by Linda Porter
4. For a fuller description of Margaret and her aims in Burgundy, see Christine Weightman, Margaret of York (2009), ch. 4. Weightman notes that Margaret also received income from estates in England and that this source of money dried up when Henry VII became king, perhaps also fuelling her resentment against the new monarch.
5. BN Fonds Espagnol 318, f. 83, cited in Ann Wroe, Perkin, a Story of Deception (2003), pp. 116–17.
6. Ferdinand and Isabella to Dr De Puebla, 20 July 1495, Cal SP Spanish, ed. G. A. Bergenroth (1862), vol. 1, p. 99.
7. Perth and Kinross District Archive, MS 78/9, cited in David Dunlop, ‘The Masked Comedian: Perkin Warbeck’s Adventures in Scotland and England from 1495 to 1497’, SHR, lxx, 2, no. 190 (October 1991), pp. 97–128.
8. The marriage of Perkin Warbeck to Katherine Gordon took place so quickly after the pretender’s arrival in Scotland that it is likely to have been arranged in advance with Perkin’s advisers, while he was still on the run in Ireland. If so, it was a bold demand and demonstrates that they still believed his cause could succeed.
9. BL MS Cotton Caligula D vi, f. 28, cited in FW Madden, ’Documents relating to Perkin Warbeck with remarks on his history’, Archeologia, vol. 27 (1838), pp. 153–210.
10. Cited in Ian Arthurson, The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy (Stroud, 1994), pp. 146–7.
11. During the summer of 1496, probably in August, Ramsay had been to see the duke of Ross in St Andrews. Henry VII had sent the duke a crossbow as a gift. The young duke had replied that ‘he intends to do your grace service and will not, for anything the king can do, come to his host against your grace.’ James IV seems to have been aware of his brother’s lack of enthusiasm for war with England, because he gave orders for him to be carefully watched while he was on campaign. Lord Bothwell (John Ramsay) to Henry VII, August(?) 1496, in H. Ellis, ed., Original Letters Illustrative of English History (1824), vol. 1, p. 23.
12. Cal SP Spanish, vol. 1, no. 210.
13. Quoted in Arthurson, The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy, pp. 166–7.
14. Cal SP Spanish, vol. 1, no. 210.
15. The Great Chronicle of London, p. 277.
Five – A Summer Wedding
1. Edmund de la Pole went on to become an aspirant to the English throne (he was a nephew of Richard III) and an annoyance to Henry VII throughout the period of the final negotiations for Margaret’s marriage.
2. Ayala to Ferdinand and Isabella, 25 July 1498, Cal SP Spanish, vol. 1, no. 210.
3. Barnes, Janet Kennedy, Royal Mistress, p. 30.
4. Cal SP Spanish, vol. 1, no. 210.
5. The treaties are printed in Latin in T. Rymer, Foedera (1816–69), vol. 12, pp. 707–803.
6. For more detail on the Borders and the working of justice in this disputed area, see Cynthia J. Neville, Violence, Custom and Law: The Anglo–Scottish Border Lands in the Later Middle Ages (1998), ch. 7.
7. Quoted in Macdougall, James IV, p. 250.
8. John Leland, Collectanea (1774), vol. 4, p. 262.
9. H. Ellis, ed., Original Letters Illustrative of English History (1824), vol. 1, p. 46.
10. Leland, Collectanea, vol. 5, pp. 373–4.
11. Cited in Okerlund, Elizabeth of York, p. 203.
12. For the accounts of Robert Lytton, keeper of Queen Margaret’s wardrobe, see Joseph Bain, ed., Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, vol. 4 (1888), appendix no. 36 and nos 1698–1700, 1705, 1715, 1716, 1720, 1721 and 1725–7.
13. The book survives at Chatsworth House. See also BL Harleian MS 6986, ff. 3–6, which has copies of the inscriptions made by Henry VII in his daughter’s prayer book.
14. Leland, Collectanea, p. 271.
15. Ibid., p. 274.
16. Ibid., p. 279.
17. The king’s second brother, John, earl of Mar, had died in March 1503, so that James, like his bride, had experienced family loss shortly before his marriage.
