The Lost Tudor Princess: A Life of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox - Alison Weir
The Lost Tudor Princess: A Life of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox - Alison Weir
Non-Fiction
Pages: 576
Given the popularity of Tudor history - of Henry VIII and his six wives, of the Golden Age of Elizabethan England, the fatal rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, the back-and-forth of religion through the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth - it is somewhat surprising that the figure of Margaret Lennox has been so sidelined and neglected, given that she had a place at the heart of all of this intrigue, and was at varying points as much a candidate for the throne as Elizabeth or Mary Queen of Scots.
Her pedigree after all was impeccable - few other women in English history can have been so intimately connected to so many monarchs - daughter to a queen of Scotland, granddaughter to Henry VII, niece of Henry VIII, brother to James V of Scotland, aunt and mother-in-law to Mary Queen of Scots, niece to a queen of France, cousin to Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth, grandmother to James I. Her royal blood defined her and shaped her life's ambitions - and, as with so many claimants to the Tudor throne, it was not without its risks. Margaret was imprisoned in the Tower three times in her life, and both her husband and eldest son, Lord Darnley, died violent deaths. But unlike so many with royal blood in her veins, Margaret died an old woman, in her bed, and although she did not know it at the time her grandson would indeed achieve her aim of gaining the throne of England.
It was an extraordinary life, one that deserves more recognition, and I am glad Alison Weir has resurrected her from obscurity. Weir is an excellent historian, and her research is, as always, exhaustive. Perhaps too exhaustive on occasion - I for one am not especially interested in endless lists from wardrobe and jewel boxes, however it may demonstrate her grasp of the primary source, and this book is chock full of chunks of quotation from letters of the period, archaic wording and all. And the less said about the chapter about Margaret and Thomas Howard's poetry, the better. All of this comprehensive detail does tend to bog the narrative down - there is a fine balance between readability for the lay audience and academic weight, and I'm not sure this book achieves that. The best history books read like biography and bring an obscure personality to light and life - I never lost the feeling, reading this, that I was reading HISTORY, serious academic HISTORY.