Philippa Gregory's Blog: Philippa Gregory's News - Posts Tagged "on-this-day"

Today in 1503 my current heroine Margaret Tudor crossed the border to Scotland to become its queen. Aged just thirteen, she was the symbol of the alliance between her father Henry VII and her bridegroom James IV – a man of thirty. She had lost her mother Elizabeth of York just six months before, and now she left behind her father, grandmother and younger siblings Henry and Mary, as well as her widowed sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon. Two days later she would meet James for the first time at Dalkeith. My novel, Three Sisters, Three Queens, tells their story and is coming out next week. I hope you enjoy my descriptions of Margaret's first impressions of Scotland and its king.

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Image: Margaret Tudor Queen of Scots, detail of a family tree of King James I of England, to show his Tudor ancestry, c. 1601, via Wikimedia Commons; the covers of Three Sisters, Three Queens – red for US/CA, blue for UK/IE/AUS/NZ

I love this portrait of Margaret Tudor and James IV of Scotland, who were married in Edinburgh today in 1503. A century later in 1603, their great-grandson James VI inherited the English crown, becoming James I of England and uniting Britain's monarchies. The image dates from around then – the couple are symbolically identified with Henry VII's English arms on Margaret's skirt and James' cilice (for penance) around his waist. The young Margaret, expecting her brother the future Henry VIII to produce sons and grandsons, could not have anticipated the huge influence of her marriage on British history – though she might have hoped. This quote is from my novel Three Sisters, Three Queens, out tomorrow:

Down the stone stairs, into the bright sunshine I glide to where the great door of the neighbouring abbey is thrown open for me, and then into the abbey, which is crowded with lords and their ladies dressed in their robes, the air scented with incense, and ringing with the music of the choir. I remember walking up the aisle towards James at the top, and the blaze of gold from the reliquaries on the altar and the heat from the thousands of candles and the high vaulting of the ceiling. I remember the magnificent stone window over the altar, storeys high, blazing with colour from the stained glass – and then... I don’t remember another thing.

I think it is as grand as Arthur’s wedding. It’s not St Paul’s, of course, but I wear a gown as good as Katherine’s was on that day. The king at my side is a blaze of jewels, and he is a full king whereas Katherine married only a prince. And I am crowned.

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Image: National Library of Scotland, MS, Seaton Armorial, Acc. 9309, f. 18, early 17th century; via The National Archives

Today in 1435 Jacquetta of Luxembourg was widowed when her first husband John Duke of Bedford died. She was only about nineteen – she was probably born 600 years ago this year. She remarried a knight, Richard Woodville, in secret without her nephew the king's permission – a scandalous love match in a time when a noble lady's hand was a valuable commodity. Together she and her new husband were the parents of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, the grandparents of Elizabeth of York and Edward V, and the ancestors of every English monarch from Henry VIII onwards.

From The Lady of the Rivers, my novel of Jacquetta:

His servants come in, they make him comfortable in his bed, and then I kiss his forehead and leave him for the night. As it happens, that is the last time I see him, for he dies in his sleep that night, and so that was the last he saw of me: not a loving wife but a statue gilded by the setting sun.

They call me at about seven in the morning and I go to his room and see him, almost as I left him. He seems peacefully asleep, only the slow low tolling of the single bell in the tower of Rouen cathedral tells the household and the city that the great Lord John is dead. Then the women come to wash and lay out his body, and the master of the household starts to make the plans for his lying-in at the cathedral, the joiner orders wood and starts to make his coffin, and only Richard Woodville thinks to draw me aside, stunned and silent as I am, from all the bustle and work, and takes me back to my own rooms.



Images: Detail from the Duke of Bedford before St George, the 'Bedford Hours', British Library Add MS 18850 f.256v; the cover of The Lady of the Rivers

Margaret Tudor died today in 1541 at Methven Castle after a stroke. She was 51, and her life had been a dramatic mix of success and tragic disappointment. Her son James V was 29, and King of Scotland – a triumph that she must have feared in his minority would never happen. But he had no legitimate children – earlier that year Margaret had comforted him and his queen Mary of Guise when their two baby sons died. Her daughter Margaret Douglas she hadn't seen since the girl had been taken to England by her father in 1528. Now 26, Margaret Douglas had good prospects at her uncle Henry VIII's court – she had been returned to favour after a forbidden love affair that landed her in the Tower. Margaret Tudor's own personal life had continued to scandalise – when her third husband Henry Stewart was unfaithful she pursued a second divorce, though they later reconciled. Again she had struggled with a husband holding all her property, and had had to look to her brother for funds.