18. Leland, Collectanea, p. 283.
19. Ibid.
20. R. L. Mackie, King James IV of Scotland (1958), p. 119.
21. Leland, Collectanea, pp. 287–90.
22. See Leslie Macfarlane, ‘The Book of Hours of James IV and Margaret Tudor’, Innes Review, vol. 11 (1960), pp. 3–21.
23. There is a very good facsimile copy in the Manuscripts Department of the British Library, MS Facs 581/85.
24. Mackie, King James IV of Scotland, p. 110.
25. Leland, Collectanea, pp. 292–6.
26. BL MS Cotton Vespasian F XIII, f. 61b.
Six – Brothers in Arms
1. Queen Margaret’s master of the wardrobe was Piers Mannering. TA, vol. 2.
2. Barnes, Janet Kennedy, pp. 42–3, which also has the original version. I have left a few words from the Scots as I think they are perfectly comprehensible today.
3. The description of Sir James Balfour Paul, editor of the Treasurer’s Accounts, in 1901. TA, iii, xlviii–xlix.
4. Thomas Penn, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England (2011).
5. For a compelling view of the less savoury side of Elizabethan government, see John Cooper, The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Queen Elizabeth (2011).
6. Cal SP Spanish, vol. 1, no. 436.
7. D. Starkey, Henry: Virtuous Prince (2009), pp. 169–70.
8. Starkey, Henry, ch. 11 and Penn, Winter King, ch. 7.
9. The description of Dr Ranald Nicholson, in Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (1974), p. 575, quoted in Macdougall, James IV, p. 257.
10. BL MS Cotton Caligula B VI, f. 74, also printed in Ellis, Original Letters Illustrative of English History, vol. 1, pp. 64–5, where the Scots word ‘fremdly’ (strangely, or unkindly) is wrongly printed as the English ‘friendly’.
11. Julius II died shortly after pronouncing the excommunication but it was not immediately rescinded by his successor, Leo X, and was still in force when James IV declared war on England.
12. Quoted in Peter Reese, Flodden: A Scottish Tragedy (2003), p. 65.
13. L & P Henry VIII, vol. 1, no. 2157.
14. The post of Lord Admiral had originally been held by another Howard, Surrey’s daring middle son, Edward, but he had died during an ill-advised attempt to storm the French admiral’s flagship off the Brittany coast in the summer of 1513.
15. Hall’s Chronicle, p. 557.
16. Reese, Flodden, p. 122.
17. Ibid., p. 138.
Seven – Queen and Country
1. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 1, no. 2268.
2. Flodden Papers: Diplomatic Correspondence between the Courts of France and Scotland, 1507–1517, ed. Marguerite Wood (1933), p. 87.
3. R. K. Hannay, ed., ‘Acts of the Lords of the Council in Public Affairs, 1501–54: Selections from the Acta Dominorum Concilii’ (1932), vol. 1, cited in Andrea Thomas, ‘Coronation Ritual and Regalia’, in Sixteenth-Century Scotland: Essays in Honour of Michael Lynch, ed. Julian Goodare and Alasdair A. MacDonald (2008), pp. 43–67.
4. Amy Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge (2010), pp. 65–6.
5. Flodden Papers, no. 22, quoted in W. K. Emond, The Minority of King James V, 1513–1528, unpublished PhD thesis, University of St Andrews (1988), p. 6.
6. See Patricia Hill Buchanan, Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1985), p. 84.
7. Emond, The Minority of King James V, p. 19.
8. ‘Acts of the Lords of the Council in Public Affairs’, ed. R. K. Hannay (1932), p. 22, cited in Emond, The Minority of King James V, p. 28.
9. Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, ed. Mary A. E. Wood (1846), vol. 1, pp. 166–9.
10. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 2, no. 779.
11. The portcullis episode has been described by a succession of writers as taking place at Edinburgh Castle but only Stirling is mentioned in Dacre’s report of this incident and Margaret’s subsequent surrender.
12. Margaret’s younger sister, Mary, still using, as was her right, the title of Queen of France, wrote personally to Albany expr
essing her worries about the future of her Scottish nephews. The duke tried to assuage her anxiety, adding, in his own hand, ‘As to the Queen of Scots her sister, I swear I have done and will do her all the service I can.’ BL Cotton MS Caligula BII, f. 367, L&P Henry VIII, vol. 2, no. 1025.
13. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 2, no. 1350.
14. Ibid.
Eight – The Young King
1. Lady Margaret Stewart, daughter of James IV and Margaret Drummond, had married John Gordon, the Master (or heir) of the third earl of Huntly. The Master of Huntly died in 1517 and Alexander Gordon succeeded his grandfather in 1524. His wardship had been given to Queen Margaret but passed to the earl of Moray on Margaret’s estrangement from her second husband. In practice, the boy remained under the control of the earl of Angus and their mutual dislike of Angus was probably a further bond, aside from that of blood, between James V and Huntly. The earl would go on to play a prominent part in the history of sixteenth-century Scotland.
