Oil painting on canvas, of Queen Mary of Modena (1658-1718)by studio of Sir Peter Lely (Soest 1618 – London 1680). 1678. A three-quarter-length portrait, almost facing, seated with a dog at her left side, wearing a brownish-red dress and blue cloak; relief of putti, left.
December 1st 1463 saw the death of Mary of Guelders, Wife of King James II.
Mary of Guelders was born circa 1434 at Grave in the Netherlands, she was the daughter of Arnold, Duke of Guelders, and Catherine of Cleves. Catherine was a great-aunt of Henry VIII’s fourth wife Anne of Cleves.
When she was twelve years old, Mary was sent to Brussels to live at the court of her great uncle Phillip, Duke of Burgundy and his wife Isabella of Portugal, where she served as lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Burgundy’s daughter-in-law, Catherine of Valois, the daughter of Charles VII King of France.
Marie, or Mary as she became known in Scotland had been earmarked to marry Charles, Count of Maine, but her father could not pay the dowry. Negotiations for a marriage to James II in July 1447 when a Burgundian envoy went to Scotland and were concluded in September 1448. Philip promised to pay Mary’s dowry, while Isabella paid for her trousseau. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy settled a dowry of 60,000 crowns on his great-niece and Mary’s dower (given to a wife for her support in the event that she should become widowed) of 10,000 crowns was secured on lands in Strathearn, Athole, Methven, and Linlithgow.
William Crichton, Lord Chancellor of Scotland was sent to Burgundy to escort her back and they landed at Leith on June 18, 1449. Her arrival was described by Chronicler Mathieu d'Escouchy. She first visited the Isle of May and the shrine of St Adrian. Then she came to Leith and rested at the Convent of St Anthony. Both nobles and the common people came to see her as she made her way to Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh.
Marie was 15 and James 19 when the two wed on July 3rd and immediately after the marriage ceremony, Mary was dressed in purple robes and crowned Queen of Scots. Consort by Abbot Patrick.
A sumptuous banquet was given, while the Scottish king gave her several presents. The Queen during her marriage was granted several castles and the income from many lands from James, which made her independently wealthy. In May 1454, she was present at the siege of Blackness Castle and when it resulted in the victory of the king, he gave it to her as a gift. She made several donations to charity, such as when she founded a hospital just outside Edinburgh for the indigent; and to religion, such as when she benefited the Franciscan friars in Scotland. The couple had six children, the oldest James, became James III.
James II died when a cannon exploded at Roxburgh Castle on August 3rd, 1460, before his death he had ordered another castle be built for his wife who was left to oversee it’s construction as a memorial to him, Ravenscraig was still being built when Marie moved into east tower. She also founded Trinity College Kirk in Edinburgh’s Old Town in his memory, she herself died and was buried there in 1483, the old Kirk was demolished, amid protests in 1833 and Marie was interred at Holyrood Abbey.
The pics are of the Queen and their Wedding Feast by Gerard de Nevers
After his first French wife (Madeleine of Valois) died, James V planned a second marriage to cement the renewed Auld Alliance. He chose Marie de Guise - a widow with two sons from a brief but happy marriage.
While James V was negotiating for Marie’s hand he had to contend with competition from his uncle, Henry VIII of England. Henry was looking for another wife – he had divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon, beheaded his second wife Anne Boleyn, and his third wife, Jane Seymour, had died just after giving birth.
Henry’s record of failed marriages meant that Marie’s father refused him and accepted James. Marie de Guise was initially unwilling but relented when James wrote to her directly.
Marie and James had two sons who both died, and one daughter, Mary I (Mary Queen of Scots). Marie de Guise was appointed Regent in 1554, taking over from James Hamilton, 2nd Earl of Arran.
Marie de Guise was Catholic. The rise of the Scottish Protestants threatened her position. When she called on her family in France for help this was seen as proof that she was not loyal to Scotland. She was deposed as regent in 1559.
The first pic is a portrait attributed to Dutch painter Corneille de Lyon, when Marie was around 32, the second is Marie and her second husband, King James V of Scotland, this pic hangs in Falkland Palace, the third a carving by John Donaldson and part of the stunning Stirling Heads at the castle in the town.
The wife of James III, Margaret of Denmark died on July 14th 1486 at Stirling.
I could have posted about Margaret yesterday the date of her marriage to King James III, but rather than going over the same ground waited for todays anniversary.
Margaret of Denmark was born on 23rd June 1456 as the daughter of Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and Dorothea of Brandenburg. She had been named after Queen Margaret I, who had ruled Denmark, Norway and Sweden in her own right. There is very little information on Margaret’s youth.
In 1468, the Scottish embassy to Denmark set out. King James III was in need of a wife. King Christian provided his only daughter with a dowry of 60,000 florins of the Rhine. He couldn’t pay the entire sum at once, so he handed over 10,000 florins and pledged his lands and rights in Orkney and Shetland as security for the rest. The dowry was never paid off in full. In return, James settled upon his future wife Linlithgow Palace, Doune Castle and a third of his royal revenues. The marriage treaty was signed on 8 September 1468.
