Vulgar History - Mary, Queen of Scots： Mary's Grandmother, Margaret Tudor： Part One

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is 0.73

00:00:17.420 Anne Foster and this is season six. There's something about Mary, Queen of Scots. So I

00:00:24.660 want to give a special sort of like message slash introduction to anyone who's newly joining

00:00:29.880 the podcast because this is coming out at the beginning of March. March is Women's History

00:00:36.520 Month. So, you know, if you came across the name of this podcast on some lists somewhere being like,

00:00:40.980 here's a podcast about women's history, just so you know what to expect, like just so like

00:00:45.440 expectations are managed. This is a really casual podcast. I don't describe it as like a serious

00:00:54.900 history podcast. It's a feminist women's history comedy podcast. I'm going to be making jokes. 0.76

00:01:00.980 Also, there's just me. Sometimes I have guests, but there's not usually two hosts. It's usually

00:01:06.580 just me chatting. My name is Ann Foster. I think I said that. I say like a normal amount of times

00:01:13.420 because I have notes in front of me, but I'm also talking off the cuff. I'm also comparing history

00:01:18.940 to pop culture. I have some vocal fry. I might say, um, every now and then I'm just giving,

00:01:25.240 getting that all, I swear constantly, just getting that all out there so that everybody,

00:01:29.980 your expectations are managed. You know, every now and then somebody leaves a review saying

00:01:35.100 things like I say like too much or that, I don't know. There was one review that kind of make me,

00:01:43.940 made me lull a little bit. It was saying that I'm very biased because the review is something like,

00:01:51.220 you know, the host seems to have an agenda to bash men. And yeah, I do. I do. Part of the reason why

00:01:58.080 I do this podcast is because I have a history degree. I like grew up in Canada and the history

00:02:06.620 that I was taught in school and that I encountered, you know, just for fun, like on like the history 0.64

00:02:10.980 channel or whatever is so much of it has been about like white men and how they were so great

00:02:17.480 and so influential. But that's not all that history is. I would say that's not actually

00:02:23.100 true. And that's why on my Patreon, I do a whole series talking about men who suck called 0.98

00:02:27.500 so this asshole. Anyway, beside the point. So I do have an agenda on the show. I don't 1.00

00:02:33.640 think I've ever pretended I don't have an agenda on the show. And my agenda is to tell

00:02:37.360 you the scandalous stories of women from history who are often not discussed. My agenda is to

00:02:45.800 highlight women. And also in recent seasons, we've talked about some other gender non-confirming

00:02:51.820 folks, but especially in this season, for instance. So we're doing Mary Queen of Scots. There's

00:02:56.800 something about Mary Queen of Scots. That's this whole, the next numerous months, that's going to

00:03:00.780 be our topic. And I'm going to be approaching this story through the lives of Mary herself

00:03:06.140 eventually, but also other women whose lives impacted the story. So like her, some of her

00:03:11.860 ancestors, like some other women who lived around the same time, like it's all a woman-based

00:03:15.680 interpretation. And so Mary Queen of Scots, I guess, maybe more so than some other women I've

00:03:21.520 talked about or who you might've studied, you know, a lot of stuff comes down to like Mary

00:03:24.980 and Queen Elizabeth, like she's often talked about compared to Elizabeth. But also the stories

00:03:30.840 about her are often like, here's her terrible husband and what did Henry VIII have to do with

00:03:34.640 it. But we're really focusing on just like the women to tell the story of this one person.

00:03:39.100 And this is similar to, I think it was season three of the same podcast, which was all about

00:03:43.700 Lady Jane Grey. It was called How to Lose a Queen in Nine Days. And I'm doing a similar approach

00:03:48.100 where the whole season is kind of like all building up to one story. And it's again,

00:03:53.440 like my agenda is to tell the story of Mary Queen of Scots in a feminist way while bashing men.