2. D. Hamer, ed., The works of Sir David Lindsay, four volumes (1931–6), vol. 1, pp. 4–5.
3. State Papers of Henry VIII, eleven volumes (1830–52), vol. 4, no. 368.
4. Ibid., no. 243.
5. Cited in Maria Perry, Sisters to the King (1998), p. 146.
6. BL Cotton MS Caligula, BVI, f. 270.
7. Princess Mary Tudor, Henry’s younger sister, married Charles Brandon, one of her brother’s companions, in secret soon after she was widowed in France. The king’s displeasure was short-lived and he made Brandon duke of Suffolk. The Suffolks’ son, Henry, earl of Lincoln, who was, with his cousin, James V, Henry VIII’s closest male heir for many years, died in 1534.
8. State Papers of Henry VIII, vol. 1, part 1, no. 1. Cited in Lucy Wooding, Henry VIII (2009), p. 93.
9. See Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy (2009), pp. 163–4.
10. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 3, no. 873. See also Linda Porter, Mary Tudor, the First Queen (2007), p. 21.
11. Cited in Robert J. Knecht, ‘The Field of Cloth of Gold’, in Charles Giry-Deloison, ed., Francois 1er et Henri VIII, deux princes de la Renaissance (1994), pp. 37–51.
12. Ibid., pp. 45–6.
13. BL Cotton MS Caligula B.1, f. 166 (L&P Henry VIII, vol. 3, no. 2038).
14. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 3, no. 2039.
15. Ibid., vol. 4, no. 835.
Nine – Uncle and Nephew
1. Both were great-grandsons of King James II through his elder daughter, Mary.
2. Emond, Minority of King James V, pp. 504–13.
3. George Buchanan, The History of Scotland, translated by J. Aikman (1827–9), vol. ii, p. 234.
4. Peter D. Anderson in the ODNB entry on the mistresses and children of James V (2004).
5. An undated note from Queen Margaret from around this time refers to her handing over of Stirling and also states that ‘the King of Scots rode privily from Edinburgh to Stirling, with five or six horse.’ L&P Henry VIII, vol. 4, no. 4532.
6. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 4, no. 4505.
7. Joseph Bain, ed., The Hamilton Papers: Letters and Papers Illustrating the Political Relations of England and Scotland in the Sixteenth Century (1890), vol. 1, nos 34 and 35.
8. See below, chapter 11.
9. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 4, no. 4535.
10. Sir Walter Scott immortalized ‘Johnie Armstrang’ in his ballad of the same name in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802) but the reality of Armstrong’s decade of terror in south-west Scotland was not romantic for the many who suffered his raids and destruction of their homes and livelihoods.
11. C. P. Hotle, Thorns and Thistles: Diplomacy between Henry VIII and James V, 1528–1542 (1996), p. 73.
12. R. B. Merriman, Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell (1902), p. 43. It is not known if the speech was ever actually delivered in the House of Commons.
13. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 7, no. 51.
14. The Complaynt of Scotlande, Early English Tract Society, extra series 17 (1872).
15. James V had two illegitimate sons christened James. Margaret Erskine’s was the younger of the two and went on to become earl of Moray in 1562. James V’s half-brother, Janet Kennedy’s son, held the title of earl of Moray until his death in 1544.
16. Albany died in June 1536. The last years of his life in France had been devoted to the interests of his niece by marriage. Catherine de Medici and Francis I, ever shrewd in such matters, made sure that Catherine, his daughter-in-law, would inherit most of Albany’s lands and that, through her, the extensive estates owned by Albany in the Auvergne would pass to the French Crown. This seems a poor recompense for his life of service and must have disadvantaged his own natural daughter, the countess of Choisy, born from a liaison with a Scottish gentlewoman.
17. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 11, p. 916.
18. Edmoud Bapst, Les Mariages de Jacques V (1889), pp. 307–8.
19. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 12, pt 1, no. 53.
20. Cited in Caroline Bingham, James V, King of Scots (1971), p. 145.
Ten – Solway Moss
1. Quoted in Andrea Thomas, Princely Majestie: the Court of James V of Scotland, 1528–1542 (2005), p. 69.
2. The thistle also formed part of the badge of the Guise family, so was doubly relevant from the time of James V’s second marriage.
3. Thomas, Princelie Majestie, p. 96. The comment was made twenty years after the death of James V and it seems unlikely that such a criticism of his singing would have been made during his lifetime.
