Margaret Tudor

Margaret Tudor, 1489–1541, queen consort of James IV of Scotland; daughter of Henry VII of England and sister of Henry VIII. Her marriage (1503) to James was accompanied by a treaty of “perpetual peace” between Scotland and England, a peace that was ended when James invaded England in 1513 and was killed at Flodden. Margaret then became regent for her infant son, James V, but her marriage (1514) to Archibald Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, led to the loss of the regency to John Stuart, duke of Albany. Albany soon obtained custody of the king, and Margaret fled to England. She returned in 1517, during Albany's absence, and shortly thereafter she became estranged from Angus. Her favor alternated between the French party of the Hamiltons (Arran) and the English party of the Douglas's (Angus). James was proclaimed king in 1524 but was for several years virtually a prisoner of Angus. In 1527, Margaret obtained a divorce from Angus and soon married Henry Stuart, later Lord Methven. James, upon his escape from Angus (1528), joined his mother and Methven, and they were for a time his chief advisers. A plan of Margaret's for a meeting between Henry VIII and her son led James to accuse her of betrayal (1534). They were further estranged by James's refusal to allow her to divorce Methven. Margaret's descendants by James IV and by Angus were united by the marriage of Lord Darnley and Mary Queen of Scots, whose son became James I of England (James VI of Scotland.)

See M. Glenne, King Harry's Sister, Margaret Tudor (1953); A. Plowden, The House of Tudor (1982).

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