00:03:59.900 So just so you know, that's what I'm doing. And wait, I have some notes. There's some other

00:04:04.580 things I want to make sure that I mentioned because this is, you know, a new season. And

00:04:07.800 again, there might be some new people listening. Yeah. So I am biased. Covered that. Oh yeah,

00:04:12.740 actually. So after I got that comment from that guy, assuming a guy, maybe I'm wrong,

00:04:16.960 who said, who gave me one star and said that this podcast is very biased and I have an agenda to

00:04:21.420 bash men, which is true. But to them, that equals one star. I would say that equals five stars.

00:04:27.100 Anyway, I made, there's some new merch on, in the merch shop, vulgarhistory.store. I made like a

00:04:32.540 cropped hoodie it's very popular with you t-shirt stickers and say very biased because we all are

00:04:38.880 and like just to reiterate all of history is biased there's no such thing as unbiased history

00:04:46.720 like every source I look at is biased if you go back to like who was writing the history those

00:04:54.240 people had biases you know they were being paid by the king to write things what had to be a certain

00:04:58.260 way or they have whatever like everyone is biased by the cultural context in which they live

00:05:05.060 and now we're going to get into it so there's something about Mary Queen of Scots season six

00:05:10.160 of vulgar history and you know when I was thinking about where where are we going to start the story

00:05:15.220 I knew I couldn't just start with Mary because she herself is born into a real complicated

00:05:20.220 situation not unlike what happened with Lady Jane Grey honestly actually very similar to what

00:05:24.280 happened to Lady Jane Grey. So similarly, I started the Lady Jane Grey season with her

00:05:30.280 grandmother, Mary Tudor. And we're going to start this season with Mary Queen of Scots,

00:05:34.940 one of her grandmothers, Margaret Tudor. And so the references I have for this podcast are,

00:05:41.120 as far as I know, only two major biographies of Margaret Tudor that are out there at the moment.

00:05:46.480 Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, The Life of Henry VIII's Sister by Sarah Beth Watkins,

00:05:50.100 and sisters to the king the tumultuous lives of henry the eight sisters margaret of scotland

00:05:55.240 and mayor france by maria perry i always try to sort of situate these stories in a place and time

00:06:02.660 based on previous podcasts that we've done to say just so you can know what's who else we've

00:06:09.080 talked about is going to come up here you know who else is there to see you can really situate

00:06:13.640 especially when we're looking at some of these more um i don't know a year where other people

00:06:18.960 a lot of things happening in the world. And this one, I think, I suspect for many of you,

00:06:25.200 like the Tudors of England are a really well-discussed situation. So if I say that she

00:06:30.060 is Henry VIII's older sister for a lot of you, you're going to be like, got it, got the place

00:06:34.560 and time, got it. In terms of, because I do want to keep in mind what's happening internationally

00:06:41.380 at the same time, Tudor England did not, was not its own bubble separate from all the rest of the

00:06:47.160 world. So Margaret Tudor, today's heroine, was born in 1489. That's about eight years before

00:06:53.200 her younger sister, Mary Tudor, who we talked about. Eleven years before the birth of Malenzine

00:06:58.020 in Mexico. Thirteen years before the birth of Harem Sultan in probably Kiev. And another one

00:07:06.640 of her contemporaries was Sayida al-Hura, who was born in 1485 in Al-Andalus. And Juana of Castile

00:07:15.300 was born about 10 years before in Spain. So that's where we are in the world. And

00:07:23.060 so Margot was born November 28th, 1489. And she was the first surviving child of Henry VII

00:07:31.940 and Elizabeth of York. So I'm not going to get into the whole War of the Roses situation with

00:07:39.820 you in this podcast today because that's its own 16-part series. But basically, Henry VII was the

00:07:49.720 first Tudor king of England. He was the one who was left standing after the Wars of the Roses

00:07:55.280 happened. Margaret's mother was Elizabeth of York, who is the daughter of Elizabeth Woodville,

00:08:03.980 who we've talked about on this podcast. If you remember, Elizabeth Woodville was the one

00:08:06.980 who was, people thought she was maybe a witch 0.99

00:08:10.580 descended from this long line of like Luxembourgies, 1.00

00:08:14.040 which has her mother was Jakarta of Luxembourg.