James didn't arrive to his mother's deathbed in time, but in her last words she asked him to be gracious to his loathed former stepfather Archibald Douglas Earl of Angus, saying that she asked God's mercy for having offended the earl. I found her a fascinating character to write Three Sisters, Three Queens from the point of view of – her relationships were so complex, particularly with Douglas. This quote from the novel is during her attempts to divorce him:

I wonder if James will find me much changed. I am thirty-six years old, no longer a young woman, and I am finding a few silver hairs at my temples. I pluck them out and wonder if Mary has silver among the gold yet? Sometimes I think I look as if I have had a hard life, a life of continual struggle, and then at other times I catch a glimpse of myself in a looking glass laughing and I think that I am still a beautiful woman, and if I could only marry the man that I love and see my son on the throne of Scotland then I could be a happy woman and a good wife.

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Images: Margaret Tudor by Daniel Mytens, painted c. 1620–38, Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2015 (cropped); Methven Castle, by Arthur Bruce, via Wikimedia Commons

Today in 1489 Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had their first daughter – Margaret Tudor. She would grow up to be Queen Regent of Scotland, wife of James IV (the last monarch in Britain to die in battle) and mother of James V. Her parents' and her grandmother Margaret Beaufort's dynastic hopes rested on her brother Arthur, and later on her younger brother Henry VIII, but it is her descendants who have held the English throne since 1603. The Tudor family was a difficult one to be born into; my book Three Sisters, Three Queens tells the story of Margaret's life of personal and political struggle. This quote from her birth is from The White Princess, my novel about her mother Elizabeth:

Henry is not going to waste money on celebrating the birth of a princess. He would have had a public holiday and wine flowing in the public fountains for another boy.
‘I’m not disappointed in a girl,’ he assures me as he meets me in the nursery and I find him with the precious baby in his arms. ‘We need another boy, of course, but she is the prettiest daintiest little girl that was ever born.’
I stand at his shoulder and look into her face. She is like a little rosebud, like a petal, hands like little starfish and fingernails like the tiniest shells ever washed up by a tide.
‘Margaret for my mother,’ Henry says, kissing her white-capped little head.
My cousin Maggie steps forwards to take the baby from us. ‘Margaret for you,’ I whisper to her.

Image: Miniature of Queen Margaret at prayer on f. 243v of the Prayer Book of James IV of Scotland, c.1503, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Cod. 1897 Han (http://search.obvsg.at/primo_library/..., detail from scan 500). The book was probably made for Margaret's marriage to James IV, and she later gave it to her sister Mary as a wedding present.

This letter, the last from Mary Queen of Scots to Henri III, the King of France and brother of her first husband, shows the greatness of this woman – facing her death with extraordinary courage, unflinching in the defence of her faith and her position. The modern reader sees the poignancy of her brief remark about her son.

'As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for him.'


Mary had never known her son, abandoning him and her kingdom when she fled imprisonment for sanctuary in England; but she knew that he was not being raised in her faith nor to honour her. Instead she speaks most about that faith, stressing that she is dying for it. We know that she wore a scarlet gown to her execution – the colour of Roman Catholic martyrdom, and she may have been completely sincere in her belief that she was dying for her religious beliefs.


Her cousin, rival, one-time ally and enemy Queen Elizabeth probably believed that Mary had to die because she posed a political threat to the throne. Her faith was inconvenient and made her a figurehead for the large population who kept to the old ways. But her endless conspiracies, plans for rescue and plans for escape left England in a state of constant alert from threats from Mary's former family in France, and her natural allies in Spain. Even the old noble families of England were drawn in to plans for armed rebellion against Elizabeth, and George Earl of Shrewsbury was probably in love with her, as I describe in my novel The Other Queen .


Reading this letter on the anniversary of her death we can see what a threat she was – it's a great letter that combines complaint, self-justification, and domestic requests. As a royal she would not have wanted to leave her servants unpaid and she spends more words on urging her brother in law to meet her debts than on anything else. But she is also settling a score – revealing how Elizabeth has treated her unreasonably, and even unjustly – for Mary is not Elizabeth's subject and does not come under Elizabeth's laws.


