Margaret STEWART

Margaret married John GORDON in Nov 1512. John (son of Alexander GORDON and Janet STEWART) died on 5 Dec 1517. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Alexander GORDON was born about 1516; died on 11 Nov 1575.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: 1488-1513, King of Scots

Notes:

James IV (March 17, 1473 ? September 9, 1513) was King of Scots from 1488 to 1513.

The son of King James III and Margaret of Denmark, he was probably born in Stirling Castle. When his father was killed at the Battle of Sauchieburn on June 11, 1488 (or possibly assassinated a few hours later) the fifteen-year-old James took the throne and was crowned at Scone, Perthshire on June 24. The rebels who had gathered at Sauchieburn had done so with James supposedly as their figurehead. When James realised the indirect role which he had played in the death of his father, he decided to do penance for his sin. From that date on he wore a heavy iron chain cilice around his waist next to the skin each Lent as penance.

James IV quickly proved to be an effective ruler. He defeated another rebellion in 1489, took a direct interest in the administration of justice and finally brought the Lord of the Isles under control in 1493. James was well educated and it was claimed that he was fluent in Lowland Scots, English, Scottish Gaelic, Latin, French, German, Italian, Flemish, Spanish and Danish.

He was a true Renaissance prince with an interest in practical and scientific matters. James granted the Edinburgh College of Surgeons a royal charter in 1506, turned Edinburgh Castle into one of Britain's foremost gun foundries and welcomed the establishment of Scotland's first printing press in 1505.

James also loved ships and saw the importance in Scotland having a large navy. He acquired thirty-eight ships for the Royal Scottish Navy and founded two new dockyards. His finest creation was the carrack Michael. Launched in 1511 she weighed 1,000 tons, was 240 feet in length and was then the largest ship in Europe.

For a time he supported the pretender to the English throne Perkin Warbeck and carried out a brief invasion of England on his behalf. Despite this, James finally recognized that peace between Scotland and England was in the interest of both countries, and so agreed treaty of "perpetual peace" in 1502 and marrying Henry VII's daughter Margaret Tudor, on August 8, 1503, at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh. The couple's first three children all died in infancy. Their son James V survived, and he also had a posthumous son, Alexander, who died in infancy.

When war broke out between England and France as a result of the Italian Wars, James found himself in a difficult position as his obligations under the Auld Alliance with France conflicted with the treaty made with England in 1502. The new king of England, Henry VIII, attempted to invade France in 1513, and James reacted by declaring war on England. Hoping to take advantage of Henry's absence, he led an invading army southward, only to be killed, with many of his nobles and common soldiers, at the disastrous Battle of Flodden Field on September 9, ending Scotland's involvement in the War of the League of Cambrai. A body thought to be his was recovered from the battlefield and taken to London for burial. As he was excommunicated, the embalmed body lay unburied for many years in the monastery of Sheen in Surrey, and was lost after the Reformation. [1]

Rumors persisted that he had survived and had gone into exile, but there is no evidence to support them. James IV's ill-considered invasion of England and his subsequent death, ushered in a period of prolonged instability in Scotland.

James also had seven illegitimate children by four different mistresses. With Janet Kennedy he had James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray (1501 creation) and two children who died in infancy. With Marion Boyd he had Alexander Stewart (Archbishop of St Andrews), and Catherine Stewart, who married James Douglas, 3rd Earl of Morton. With Margaret Drummond he had Margaret. With Isabel Buchan, daughter of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Buchan, he had Lady Janet Stewart, who became the mistress of Henry II of France.

James IV is also significant in Scottish history as the last King of Scots who is known to have spoken Scottish Gaelic.