00:08:16.640 Anyway, she's the one who married Hot Edward,

00:08:19.220 who if you listen to this podcast, you know who that is.

00:08:23.280 Margaret Tudor was named for her other grandmother,

00:08:26.600 which was Margaret Beaufort,

00:08:28.800 which is a whole other situation I'm sure we'll talk about

00:08:31.100 on a later podcast and she becomes important later.

00:08:33.380 But just to be known, this is her lineage. 1.00

00:08:35.460 Like she's coming from like bad-ass women and yeah, and she's the first surviving child 1.00

00:08:40.520 of these two. 0.99

00:08:42.380 So her, one of her grandmothers, Margaret Beaufort, who became this like really pious,

00:08:49.260 religious type person.

00:08:51.220 She was hoping that her namesake would become kind of like that. 0.90

00:08:55.620 Our heroine, Margaret, is a true vulgar history girly. 0.54

00:08:59.640 She was more interested in fashion and dancing than she was in prayer, but she's 0.82

00:09:05.460 being raised. And I mean, she was like, saw a lot of her grandmother. So like Margaret Beaufort

00:09:11.380 was her role model. So she saw like, okay, women can wield power in a royal court, even if they're 1.00

00:09:16.780 not like literally who's in charge, like a woman can be really powerful, which Margaret Beaufort

00:09:22.000 was. So Margaret Tudor herself wasn't big on like school work or like religious life,

00:09:29.880 but she was really canny and she picked up a lot of like political scheming type skills which are

00:09:35.820 arguably just as important maybe more important um and this would again be important to her later

00:09:40.720 in life but not yet because she's just a little girl so it's 15th century England she is a princess

00:09:46.280 which means that her main role in life should have known this from like day one was to eventually

00:09:52.420 be married off to somebody for like alliance reasons and especially because I mentioned

00:09:59.280 And her dad was the first Tudor king, the first Tudor monarch, which is kind of like when you're starting a new dynasty and after the chaos that had preceded him being king, it's kind of like everyone is ready to go on the attack and have a civil war at a moment's notice.

00:10:17.300 It's like they're not really, they're not like solidified as a new dynasty.

00:10:22.400 So Henry VII was really working hard to be like, this is, we're in charge, like please don't try to usurp me.

00:10:27.380 and part of that was just like how to get alliances and the way you get alliances is

00:10:31.660 by marrying your children off to them so this is why margaret when she's five years old

00:10:38.100 was being discussed as the subject of potentially an arranged marriage to the king of scotland

00:10:44.020 whose name was james because the king of scotland is always named james he was at this point 21 but

00:10:49.680 it's not like oh my god five-year-old child bride that's not the vibe it's just like you know maybe

00:10:54.620 they would make the arrangement, but she wouldn't actually go there until she was older. And here's

00:10:59.580 what's interesting about England and Scotland. Two countries that have always been at war and

00:11:07.200 then at peace and then at war and then at peace. Like they share a land border. So that's, of course,

00:11:12.660 that's what was happening. The kings of each country, because it was always kings at this

00:11:16.520 point, were just always trying to take over the other person's country to try and be like, let's

00:11:20.180 have this even bigger land for ourselves. And the king of the first country was just like,

00:11:24.620 hell no so just a lot of england and scotland were kind of constantly so it's like well then

00:11:32.100 why would anyone want her to why would the scottish people want an english princess why

00:11:36.340 would the english king want to marry the scottish king so when she was five this whole thing was

00:11:41.780 happening there's so many like little side notes where it's just like you can go down the rabbit

00:11:48.700 hole and learn more about this. I don't have time for that because I already have, I don't even know,

00:11:54.980 25 episodes to do on this topic. So the Perkin Warbeck scenario was going on. Do you know what