It was too late in the year for Margaret to travel to Scotland and so her departure was delayed until the next spring. She was brought to Scotland by the King’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Arran and probably met her future husband for the first time shortly before their wedding in the Abbey of Holyrood on July 13th 1469.
They went on progress to the north of Scotland and then settled into a routine of moving between the principal residences of Holyroodhouse, Linlithgow, Stirling and Falkland. Margaret gave birth to their first child on 1t7 March 1473. He was the future James IV. He was followed by the birth of two more sons in 1476 and 1479, called James and John. And yes they named their first two boys James, these Stewarts found a name they liked and stuck to it!
Scottish historians praised the Queen’s beauty, gentleness and understanding and considered her sensible. She was very popular in Scotland. Margaret’s biographer suggested she only had sex with her husband for procreation possibly leading James to seek mistresses. They do not seem to have been on the most affectionate of terms but Margaret seems to have always respected James’ position as monarch. James may have been difficult to deal with.
Margaret was quite the fashionable lady and there are records that she had at least 15 gowns, of them six were black, two were purple and two were crimson.
She probably played an important role in the events of 1482, where James was deprived of his power by his brother for a few months. It was probably Margaret who gave the order to besiege Edinburgh Castle to liberate her husband. After these events, they lived mostly separate lives. Margaret preferred to live at Stirling, while James stayed in Edinburgh.
She became ill during the summer of 1486, the usual rumours of poisoning were circulated at this time but it may have been enemies of James who spread the rumours. She died at Stirling on 14th July that year.aged only 30 years old. Even though they were practically estranged, James was deeply affected by her death and endowed daily masses for her soul. He even sent a supplication to the Pope asking for her to be made a saint.
She is buried at Cambuskenneth Abbey, her husband joined her two years later. It is thought the grave was destroyed during the destructive Reformation years following the discovery of two coffins under the site of the high altar during restoration in 1865 that were believed to contain the remains of the royal couple. Queen Victoria paid for the restoration and marker that is in place there now.
A portrait of Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots by an unknown artist.
Jane, d. 1445. Queen of James I; daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset Gallery: Scottish National Portrait Gallery (Print Room) Date created: Published 1798
King Alexander II married Joan of England on 21st June 1221, although one source says June 25th, another the 19th.
Joan was the oldest of daughter of King John and his 2nd wife, Isabella of Angoulême. Born in July 1210 she was the 3rd of 5 children; she had 2 older brothers and 2 younger sisters would join the family by 1215.
Joan’s story is quite remarkable, and I am going to concentrate on part of her life before she became the wife of Alexander.
An agreement was made that she was to married to Alexander, perhaps before she was even born, definitely by aged two it was on the cards, but the King of England, John broke off the engagement when he found his daughter another husband, this time in France.
The new groom was Hugh of Lusignan, Count of La Marche in south-west France. Which is why, at the tender age of seven, Joan left England to join him with her r mother.
King John had died the previous year, 1216, leaving Isabelle a newly minted widow. The Queen saw no future for herself in England. She was never meant to go there in the first place. As a child, Isabelle was betrothed to the old Lord of Lusignan. Had King John not stepped in, that marriage would have gone ahead. But now John was dead; so was the old Count and his son (so nearly Isabelle’s stepson) was waiting to marry her daughter.
Going back to Angoulême, where she was Countess in her own right, and Isabelle could be mistress in her own house – with the added bonus of her daughter little Joan as her new neighbour.
The plan fell apart when Queen Isabelle arrived home, completely overshadowing her daughter. It didn’t take long for Hugh to realise he was wasting his time waiting for Joan to grow up when the mother was back on the marriage market – a queen, rich, fertile, and the right side of 30.
It’s seems like a headline for a tabloid newspaper, but yes the groom really did jilt his bride to marry her mother!
The full story goes that Isabelle married her daughter’s fiancé – ostensibly to save little Joan from the perils of early marriage and childbearing. “God knows”, Isabelle wrote to her son Henry III in England “that we did this for your benefit rather than our own”.
Outmanoeuvred, the English government resurrected the old plan to marry Joan off to Alexander, her first fiancé. The problem, of course, was that the bride was not to hand.
No matter how much the government demanded Joan’s return, Hugh and Queen Isabelle held all the cards. They used the little princess as leverage to strike a good financial deal, and even then only handed her back when the Pope got involved. But Joan’s mother and new stepfather could not be persuaded to return her dowry, which stayed with them in France.
Back in England, Joan had a few months to get reacquainted with the rest of her family. Then she travelled north to meet Alexander, ten years her senior and King of Scots. The couple were married in York in June 1221, with the English king paying for three days of celebrations. The marriage sealed the new friendship between the two kingdoms, with Joan at the heart of not one but two royal families. The Scottish chronicles described how their “lord king returned to his country a happy man with his wife”.
