Margaret Douglas

When Anne Boleyn's court was established, Margaret Douglas, daughter of the Dowager Queen of Scotland Margaret Tudor by her second husband Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, was appointed as a lady-in-waiting to the new Queen Anne. It was at court that she met Queen Anne’s uncle, Lord Thomas Howard, not to be confused with his older half-brother also named Thomas Howard, who was the formidable 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Lord Thomas was the younger son of the 2nd Duke of Norfolk by his second marriage to Agnes Tilney. By the end of 1535, Thomas and Margaret had fallen in love and become secretly engaged.

After Anne fell from grace in 1536, Henry VIII learned of the secret engagement, and he was furious. As he had had his own daughters declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession, Margaret was now very high in line to the throne, and for her to contract an unauthorised marriage was politically outrageous, especially with the son of a powerful nobleman and close relative of the disgraced queen.

Both Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret were committed to the Tower. In July 1536, Parliament, by an Act of Attainder, condemned Thomas to death for attempting to 'interrupt ympedyte and lett the seid Succession of the Crowne'. The Act also forbade the marriage of any member of the King's family without his permission. Thomas’ sentence was commuted, and he was spared execution, but he remained in the Tower even after Margaret broke off their relationship in the hopes that her uncle would release him.

However, he fell ill and died there on October 31, 1537. Margaret was heartbroken and fell ill, so the king allowed her to be moved to Syon Abbey for rest. During their imprisonment, they secretly wrote and sent each other poems; these poems still exist in the Devonshire Manuscript at the British Library.

A modernised version of a poem attributed to Lady Margaret:

I may well say to joyful heart,

At never woman might say before

That I, taken to my part

The most faithful lover that ever was born.

Great payment he suffers for my sake,

Continually both night and day,

For all the payment that he doth take,

From me his love will not decay.

With threats great he has been paid,

Of pain and yes of punishment,

Yet all fear aside he has laid

To love me best his intent.

Who shall let me, then, of right

Unto myself him to retain,

And love him best both day and night

In recompense of his great pain?

If I had more, more he should have,

And that I know he knows full well

To love him best unto my grave;

Of that he may both buy and sell.

And thus farewell, my heart’s desire!

The only stay of me and mine.

Unto you daily I make my prayer

To bring us shortly both in one line.

– the end-

Portrait of a Woman, thought to be Margaret Douglas, by William Scrots, c. 1546

Sources:

Douglas, Lady Margaret, countess of Lennox, Rosalind K. Marshall

Howard, Lord Thomas, Michael Riordan

A Biography of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, 1515–1578, Kimberly Schutte

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-devonshire-manuscript