00:12:01.440 that is? So this man named Perkin Warbeck, which is first of all, a great name, rolled into town

00:12:09.980 around the time the America was five. And he was like, guess who I am? And everyone's like,

00:12:14.500 well, your name is Perkin Warbeck. It's a memorable name. And he's like, yeah, that's

00:12:17.920 what I call myself now, but my real name is I'm one of the princess in the tower. And so the

00:12:22.540 princess in the tower is this famous true crime story from oldie times where Margaret, I'll try

00:12:30.420 and focus this on her, her uncles. So like her mother is Elizabeth of York. Elizabeth of York's

00:12:36.760 two brothers should have become King. But at that time, Richard III was the King. He's the one who

00:12:44.980 was just like bad news. And then his bones were found in a car park. Potentially him,

00:12:50.560 potentially Margaret Beaufort, somebody like trapped these two little boys in the tower and

00:12:54.920 they were never seen again. And then I think recently bones were found, like they were clearly

00:12:58.140 killed. And that was part of the chaos of the Wars of the Roses, which again, we're not getting into,

00:13:04.400 but it was sort of like a missing person's case. And then this guy shows up in town and he's like,

00:13:09.780 hey, my name is Perkin Warbeck, aka I'm one of the princes in the tower. And everyone was kind

00:13:15.360 of like, no, you're not. Obviously you're not. But he was a useful sort of political pawn.

00:13:22.660 He, I think, had teamed up. God, this is so... This is another thing to know if this is your

00:13:28.140 first episode of this podcast you're ever listening to. I don't fuck with military history 0.98

00:13:33.020 because every book written about history before this podcast talks about it. So if you want to 0.99

00:13:40.300 learn about that, there's lots of options. I don't care. So I'm not going to talk about it.

00:13:47.420 But anyway, Perkin Warbeck was just kind of like fucking his up. He was like, 0.95

00:13:50.200 kind of trying to take over as king of England. And he, I think like James in Scotland was kind

00:13:57.880 of like, this is a good opportunity for me, James to take over England. So Margaret's parents were

00:14:02.320 kind of hoping like, well, if we suggest that James could marry the oldest daughter of the

00:14:06.620 English king, maybe James slash Perkin will like cool off with like invading England quite as much.

00:14:12.580 And I mean, nice try. Did not work out. So in fact, Perkin wore back. The whole scenario kind

00:14:18.840 of like increased the hostility between England and Scotland to the point that marriage between

00:14:23.160 Margaret and James became impossible because they were just like even more at war. And so

00:14:28.380 um the adults just kind of waited to see like okay let's find a different husband for margaret

00:14:33.280 or like let's see if james is going to marry anyone else because that's the other thing james 0.95

00:14:36.280 was like not married although he was fucking he had so many illegitimate children there's going 0.93

00:14:42.520 to be a thousand people in the story and they all have the last name stewart and those are all 0.98

00:14:46.760 either his illegitimate children his illegitimate children's children his father's illegitimate 0.97

00:14:51.880 children like james's like dynasty name was stewart and anyway he fucked a lot of people 0.79

00:14:58.680 It's going to get real confusing in part two of this episode because everyone has the last

00:15:01.680 name of Stuart. Anyway, so while the adults were doing that stuff, Margaret was just like being

00:15:06.280 a little girl's girl. She had a lot of interest in dresses, music, dancing, arguing with her 0.76

00:15:13.440 younger brother, Henry, who would later become Henry VIII, who you can imagine was probably an 1.00

00:15:18.080 asshole as a child. And she had an older brother. Oh, I'm sorry. I said she was their first 0.99

00:15:24.220 surviving child, asterisk for surviving daughter. So she had a brother called Arthur. Wait, let me

00:15:30.920 just see if that's right. I mean, not that the birth order matters that much, but I just want

00:15:36.920 to be like, did I say an incorrect thing? Um, yeah, Arthur was the oldest. So Margaret was

00:15:43.820 the second surviving child, oldest surviving daughter, asterisk correction to what I said

