Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Margaret Tudor, the Dowager Queen of Scotland, and her second husband, Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus. Margaret Douglas was the half-sister of James V of Scotland and the granddaughter of Henry VII of England. She was born in October 1515. Despite incurring the wrath of her uncle, King Henry VIlI twice in her adulthood, she was a beloved favourite of his.
When she was fifteen, she was appointed chief lady in waiting to her cousin, Princess Mary. They were to become very close and remain lifelong friends. Even when her father fled Scotland and came to England, Margaret never entered his custody. She remained in the royal household of her uncle. Three years later, she was sent to court to become one of Anne Boleyn’s ladies. It was at court that she met Lord Thomas Howard, the younger half-brother of Thomas Howard, Duke of York. Towards the end of 1535, Thomas and Margaret had fallen in love and became secretly engaged.
When Henry learned of Margaret’s engagement to Thomas Howard, he was furious. As he had declared his daughters Mary and Elizabeth bastards, Margaret was now very high in the line of succession; an unauthourised marriage was politically outrageous, especially with near kin of the disgraced queen. Both Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret were committed to the Tower. Parliament, by an Act of Attainder, condemned Thomas to death; he was, however, spared the death penalty but fell ill and died in the tower in 1537. The Act also forbade the marriage of any member of the King’s family without his permission.
Margaret also fell ill while imprisoned, and Henry had her moved to an abbey for care and eventually pardoned her. Margaret was one of the ladies Henry chose to greet Anna of Cleves upon her arrival and to later join her household. But once again, Margaret fell afoul of her uncle, the king, when, in 1540, she had an affair with Sir Charles Howard, a brother of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard.
In 1543, Margaret was one of the few witnesses to King Henry’s final marriage to Catherine Parr at Hampton Court. Margaret and Catherine were old friends and had known each other for over twenty years.
Sometime in 1544, Margaret married the Scottish exile Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. Together, the couple had eight children: four boys: Henry, Henry, Philip, and Charles, and four unnamed daughters, though only two of the sons—Henry and Charles—survived to manhood.
During the reign of Queen Mary I, Margaret had rooms in Westminster Palace and was one of her most trusted ladies. In November 1553, the Queen told the ambassador, Simon Renard, that Margaret was best suited to succeed her to the throne. When Mary died, Margaret was the chief mourner at her funeral in December 1558.
On the accession of Queen Elizabeth I of England, Margaret left court and moved to Yorkshire. Margaret was sent to the Tower again under the rule of Elizabeth for marrying her elder son, Lord Darnley, to Mary Queen of Scots, uniting their claims to the throne. Elizabeth disapproved of this marriage and had Margaret imprisoned; she was once again released after the murder of her son. She once again angered Queen Elizabeth by marrying her younger son Charles to Elizabeth Cavendish, the stepdaughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. She was again imprisoned in the Tower but released after her son’s death.
Although she died in 1578 in great debt, Queen Elizabeth afforded her a grand funeral at her own cost. She was buried in Westminster Abbey in the same grave as her son Charles.