Whichever side of the Elizabeth:Mary divide your sympathies trend, this is the letter of a true heroine whose fate was foreshadowed by Elizabeth's treatment of her other heirs: the sisters of Jane Grey. I have been thinking about these women, and their royal cousins as I copy-edit The Last Tudor and I have woven into their story an awareness of this, their brave cousin.


The National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh will have this letter on public display between 10AM and 7PM tomorrow, Wednesday 8th February – the 430th anniversary of Mary’s death. The letter was last on display in 2009, making this a rare and special opportunity to see a significant piece of Scottish history.

http://www.nls.uk/news/press/2017/02/mary-queen-of-scots





The National Library of Scotland have the letter transcribed in French with an English translation available on their website.

http://digital.nls.uk/mqs/trans1.html

Image: Last Letter of Mary Queen of Scots, page 1, 1587, National Library of Scotland Manuscript Collection (NLS reference: Adv.MS.54.1.1)

Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon had their second wedding on this day in 1515. Their first wedding had taken place some months before in secret – they had married for love, something unusual for a royal princess at the time. Mary’s choice to marry for her own happiness caused a scandal and their path to marriage was not without its difficulties.

Mary’s first marriage had been to the much older King Louis of France. It lasted less than three months before he died, leaving Mary the Dowager Queen of France at eighteen years old. Her brother, Henry VIII, sent his great friend Charles Brandon to France to arrange for Mary’s return to England, with a promise from Charles that he would behave appropriately.

Mary was raised as a princess who knew that her husband would be chosen for her for political reasons. But shortly before leaving England to marry Louis, she allegedly extracted a promise from Henry that if she outlived her husband she could choose her second one herself. We don’t know for certain if Mary was already thinking of Charles Brandon, but there was an attraction between the two. Charles had been Henry’s friend and companion since they were boys, and Mary would often have been in his company.

In the immediate aftermath of Louis’ death, Mary was in a vulnerable position. She was a valuable bargaining tool not only to Henry, but to the new French king Francis. With the arrival of Charles, Mary decided to make her own choice and in early 1515 they married in secret.

This was a great risk for Charles to take, no matter how he felt about Mary. He had married a princess without the consent of the king. Knowing that her brother would be furious, Mary wrote to Henry to confess and beg for his forgiveness. She also reminded him of the promise he had made to allow her to choose her second husband. Her choice was, most assuredly, Charles.

Henry was very angry, but did eventually forgive them both – although Mary and Charles were ordered to pay huge fines in exchange for it. They returned to England, and their public wedding at Greenwich on 13th May was attended by Henry and his queen, Katherine of Aragon – showing everyone that he had given the couple his blessing.

Mary and Charles had four children – two boys and two girls. The eldest girl was Frances Brandon, who would later marry the Marquess of Dorset. Their three daughters were Jane, Katherine, and Mary – the Grey sisters. Their story will be told in my upcoming book, The Last Tudor , out on 8th August.

In my latest novel, Three Sisters, Three Queens , I imagined how Mary would tell her sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland, about her marriage to Charles in a letter. Mary, so happy and in love, would have expected Margaret to be pleased. After all, Margaret had also chosen her second husband.

‘So we are married – oh! me and Charles Brandon – married and nobody can do anything about it, and I could not be happier, I have loved him, I think, all my life. Of course everyone is completely furious with us both; but what were we to do? I could not leave my home again, and be married to a stranger. Harry promised me that my second marriage should be my choice, so why should I not hold him to it? Katherine chose in her second marriage, you did. Why not me too?’

Image: Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, attributed to Jan Gossaert, 16th century, Collection of the Duke of Bedford, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, via Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1553 a spectacular triple wedding took place at Durham Place, the London home of the Dudleys. The couples included 16-year-old Jane Grey, who was to marry Guildford Dudley. Jane’s younger sister, Katherine Grey, was paired with Henry Herbert and Guildford’s sister, the young Catherine Dudley, was matched with Henry Hastings.

These unions were arranged by the girls’ fathers to secure alliances. Guildford’s father, the ambitious John Dudley Duke of Northumberland, was one of Edward VI’s principal advisors and he appointed Jane’s father, Henry Grey, to the Privy Council. King Edward gave permission for the marriages and a few weeks later, he would improve Jane’s position in the line of succession by including her, not just her children.

