
I would say that kind of the lasting legacy that we should take on Margaret is actually, she was very politically important in her life and in the political and diplomatic landscape that she was part of, even though she's very much been dismissed and because of that importance, you know, I think we really have to very much re evaluate her character and the place that she and other royal women played in our political history. And through her very substantial archive of correspondence, you get this impression that Margaret was very active and tenacious and very much understood the position that she felt she should have through her correspondence in England and Scotland and in the diploma diplomatic sort of landscape that she was born into. So I think that's one thing we should really remember her for is the kind of power and position that she did hold in that period and she felt that she should hold. And she very much articulated quite lots of enthusiasm in her correspondence. So I think we should really remember her for her influence and her tenacity.
- [42:21]
Emily Brifitts
To round off her life then, this tenacity, this diplomacy, her letters, they continue writing to her final years, don't they?
- [42:29]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Yes.
- [42:30]
Emily Brifitts
So could you tell us about her final years? And when she passed away, as I.
- [42:35]
Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler
Mentioned, in her final years, she was kind of comforting her son and Marie de Guise after the death of their young children, and she was very much kind of part of the family dynamic. Again, she was complaining about being poor. Unfortunately, this is something that plagued her until the end. And she died on 18 October 1541 at Methven Castle of potentially a stroke. So she was, I think, 51 or 52 when she died. Kind of sad because James V was a full ruling king at this point. You know, she kind of moved to the margins and was more in the shadows, but she was still an active part of the family in this period. And I think that's sort of something that we should remember her for. Actually, that's sort of interesting is the fact that it's also the support that she's showing to Margaret Douglas, her daughter, with the Earl of Angus. So we don't know that much about this particular relationship, actually. It's kind of interesting. So after Margaret has Margaret Douglas In 1515, Margaret Douglas is with Margaret while she goes to England and she's in exile and she comes back to Scotland with her. But when the Earl of Angus is sent into exile in France in 1522, he's very much aware of his daughter's dynastic significance because she is the daughter of the Queen of Scotland and she's the daughter of an English princess and he steals Margaret Douglas and takes her with him. So Margaret Tudor is very much separated from Margaret Douglas for quite a long time. And even after Earl of Angus returns, Margaret Douglas is sent into England and is cared for by her godfather, Thomas Wolsey, and then goes to the English court to be in the household of Mary, future Mary I. So Henry VIII's eldest daughter. And what's interesting is that even though Margaret didn't necessarily have an active role in her, her daughter's life for much of her kind of older years, Margaret Douglas gets engaged to Lord Thomas Howard against Henry VIII's wishes and he gets very annoyed by the fact and he puts both Margaret Douglas and Thomas Howard in the Tower of London. And Margaret actually writes to Henry VIII on behalf of Margaret Douglas saying, you know, please pardon our daughter. If in doubt, send her back to Scotland. I'll look after her. Even in her later years when she, she's separated from her daughter and has very much not necessarily been an active part of her life, especially in her teenage years, she's still kind of thinking about her own writing and acting on her behalf and kind of looking out for her. And it's one of the most kind of heartwarming elements of Margaret's kind of correspondence is seeing these little snapshots of relationships that she shared with her children and how she was continuously trying to advocate for them and support them even if she separated from them. And in her later Life.
- [45:20]
Emily Brifitts
That was Dr. Helen Newsom Chandler speaking to me. Emily Brifitts. Helen is a historical linguist based at Nottingham Trent University, specialising in late medieval queens, correspondence and material culture. Her research on Margaret's letters has recently been published as part of the Royal Historic Historical Society's Camden fifth series and is titled the Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots. Thanks for listening to today's Life of the Week. Be sure to join us again next time to learn about another fascinating figure from the past.
- [46:05]
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