King Henry VIII & Margaret Tudor

Thistle and Rose

Margaret Tudor was the older of Henry VIII's two sisters who lived past early childhood. Little is known of their relationship as children, save that it ended in 1503, when Margaret was fourteen and Henry was twelve. Margaret was sent off to marry King James IV of Scotland, then 30 years old, more than twice his teen bride's age.

The objective, as with most royal marriages, was to forge an alliance, in this case between traditional rivals. The alliance was hailed as perpetual, and a Scottish court poet celebrated the marriage of "The Thistle and the Rose," the thistle being the emblem of Scotland and the rose the badge of the English Tudors.

Six years later, in 1509, Margaret's brother Henry VIII became king of England. Although Henry and King James of Scotland were brothers-in-law, the Perpetual Alliance soon grew shaky. Henry went to war with France in 1512 in hope of regaining the glory of earlier English kings like Edward III and Henry V. James, who till now had been one of Scotland's most successful monarchs, did not side with his brother-in-law or even make the wise choice of neutrality. Instead he chose to honor the the traditional "auld alliance" between Scotland and France. He invaded England and was killed with much of his army at the disastrous battle of Flodden Field in 1513.

This left Henry's sister Margaret as regent of Scotland, ruling the country on behalf of her infant son, King James V. Scotland was hard for anyone to govern, but Margaret was making a successful job of it till she got in trouble over her love life - foreshadowing the far worse trouble that her granddaughter, Mary Queen of Scots, would get into over her own ill-fated affairs. Margaret fell in love with Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, described by his own uncle as a "young witless fool." In 1514 she married him but then fell out of love. By 1518 she wanted a divorce, and wrote brother Henry VIII for help.

Henry did not approve of divorce - Anne Boleyn would not come into his life for several years yet - but even after Anne did come into his life Henry still lectured his sister. When Margaret finally got her divorce, in 1527, Henry was furious with her, calling the papal annulment "a shameful sentence." He was busily pushing for his own divorce at the same time, but hypocrisy was never a problem for him. Since Margaret was safely out of Henry's reach, though, he wasn't much of a problem for her.

Margaret went on to seek a divorce from her third husband, Henry Stewart, but was later reconciled to him. She and brother Henry VIII were also reconciled. In 1536 she sought a summit meeting between Henry and her son James V of Scotland, but after spending heavily to arrange it, factional quarrels in Scotland kept it from coming about. Five years later she died, having had half as many husbands as brother Henry had wives.