00:15:49.100 earlier. So anyway, so Arthur was off being raised separately, being taught like how to be the new

00:15:56.260 king. Henry was there hanging out with Margaret. They were like similar ages and they were living

00:16:02.840 in this really patriarchal, misogynistic culture. So of course he's offered more educational

00:16:07.580 opportunities than Margaret or their other younger sister who is Mary, who we talked about

00:16:11.620 in the whole other podcast. Mary is the one who was the grandmother of Lady Jane Grey. Anyway,

00:16:16.380 But as I said, also, like if there was further educational opportunities, would Margaret have

00:16:19.920 wanted them? I don't know. She was more just about like vibes. Yeah, that was just not what

00:16:25.600 she was into. And so when she was 11 years old, a marriage treaty. And again, so like England and

00:16:32.260 Scotland are just kind of like, now we're at war. Now we're friends again. Now we're at war.

00:16:36.620 And so when she was 11, they were kind of like in a detente era and the James marriage was back

00:16:42.780 on the table. He still hadn't married anyone else. He was 30 years old. By this point, Margaret was

00:16:48.080 11, which again, this is not a child bride situation. I just want to emphasize, this is

00:16:52.800 just a treaty being signed. So this marriage agreement was part of a larger document called

00:16:58.420 the Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and Scotland, which please know that perpetual peace

00:17:06.280 does not happen. But they signed it with the best of intentions. So this marriage between

00:17:12.980 the Tudor princess and the Stuart King was meant to like solidify this new alliance between their

00:17:18.280 countries. I mean, this is not a spoiler to say that's not what happens. So the thing is she was

00:17:24.540 11 and her mother is, her grandmother is Margaret Beaufort. So Margaret Beaufort, who positive I'm

00:17:34.360 going to do a whole bunch of episodes about some other time. One notable thing about Margaret 0.86

00:17:38.720 Beaufort was that she was married off at age 12 and then got pregnant right away and then nearly 0.65

00:17:44.860 died. Like she had the really horrific childbirth experience at age 13. And I want to mention

00:17:50.200 that because it was weird even at the time. So there's a lot of, there's sort of a common

00:17:56.160 misunderstanding that I come across sometimes about in times like this, where it's just like

00:18:02.180 this five-year-old girl is gonna get married or like this 10-year-old is gonna get married and

00:18:06.120 they're all like as though everyone's just waiting for these girls to like menstruate so that they 0.71

00:18:11.920 can start just like using them to like have children with like in Game of Thrones with

00:18:17.680 Sansa or something and so there is this sort of misunderstanding that young teenage girls

00:18:24.940 were married off and were expected to start having children right away but even in like

00:18:31.300 the 1400s in England, that was not expected because even then they knew that even if a 0.76

00:18:38.540 young girl's body is capable of menstruating, like physically, um, she's like people of that age

00:18:45.040 are not designed to give birth. They are too young. And this is, I bring this up because, 0.92

00:18:53.980 you know, stuff that happens in countries like America about forced childbirth for like young

00:19:02.700 girls who were whatever, who wound up pregnant at age 12 or 13. Even in the 1400s, this was

00:19:09.700 not expected. It's like a marriage might happen, but you like, it was not expected to be like

00:19:14.260 actually consummated until the girl was older and like more physically capable of not dying

00:19:20.940 in childbirth. Like when Margaret Beaufort was married at age 12, the guy who she was married

00:19:25.860 to, like, again, not to get into all the details, the guy she was married to just like really wanted 0.96

00:19:29.480 an heir right away, which is like, sucks. But also he died really early. Like she gave birth,

00:19:36.920 almost died when she was 13 and her husband was already dead, I think. So, but everyone then was

00:19:41.980 just like, this is fucked up. Like, oh my God, this child is pregnant. What is wrong with you? 0.99

00:19:47.060 like this is awful like even then they were like no mas and margaret beaufort herself like this 0.89

00:19:53.800 really fucked her up physically like it was a real trauma to her and so she was like okay my 0.75