While no one expected an eleven-year-old girl to produce a child, expectations were higher ten years on. We are told Joan had grown by then into “an adult of comely beauty”. But still, there was no child. This meant that Joan had no real ties to Scotland beyond her husband, and Alexander’s need for an heir was starting to put the marriage under strain.
Joan was very close to her brother King Henry III, who was only three years her senior, and he gave her the means to live independently in England as and when she wanted.
Henry himself was married to Eleanor of Provence, although that marriage showed no sign of a child either. In late 1237, the two sisters in law went on a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Both young queens prayed for an heir. The difference was that Joan, of course, had no chance of conceiving when she was so far away from her husband – and she had critics even in England who thought it wrong for a wife to live so far from her husband.
Even so, Queen Joan spent Christmas in England. Her family gave her new robes and wine for the festive season. She was preparing to return to her husband when she fell ill. Joan failed to recover and died on 4th March 1238 with her brothers at her side. She was only 27.
As Queen of Scotland, Joan’s body would normally be returned there for burial. But she asked for her body to go to Tarrant Abbey on the south coast of England (which is as far from Scotland as is geographically possible). The feeling was mutual and, not surprisingly, she was soon forgotten in her husband’s kingdom.
Saint Margaret of Scotland, queen to King Malcolm III, is probably one of the most famous women in Scottish history, and the country’s only royal saint. As a granddaughter of Edmund Ironside and the sister of Edgar Aetheling, she was an eleventh-century princess of England’s pre-Norman royal family, the House of Wessex, who though she allegedly wished at first to be a nun, ended up marrying the Scottish king c.1070. As queen of Scotland, she is credited with helping revitalise the life of the Church in the country (founding many churches, such as that which later became Dunfermline Abbey, and helping revive interest in things like the shrine of Saint Andrew) as well as bringing the it more in line with the Roman tradition, and also with helping to transform the kingdom in a more secular sense. She was also the mother of three (possibly four) kings of Scotland and one queen of England, as well as being the grandmother, through her two daughters, of the Empress Maud and her rival King Stephen’s wife Queen Matilda of Boulogne. Little wonder, then that she has remained famous and revered as a holy woman since even her own lifetime over nine hundred years ago.
As a girl, Margaret may have spent some time at a nunnery- probably Wilton Abbey, Salisbury- and grew to be a very learned woman. To this end she possessed several books of which only two survive- a psalter in Edinburgh and this Gospel-Book, possibly her favourite of them all, which now resides in the Bodleian at Oxford. After Margaret’s death, the book passed through many different people’s hands, gradually becoming disassociated with its saintly owner, so that, by the late nineteenth century, when it arrived at the Bodleian, having been bought comparatively cheaply and (inaccurately) dated to the fourteenth century. However in 1887 a young woman named Lucy Hill, through the studying of a poem inscribed at the front of the book, realised that what she was holding was nothing other than Saint Margaret’s own Gospel-Book and, happily, brought her findings to light.
But the book is not simply remarkable for having been thought lost for so long. It is also rare in that it is the subject of a particular allegedly miraculous event- in memory of which, the poem was inscribed at the front of the book and, perhaps more importantly, the poem matches up with a story told in the biography of Margaret written by Turgot at the request of her daughter Queen Matilda (or Edith). The story goes that St Margaret’s Gospel-Book (at that time with a cover of jewels and gold, though since replaced with a leather one), whilst being carried on a journey, slipped unnoticed from its holdings and fell into a fast-flowing river. When it was eventually recovered, the onlookers were sure that, with its silk covers washed away, its pages would be completely ruined but in an apparent miracle it was undamaged save for some slight moistening of the edges (and indeed, some water-staining on the manuscript would seem to support the tale). Thereafter, it is said that Margaret cherished it more than before with the result that the book now held by the Bodleian could very well be St Margaret of Scotland’s favourite book.
But even without its miraculous story, the book would still have been extremely precious to its owner. Books were expensive and difficult to make in those days- since there was no paper available in England at the time, the parchment had to be made from animal skin, which had to go through an extremely arduous process before it could be written on. The scribe then would have had a tremendous amount of work to do when he or she came to write it, and the elaborate decoration of the words and pages are also testament to someone’s hard work. And to historians it is doubly precious in that it is a short, selective, Gospel-Book intended to be small and easily carried making it an extremely personal item in contrast to the full versions of the Gospel which Margaret may also have owned. The selections of texts in it tell us a lot about the Queen’s piety- for example, the large number of tales regarding women such as Martha and Mary Magdalene.
Therefore, even if you’re not the type to believe in miracles, the identification and survival of St Margaret’s Gospel-Book is something of a miracle for history in itself- it’s existence gives us, in a way very few other things could, a glimpse into the mind of, and a physical link to, one of Scotland’s most remarkable queens.
* And there were a LOT of remarkable Scottish queens. The picture above is not mine, sorry. It is worth noting that a copy of the Gospel-Book may be found in St Margaret’s Chapel at Edinburgh castle as well. For references, see Richard Oram’s ‘Domination and Lordship’, Rebecca Rushforth’s book on the Gospel-Book, and others.
