Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851

by Various

"Amidst them, borne within a golden chair,
O'er-fret with pearls and colours most preclair,
That drawen was by hackneys all milk-white,
Was set a queen as lily sweetly fair,
In purple robe hemmed with gold ilk-where;
With gemmed clasps closed in all perfite,
A diadem most pleasantly polite,
Sate on the tresses of her golden hair,
And in her hand a sceptre of delight.

So next her rode in granate-violet,
Twelve damsels, ilka ane on their estate,
Which seemed of her counsel most secrete;
And next them was a lusty rout, God wot!
Lords, ladies, and full mony a fair prelate,
Both born of low estate and high degree,
Forth with their queen they all by-passed me,
At easy pace—they riding forth the gate,
And I abode alone within the tree."

Margaret's life, after her second marriage, was a series of adventures and disasters partly occasioned by the turbulent spirit and endless disorders of the times, partly by her own passions. She was a true Tudor in her disposition. Like her brother, "she spared no man in her lust, and no woman in her hate." When she died, at the age of forty-eight, she had already married four husbands, of whom three were still alive. She divorced, not beheaded, when she was tired of her lovers: in that respect she was better than Henry. By the second of these husbands she had a daughter, named Margaret, whose birth took place in the following circumstances, characteristic alike of the age and country:—

"The welcome message of Dacre arrived at Coldstream almost in the last minute that Queen Margaret could be moved. So desperately ill was she taken on the road, that her convoy were forced to stop by the way, and hurry her into Harbottle or Hardbattle Castle, one of the grimmest and gauntest stone-donjons that frowned on the English frontier. It was just then garrisoned by Lord Dacre in person, who had commenced the fierce war on the Borders to which the arrival of the Duke of Albany in Scotland had given rise. The portcullis of Harbottle was raised to admit the fainting Queen of Scotland; but not one Scot, man or woman, Lord Dacre vowed, should enter with her. Here was a terrible situation for Margaret. She was received into the rugged Border-fortress, October 5, and, after remaining in mortal agony for more than forty-eight hours, gave birth to a daughter, the Lady Margaret Douglas, whose name is familiar to every one on the pages of general history, as the immediate ancestress of our present royal family."

The death of Margaret Tudor suggests the following reflections to our author, the justice and beauty of which makes us regret that she does not more frequently speak in her own person, instead of the quaint style of ancient annalists.

"Some of Margaret Tudor's mistakes in government, it is possible, may be attributed to the fact that she is the first instance that occurs, since Christianity was established in the island, of regnant power being confided to the hands of a woman who was expected to reign as femme seule. She had no education, scarcely any religion, and was guided entirely by her instincts, which were not of an elevated character. Her misdeeds, and the misfortunes attributable to her personal conduct, gave rise to most of the terrible calamities which befell her descendants. Some persons among the aristocracy of Scotland followed her evil example of divorce, which caused long and angry litigation concerning the birthrights of their descendants. The fearful feud between the houses of Arran and Darnley-Stuart was of this kind, which deeply involved the prosperity of her granddaughter, Mary Queen of Scots. And that hapless Princess was likewise marked as a victim by the cold and crafty Ruthven, on account of his family interests being affected by Queen Margaret's marriages and divorces.

"A succession of tragedies, for three generations, was the consequence of Margaret Tudor's indulgence of her selfish passions. Nor are the woes attendant on contempt of the divine institution of marriage limited to the great ones of the earth. Many a domestic tragedy, though shrouded in the obscurity of every-day life, may be traced to the same cause. Sorrow enters with sin; it desolates the peace of home; and unoffending children suffer for the evil of their parents, whenever persons are found to break, either by wilful passions or litigious contest, the earliest law given by the Almighty."

The second Life in the volume is that of Magdalene of Valois, the beautiful first Queen of James V., the brevity of whose reign of forty days in Scotland was the subject of such lamentation to the country. James went to Paris, in the true spirit of chivalry, to choose and win a Queen in person; and after a rapid and somewhat discreditable homage to Mary of Vendôme, on the banks of the Loire, his inconstant affections were at length fixed by Magdalene daughter of Francis I., whom he soon after married, and who became his much loved but short-lived Queen. Their entrance into Scotland is thus described:—

"The royal voyagers made the port of Leith, Saturday, May 19, being the fifth day from their embarkation, and Whitsuneve. They landed at the pier amidst the acclamations of a mixed multitude of loving lieges of all degrees, who came to welcome their sovereign home, and to see their new Queen. Magdalene endeared herself for ever to the affections of the people by the sensibility she manifested on that occasion; for when 'she first stepped on Scottish ground, she knelt, and, bowing herself down, kissed the moulds thereof for the love she bore the King, returned thanks to God for having brought the King and her safely through the seas, and prayed for the happiness of the country.' This was indeed entering upon her high vocation, not like the cold state puppet of a public pageant, but in the spirit of a queen who felt and understood the relation in which she stood both to the King and people of that realm. A touching sight it must have been to those who saw that young royal bride thus obey the warm impulse of a heart overflowing with gratitude to God, and love to all she then looked upon. The venerable Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, and other contemporary poets, who were so soon to hang elegiac wreaths of mournful verse on the early bier of her who then stood among them in her fragile and almost unearthly loveliness, radiant with hope, and joy, and happy love, called her 'the pleasant Magdalene,' and 'the sweet Flower of France.'

"King James blithely conducted his Queen to his palace of Holyrood; and, to increase the universal satisfaction which her appearance and manners had given, the auspicious news quickly spread through Edinburgh, that she was likely to bring an heir to Scotland. Great were the rejoicings in consequence. The ancient prediction 'that the French wife should bring a child the ninth in degree from the left side of the stem of Bruce, that should rule England and Scotland from sea to sea,' was revived in anticipation of the offspring of James V. of Scotland by Magdalene of France, although it would only have been the eighth in descent from that illustrious stock."