00:20:01.640 granddaughter margaret tudor like yes this is fine like let's do this marriage treaty to scotland 0.83

00:20:06.520 but like she's 11 and we are not going to send her to scotland to be his wife until she's older

00:20:12.440 and better equipped physically to deal with pregnancy by like her body maturing. And Margaret

00:20:18.140 Beaufort really stood up for her. And so even though this marriage happened when she was 11,

00:20:22.880 like Margaret was like, Scotland was like, look, it's fine. She's obviously 11. Like he's not gonna

00:20:26.980 like try to have a baby with her yet. And Margaret Beaufort was just like, I don't trust men.

00:20:31.660 And like, of course she said that she's like, if, if my granddaughter is in Scotland, like I don't

00:20:36.640 trust this 30 year old King is not going to try something. So what was agreed upon was that Margaret

00:20:41.680 and James were officially married in absentia. So like with stand-ins at each palace. So they

00:20:47.360 were legally married, but they still hadn't met each other and they wouldn't meet each other for

00:20:50.560 a few more years. And what this meant practically was that Margaret, 11 years old, was still living

00:20:56.080 at home in the palace with her family, but she was now the queen of Scotland. So this meant that

00:21:02.280 she got to sit in a place of honor at meals. She got to have a lot more dresses made, exciting for

00:21:06.900 her more jewels she got a whole new set of rooms to live in which she got to redecorate like you

00:21:12.140 know the joy of being 11 and getting to decorate your room good for her and her younger brother 0.98

00:21:17.680 henry later henry the eighth lost his shit because suddenly she was a queen and he was just like some 0.90

00:21:25.120 guy like he'd been the most specialist tutor kid for years like arthur was obviously the heir but 0.97

00:21:30.920 henry was really important as the second son and now he had to bow like literally had to bow to 0.99

00:21:36.100 his own sister and i mean you know she loved it because he was a little shit and she had all the 0.99

00:21:41.780 perks of being a queen without a husband or actual responsibilities or having to go to scotland like 0.99

00:21:48.080 she got to just live out being queen but in her family for three years so she's only sent to

00:21:52.980 scotland when she was 14 years old still asterisk very young i want to mention also like the whole

00:21:58.760 thing about like young girls and when were they expected to start having children like she didn't

00:22:03.760 started having children for a few years like people didn't tend to start having their period

00:22:07.840 until they were in their like later teens anyway which is part of why you don't really take a 12

00:22:14.180 year old as your bride and expect to have children right away like the whole Margaret Beaufort thing

00:22:17.720 was just like exceptionally weird in a lot of ways anyway so Margaret is just like great this

00:22:23.560 is like her first effective well it's not a solo trip she's being followed by like an entire

00:22:27.980 household full of staff and ladies in waiting and stuff but it was like her first not with her

00:22:32.440 family trip she really wanted to make a statement so her father came with her uh for safety like to

00:22:40.680 protect her because he had like had been through the wars and knew how to use a sword and stuff

00:22:43.880 but also to make sure that when she showed up james wasn't like i changed my mind like so like

00:22:48.720 the king of england came with her and now we're just going to take a break for a word from our

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00:25:01.620 Hi, I'm Whitney.

00:25:03.160 And I'm Katie.

00:25:04.160 And we're the hosts of True Crime Campfire.

00:25:06.580 We set out to make a true crime podcast we'd want to listen to.

00:25:10.100 We get right to the story.

00:25:11.560 We don't do a lot of extra talking, and when we do, 0.99

00:25:14.220 it's usually to roast the short hairs off of some loser, murderer, or scammer. 0.98

00:25:18.200 You'll laugh, but only at the people who deserve it. 0.98

00:25:20.860 Like, which serial killer would you most like to shove into a locker?

00:25:24.920 BTK and his awful poetry.

00:25:27.080 Dude got caught because he didn't understand what a floppy disk was.

