LITERARY REVIEW

HISTORY has taught us and we have become accustomed to the idea of Henry VIII being so vile and dastardly to his wives that it has been easy to overlook the fact that he was equally cruel and beastly to his sister.

Margaret Tudor was born two years before Henry, and he never seems to have forgiven her for arriving first. Add in the fact that she became Queen of Scotland at the age of just 13 when he was still only Prince of Wales and you have the makings of a sibling rivalry that stretched until Margaret’s death in 1541.

Instead of squabbling over who was better at Latin or who had the nicest pony, the royal brother and sister indulged in vicious politicking which descended into their respective kingdoms taking up arms against each other.

Henry outlived his sister by just over five years, but it was long enough to ensure that he won the PR war. Consequently, Margaret Tudor has gone down in the historical records as a silly woman who spent her time buying clothes she couldn’t afford and of being highly promiscuous.

Repugnant of all, Henry accused his sister of writing him begging letters and whingeing about being short of money. What he didn’t mention was that he had deliberately withheld from her the fortune that she had inherited under the terms of their father’s will. In the circumstances, she had every right to complain.

In this passionate act of rehabilitation, Linda Porter argues that Margaret Tudor was a lot more than an airhead who didn’t know where to stop with the diamonds.

From the moment she arrived north, barely into her teens, to marry James IV of Scotland, she developed a subtle but powerful sense of what needed to be done to prevent Scotland from fracturing into warring clans. You have only to know that the people around her were called things such as Archibald the Grim, James the Gross, and Robert Blackadder to soon realise that this was a wild and wuthering place.

The one saving grace in Margaret’s new life north of the border was her husband, King James. Modern alarm bells will ring when it is known that he was 30 and she 13 years old, but the record documents that he seems to have been a genuinely loving and attentive husband.

He also appreciated the subtle power that came with dressing well, and he showered his young wife with expensive furs, silks, and jewels so that she looked as glamorous as any French princess. Readers will recall that Scotland and France were historically bound together in the “Auld Alliance” which, naturally, gave Henry the jitters.

Of more significance, and from a tactical point of view, was that Margaret produced a string of babies in the first few years of her marriage, ensuring the Stuart dynasty’s security for the next generation and beyond. One of her grandchildren became Mary, Queen of Scots.

It was his sister’s fertility that made Henry especially furious. Despite having been married to Katherine of Aragon for seven years, he was still childless, which meant that, should anything happen to him, Margaret would inherit the English throne, quite possibly with James ruling alongside her. For such a competitive man, the thought was unbearable.

This simmering bad feeling came to a head in 1513 at the Battle of Flodden between the English and Scots, which led to the bloody death of James and most of his nobles.

For the rest of her life Margaret found herself in a tenuous position. Her baby son was now crowned James V and she was installed as his Regent. But this arrangement was never going to please ruthless Scottish clansmen, who now vied to see who could dethrone her.

At this point Henry could have stepped in to help his sister. Instead, he took perverse pleasure in making things difficult.

When she announced her intention to divorce her next husband, a rotter called Archibald Douglas who had siphoned off what remained of her money, Henry delivered a condescending lecture on her low moral standards. This was particularly rich given the way that he was going through wives like a hot knife through butter.

Ironically, in the long term, it was Margaret who won this deadly sibling feud. Despite his multiple marriages, Henry failed to establish a secure Tudor bloodline – none of his children produced an heir.

By contrast, Margaret’s great-grandson, ruled Scotland as James VI and, in 1603, on Queen Elizabeth I’s death, was invited south to become James I of England.

Within a year he decreed that he would be known as the King of Great Britain and insisted that Scotland and England would walk together in unity. But as history clearly shows there have been many subsequent attempts to divide. Certainly, the monarchy in Scotland is seen very differently to how it is perceived in England.

Linda Porter has drawn on the latest scholarship and offers an entertaining book that lights up a shadowy and fascinating corner of Tudor history.

– The Thistle and The Rose by Linda Porter is published by Head of Zeus, 400pp