4. Ibid., p. 134.
5. NAS, E33/1.
6. Simon Thurley, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (1993), p. 39.
7. Quoted in Robert J. Knecht, The French Renaissance Court (2008), p. 77.
8. David Loades, The Tudor Court (1992), p. 110.
9. For further information on Henry VIII’s literary pursuits, see James P. Carley, The Books of Henry VIII and his Wives (2004).
10. Jamie Cameron, James V: The Personal Rule (1998), ch. 9.
11. A. Clifford, ed., The State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler, Knight-Banneret (Edinburgh, 1809) pp. 38–9.
12. Tim Thornton, ‘Henry VIII’s progress through Yorkshire in 1541 and its implications for northern identities’, Northern History, XLVI, 2 (September 2009), pp. 231–44.
13. Hall, Chronicle, ii, p. 313, quoted in Wooding, Henry VIII, p. 247.
14. ‘The Tragedie of the Cardinall’ by Sir David Lindsay, in The Complaynt of Scotland, Early English Text Society (EETS), Extra Series, no. 17 (1872).
15. Sadler, State Papers, p. 37.
16. Hamilton Papers, p. 99.
17. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 17, no. 1033.
18. Hamilton Papers, p. 312.
Eleven – ‘Rough Wooings’ and Reformation
1. Hamilton Papers, vol. 1, no. 261.
2. John Leslie, The History of Scotland (1830), p. 157, quoted in Thomas, Princelie Majestie, p. 212.
3. Margaret H. B. Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland, David Beaton, c. 1494–1546 (1986), p. 154.
4. Ibid., pp. 156–7.
5. G. Dickinson, ed., Two Missions of Jacques de la Brosse (Scottish Historical Society, 3rd series, XXXVI (1942), pp. 9–10, quoted in Jane E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587 (2007), p. 158.
6. Alec Ryrie, The Origins of the Scottish Reformation (2006), ch. 3 and Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland, passim.
7. Hamilton Papers, vol. 1, no. 282.
8. L&P Henry VIII, vol. 18, pt 1, no. 324.
9. Ryrie, Origins of the Scottish Reformation, p. 58.
10. Blakeway, Regency in Sixteenth-Century Scotland, pp. 141–2.
11. L&P Henry VIII, 18, pt 1, no. 804.
12. Quoted in Marcus Merriman, The Rough Wooings, Mary Queen of Scots, 1542–1551 (East Linton, 2000), pp. 135–6.
13. Hamilton Papers, vol. 2, p. 326.
14. Sarah Macauley, Matthew Stewart, Fourth Earl of Lennox and the Politics of Britain, c.1543–1571. unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 2005,
p. 42.
15. Ibid., p. 49.
16. BL Additional MS 32, 654, f. 88v.
17. Quoted in Sanderson, Cardinal of Scotland, p. 227.
18. Ibid., p. 229.
19. R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron, the Reign of Francis I (1994), p. 541.
20. William Patten, The Expedicion into Scotlande of the Most Worthily Fortunate Prince Edward, Duke of Somerset, reprinted in Tudor Tracts, 1532–1558 (1903), pp. 110–11.
21. Quoted in Merriman, The Rough Wooings, p. 234.
22. See Elizabeth Bonner, ‘The Earl of Huntly and the King of France, 1548: Man for Rent’, in English Historical Review, cxx, 485 (Feb 2005), pp. 80–103.
23. APS, ii, 481–2.
24. Quoted in Merriman, Rough Wooings, p. 37.
Twelve – Daughter of France
1. Quoted in Alexander Wilkinson, Mary Queen of Scots and French Public Opinion, 1542–1600 (2004), p. 14.
2. Quoted in John Guy, My Heart Is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (2004), p. 45.
3. Marguerite Wood, ed., Foreign Correspondence with Marie de Lorraine, Queen of Scotland, from the Originals in the Balcarres Papers, 1547–1557 (1925), pp. li–liii
4. Retha M. Warnicke, Mary Queen of Scots (2006), pp. 129–30. For an interesting angle on porphyria and the health of Mary’s son, James VI and I, see T. Peters, P. Garrard, V. Ganesan and J. Stephenson, ‘The nature of King James VI/I’s medical conditions: new approaches to the diagnosis’, History of Pyschiatry 23 (3), 2012, pp. 277–90.
5. Merriman, Rough Wooings, p. 30.
6. Archives des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, Correspondance Politique Angleterre, XII, p. 204, quoted in Pamela E. Ritchie, Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548–60 (2002), p. 101.
7. J. H. Pollen, ed., Papal Negotiations with Mary Queen of Scots (Scottish History Society), 1st series, 37, 1901) pp. 427–30, quoted in Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, pp. 189–90.