00:25:30.840 We look for the stranger-than-fiction stories,

00:25:33.200 like the case of Patty James,

00:25:34.720 a killer catfish before the internet was even a thing.

00:25:37.600 Or Howard Walmsley, a sentient wad of damp laundry

00:25:40.540 who convinced his town he'd won the lottery,

00:25:42.540 fleeced local businesses out of thousands and then became a romance scammer we've covered tons

00:25:48.300 of cases you've never heard of cults scammers killers so come find your next great binge

00:25:53.760 listen to true crime campfire on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you get your podcasts new

00:25:59.220 episodes every friday and we're back so she headed out in an extravagantly jeweled carriage 0.75

00:26:06.560 and brought along numerous trunks containing all of her new fur-lined outfits. 0.98

00:26:11.900 Like she got a whole bunch of newly commissioned fur outfits

00:26:14.720 because she's going to Scotland, a place that was colder than England.

00:26:19.100 The whole procession moved incredibly slowly because there was so much luggage.

00:26:23.880 And Margaret made the whole procession wait longer

00:26:26.060 because sometimes she would get out and change outfits,

00:26:29.180 like a little outfit reveal,

00:26:30.780 to make sure that she was always the best dressed person wherever they went.

00:26:33.700 so if she got somewhere and like suspected or saw that someone there was wearing a better dress than

00:26:39.900 her she had to like stop all the characters get out change to a better dress and like this again

00:26:45.040 I have nothing but respect for this commitment to serving constant looks so but basically this

00:26:52.520 meant that they were uh they were not arriving in Scotland on time like James was just like where

00:26:57.920 is this child, like, slash my wife.

00:27:00.960 So he eventually headed down to meet them, like, halfway.

00:27:04.560 So he met her during one of, like, the first time they met each other.

00:27:07.900 These, like, people have been married for three years.

00:27:10.180 During one of her stops in England, where he came in and apparently, quote,

00:27:14.440 chastely kissed her goodnight, which is hella creepy.

00:27:19.360 Not just because he's, like, 30 and she's 14, or he's 34, or whatever.

00:27:23.940 She's 14 and they're married.

00:27:25.380 But just, like, ugh. 0.91

00:27:27.920 And she, when she first met him, her thoughts were largely like, oh my God, he's that that is an ugly beard. He has like such gross beard. What a gross beard. And in fact, he did have a truly hideous, gross, long beard. 0.98

00:27:43.840 and so then he kind of like joined the procession maybe trying to like encourage them to 0.61

00:27:50.060 speed up a little more maybe i'm not sure what the vibes were exactly but now it's this procession

00:27:56.140 that just gets like bigger and bigger and now james is part of it but that meant that he was

00:28:00.880 on the scene when a fire broke out in a stable they were using to like for their horses two of

00:28:06.020 margaret's beloved horses were killed margaret tudor horse girl she was upset obviously he went

00:28:12.320 to console her and he tried to cheer her up by giving her gifts so like he either noticed or

00:28:20.960 just like had a good instinct that like the way to cheer up this person was with jewelry and

00:28:26.580 that's true anyway the whole like ongoing parade finally ended when margaret arrived in scotland

00:28:34.800 so she and james had a new marriage ceremony this time both of them were at it on august 8th 1503

00:28:41.580 and as a wedding gift, he gave her a castle and gowns and jewels. And she gave him a giant pair

00:28:48.820 of scissors. And he was like, wait, what? And then she had one of her ladies in waiting cut

00:28:54.420 off his beard, which is an incredible power move. Like she was maybe, you know, 16 years younger

00:29:00.640 than her husband, who was the King of Scotland, but she wasn't going to let him take control of

00:29:04.820 the relationship or make his own facial hair decisions anymore. So these two didn't have a

00:29:10.520 child for four years. So this could be just sort of like Margaret not being physically ready to

00:29:19.080 start trying. This could be like maybe she hadn't started menstruating yet. Anyway, so after four 0.90

00:29:25.020 years. So she's what? 18. So this first child died in infancy. And then over the next few years,