James married Margaret TUDOR on 08 Aug 1503. Margaret (daughter of Henry VII King Of ENGLAND and Elizabeth PLANTAGENET) was born on 28 Nov 1489; died on 18 Oct 1541. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Birth: 10 Jul 1452, Stirling
• Fact: 1460-1488, King of Scots

James married Margaret Of OLDENBURG on 13 Jul 1469 in Holyrood. Margaret (daughter of Christian XIV (I) and Dorothea Of BRANDENBURG) was born in 1456; died on 14 Jul 1486 in Stirling; was buried in Cambuskenneth Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact 1: Ancestor of Tudor and later Kings and Queens of England
• Fact: 22 Aug 1485, Defeated King Richard III at Bosworth

Notes:

Henry VII (January 28, 1457 - April 21, 1509), King of England, Lord of Ireland (August 22, 1485 - April 21, 1509), was the founder and first patriarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Henry was born in Pembroke Castle, Wales, in 1457, the only son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort. His father died two months before he was born, which meant that the young Henry spent much of his early life with his uncle, Jasper Tudor. With the return of Edward IV to the throne in 1461, Henry was forced to flee to Brittany, where he was to spend most of the next fourteen years. After the failure of the revolt of his second cousin, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, in 1483, Henry Tudor became the leading Lancastrian contender for the throne of England. With money and supplies borrowed from his host, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, Henry made an unsuccessful attempt to land in England but turned back after encountering Richard III's (1483?85) forces on the Dorset coast. Richard III attempted to ensure his return through a treaty with the Breton authorities, but Henry was alerted and escaped to France. He was welcomed by the French court, who readily supplied him with troops and equipment for a second invasion.

Rise to the throne
Having gained the support of the in-laws of the late Yorkist King Edward IV, he landed with a largely French and Scottish force in Mill Bay, Pembrokeshire, and marched into England, accompanied by his uncle, Jasper Tudor, and the experienced John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. Wales had traditionally been a Yorkist stronghold, and Henry owed the support he gathered to his ancestry, being directly descended, through his father, from the Lord Rhys. He amassed an army of around 5000 soldiers and travelled north.

Though outnumbered, Henry was aware that this was his only chance to seize the throne. Using reinforcements that waited in Nottingham and Leicester his Lancastrian forces decisively defeated the Yorkists under the King at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485 when several of Richard's key allies, such as the Earl of Northumberland and William and Thomas Stanley, crucially switched sides or deserted the field of battle. This effectively ended the long-running Wars of the Roses between the two houses, though it wasn't the final battle. Henry's claim to the throne was tenuous: it was based upon a lineage of illegitimate succession, and overlooked the fact that he had been disqualified by an earlier act of attainder. However this proved to be no barrier to the throne. Following the battle all other claimants were either dead or too weak to challenge him. In the end Henry dealt with the act of attainder by claiming that it could not apply to a king.

The first of Henry's concerns on attaining the throne was the question of establishing the strength and supremacy of his rule. His own claim to the throne was limited, but he was fortunate in that there were few other claimants to the throne left alive after the long civil war. His main worry was pretenders such as Perkin Warbeck, who pretended to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower and son of Edward IV. These pretenders were backed by disaffected nobles. Henry triumphed in securing his crown by a number of means but principally by dividing and undermining the power of the nobility, especially through bonds and recognisances, as well as forcing them to disband their private armies. He also honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York, daughter and heir of King Edward IV. The marriage took place on January 18, 1486 at Westminster. This unified the warring houses, gave him a greater claim to the throne due to Elizabeth's line of descent and ensured that his children would be of royal blood (although there is evidence that Edward was born illegitimate).

Henry's first action was to declare himself king retroactive to the day before the battle, thus ensuring that anyone who had fought against him would be guilty of treason. It is interesting to note, therefore, that he spared Richard's designated heir, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. He would have cause to regret his leniency two years later, when Lincoln rebelled and attempted to set a boy pretender, Lambert Simnel, on the throne in Henry's place. Lincoln was killed at the Battle of Stoke, but Simnel's life was spared and he became a royal servant.

Simnel had been put forward as "Edward VI", impersonating the young Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence, who was still imprisoned in the Tower of London. Henry had shown uncharacteristic leniency in dealing with Edward and did not find a pretext for executing him until he had grown into adulthood, in 1499. Edward's elder sister, Margaret Pole, who had the next best claim on the throne, inherited her father's earldom of Salisbury and survived well into the next century (until she fell victim to a bill of attainder for treason too, under Henry VIII).