On 6th July, Edward died and Northumberland moved swiftly to install his daughter-in-law on the throne and stop Princess Mary from gaining power. It was with some reluctance that Jane accepted the crown, but she did refuse to name Guildford as king – instead offering to make him a duke. In the end, it did not matter. Jane was queen for only nine days. Mary rallied her supporters and was declared queen, while Jane and Guildford were imprisoned.

Jane’s fall from grace also put pressure on her sister Katherine’s marriage to Henry Herbert. Henry’s father, keen to distance himself from the Grey family, separated the pair and applied for an annulment.

The story of Jane and her sisters Katherine and Mary is the subject of my upcoming novel, The Last Tudor , which will be out on 8th August and can be pre-ordered here: https://goo.gl/mSoshh



Images: Lady Jane Grey by unknown artist, c.1590s, National Portrait Gallery (NPG 6804); The Last Tudor covers: UK (left); US (right)

On this day in 1472 Jacquetta of Luxembourg died. She was a prominent figure throughout the Cousins’ War in the courts of both Lancaster and York, but one that is often overlooked. Through her first marriage to the Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V, she was aligned to the house of Lancaster. He died just over two years into their marriage, leaving Jacquetta, still known as the Duchess of Bedford, a very eligible widow.

As a member of the royal family Jacquetta was not allowed to marry without permission. However, she did exactly that. Her second marriage was to Richard Woodville, a squire of her first husband. They had to beg the pardon of Henry VI and pay a fine, but were eventually restored to favour and were important figures of the court. Jacquetta was only outranked at court by one other woman – and that was the queen, Margaret of Anjou, of whom Jacquetta was a personal favourite.

Her marriage to Richard Woodville was by all accounts a happy one. They raised twelve surviving children, the eldest of which was Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth’s marriage to Edward IV that caused Jacquetta and her family to switch their allegiances to the house of York. This surprise marriage, carried out in secret with only Jacquetta as a witness, caused allegations of witchcraft to be levied at the Woodville women. This was an accusation that could have very dangerous consequences for women in the 15th century, even a high-ranking woman with influence, and Jacquetta was tried for witchcraft during a time when the king was captured. Upon Edward IV’s release the case fell apart and Jacquetta was cleared of charges, but suspicions of witchcraft followed both her and her daughter during their lives.

Jacquetta’s family are said to trace their ancestry to the water goddess Melusina, and this element of magic was something I chose to weave into my books about Jacquetta and her family. However, despite her prominence she is all but absent from the records and much about her is still unknown. For my novel, The Lady of the Rivers , my research into Jacquetta was done from original documents – there had been no biography written about her. This spurred me to write a non-fiction essay about her in the book The Women of the Cousins’ War . I wanted her story to be told, and I still hope that more research will be done into this fascinating woman.

Today in 1553, Jane Grey was taken to the Tower of London and was proclaimed Queen.
The day before she had been summoned to Syon House, one of the homes of her father-in-law John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland. There, she was met by members of her family and a variety of nobles who, to her surprise, knelt before her in deference. They told her that Edward VI had died and that she was to be Queen of England.

This was a shock to Jane who would have expected that Edward’s half-sister Mary would take the crown. Jane, who was more interested in her studies than the politics of court, reluctantly accepted She would be queen for only nine days, and would never leave the Tower.

My new book, The Last Tudor , will follow the story of Jane Grey and her sisters Katherine and Mary. I imagine how Jane must have felt at this time and I am pleased to share a small extract from this scene with you. The Last Tudor will be out on 8th August, and can be pre-ordered at the following links:


UK | USA | Canada | Australia & New Zealand

"I have to put on my new gold embroidered green gown, get into the royal barge, sit on the throne under the golden canopy, and be rowed with the royal pennants flying, to the Tower, to prepare for my coronation. I have only ever been in the royal barge as a companion to my cousin, but now I sit on the central throne, and feel how the cold wind comes off the river to this exposed seat. When we come alongside the quay there are hundreds of people, all along the riverbank and inside the Tower, staring at me, and I feel ashamed to be stepping from the barge and going to the Lions’ Gate under borrowed colours."

Images: Lady Jane Grey, by Unknown artist, c.1590–1600 – NPG 6804 – © National Portrait Gallery, London. Signature of Jane Grey acting as Queen of England, July 1553, Inner Temple Library, London, via Wikimedia Commons