Name:
Henry VII of England, King of England, son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, by Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of somerset, regarded by the remnants of the Lancastrian party as the hope of Lancaster (though from an illegitimate line) on the extinction of the Royal line of the House of Lancaster, having invaded England, defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth on 22 Aug 1485, chosen King of England on the battlefield, crowned 30 Oct 1485.

Henry married Elizabeth PLANTAGENET on 18 Jan 1486 in Westminster. Elizabeth (daughter of Edward IV 'Plantagenet' King Of ENGLAND and Elizabeth WOODVILLE) was born on 11 Feb 1465 in Westminster; died on 11 Feb 1503 in Tower of London. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Reigned: Between 1437 and 1460, King of Scots
• Crowned: 25 Mar 1437, Holyrood "in the Parliament of Edinburgh"

James married Mary Of GUELDRES on 2/3 Jul 1449 in Holyrood. Mary (daughter of Arnold Duke Of GUELDERS and Catherine of CLEVES) died on 1 Dec 1463. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden
• Fact: Count of Oldenburg

Christian married Dorothea Of BRANDENBURG on 28 Oct 1449. Dorothea (daughter of Johann The Alchemist and Barbara Of SAXONY) was born in 1430; died in 1495. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Earl of Richmond

Edmund married Margaret BEAUFORT in 1455. Margaret (daughter of John BEAUFORT and Margaret BEAUCHAMP) was born between 31 May 1441 and 1443 in Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, England; died between 29 Jun and 05 Jul 1509 in Westminster Palace; was buried in Westminster Abbey. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Founder of Christ's and St. John's Colleges, Cambridge University

Notes:

Name:
She was a valuable and early patron to Caxton...She was one of the few worthy and high-minded members of the aristocracy, in an essentially selfish and cruel age.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: bet. 1461-1470, King of England
• Fact 1: Between 1471-1483, King of England

Notes:

Name:
Edward IV Plantagenet, eldest surviving son and heir, born at Rouen 28 Apr 1442, known as Earl of March till he succeeded his father on 30 Dec 1460 as 4th Duke of York, proclaimed King of England by his supporters on 4 mar 1461, and crowned at Westminster on 29 June 1461, deposed by Richard Neville 'the Kingmaker', 1st Earl of Warwick and 2nd Earl of Salisbury, and fled to Flanders, returned to England 14 Mar 1471, and defeated Warwick and the Lancastrians at Barnet on 14 Apr 1471, and at Tewkesbury, 4 May 1471, died at Westminster 9 Apr 1483, buried St. George's Chapel, Windsor; married, privately, at the manor house of the bride's father at Grafton Regis, co. Northhampton, 1 May 1464, Elizabeth Wydeville (Woodville), born about 1437, crowned at Westminster 26 May 1465, died testate at Bermondsey Abbey, where for some time she had resided, or had been compelled by King Henry VII to reside, on 8 June 1492, buried with the King, her second husband.

Edward IV came to the throne with two aims: to restore the system of justice and to improve royal finances, both of which had suffered during the reign of Henry VI. Edward proved himself an able ruler, and during his reign, which was briefly interrupted, the country enjoyed a well-deserved period of peace.

When Edward became King at the age of 18, he was described by many as a beautiful young man, about 2 metres (6 feet) tall, with polished manners and a genial disposition.

Edward married Elizabeth WOODVILLE on 01 May 1464 in Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire. Elizabeth (daughter of Richard WOODVILLE and Jacquetta Of LUXEMBOURG) was born about 1437; died in 7 or 8 June 1492. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Also Known As: Elizabeth Wydeville

Notes:

Elizabeth was queen consort of Edward IV, King of England.

Excerpt from Blood Royal: Elizabeth and Edward had Edward V, uncrowned ing of England, and Richard of York, the two princes in the Tower who were believed murdered after the usurpation of the throne by their uncle, Richard III.