00:29:30.500 Margaret lost two more children shortly after giving birth, which just seems like

00:29:34.260 happened to so many people in this era. I'm sure it still happens to lots of people. But

00:29:39.700 when you're the queen and it's really important for you to like have an heir, there's so much

00:29:43.400 extra pressure on you to like both conceive and then to have a child and for the child to be a

00:29:47.400 son and son to not die. Like this isn't happening simultaneous with Henry VIII and him trying to

00:29:53.300 have sons, but it's like that same era basically. Anyway, their fourth child, which was a boy named

00:30:00.440 James. I think the first son was also named James, but then he died and maybe they just

00:30:04.780 stopped calling their sons James because they're like, let's wait until one of them survives and

00:30:08.060 He'll be James. Anyway, so this was like great news to the Scottish people that there's an heir

00:30:15.940 to the throne and it's a boy and he's called James. So they're like, everything will stay the

00:30:19.900 same. But things are about to get even more challenging for our girl, Margie, because back

00:30:24.920 in England, her older brother, Arthur, had died of, I think, what was it? The sweating sickness.

00:30:31.840 And then her mother had died after in childbirth with a daughter who also died.

00:30:38.060 And then her father died. So like all in a row. So suddenly she had no living parents.

00:30:45.900 Her brother was dead. And her younger brother, who had always kind of been her rival, was now

00:30:51.560 age 17, the new English king, Henry VIII. And the thing is that Henry hated Scotland and wanted to

00:30:58.460 take over Scotland. So this kicks off what I call the brother versus sister era.

00:31:05.220 so you know battles were going to happen like we're living through another like england and

00:31:11.520 scotland at war which is like it's like it feels almost like two years on two years off like they're

00:31:16.780 at war they're not war they're at war they're not war so even though henry's sister margaret had 0.99

00:31:21.500 married the king of scotland henry the eights was still just like fuck you scotland and so 0.97

00:31:26.880 james margaret's husband set out with the army to go fight against the english in battle because 0.98

00:31:31.980 this is still a time where like the king did that. He didn't just like send other people to do that.

00:31:35.780 And in fact, James died in battle. So if we're keeping track, Margaret was now age 24, a widow,

00:31:44.760 an orphan, single mother, and still queen of Scotland, I guess, dowager queen of Scotland.

00:31:52.080 So before James had left to go fight, like, because it's always a chance that he's going to die,

00:31:57.300 which he did um he had created paperwork saying that margaret would serve as the regent for james

00:32:03.260 for baby james their son um i think they had had another son by now who is called alexander as well

00:32:09.160 but anyway james was the heir and dead james her husband had wanted margaret to be the regent for

00:32:16.860 baby james but although that was what he'd wanted and he put it in writing this is where i'm going

00:32:22.260 to introduce you to some ongoing characters who are going to appear in i want to say every episode 0.96

00:32:26.600 for the rest of this season who are the asshole Scottish lords. They're just like a group of guys 0.97

00:32:36.240 who just get in the way of anyone wanting to do anything good or interesting or innovative or

00:32:45.900 helpful or useful. The vibes of them is similar to if you've listened to this podcast before.

00:32:52.740 Last season, the Ronnie Ditta episode, there was the Damaras. These are just

00:32:56.600 I don't know. I'm sure we've had other episodes too. Just these guys, they just get stuck up in

00:33:01.440 not just bureaucracy, but just like being the worst. The asshole Scottish Lords are kind of 1.00

00:33:08.660 the villains of this entire season. Like they're still there. I mean, I'm sure, you know, some of 1.00

00:33:15.200 them have died. There's new ones like throughout the story, which takes place over numerous decades,

00:33:18.380 but just like as a, as a concept, the asshole Scottish Lords. Anyway, they were not a fan 0.96

00:33:24.060 of the plan for Margaret to be the regent because they didn't think women should have any 1.00

00:33:28.120 power or authority because they were assholes. And they didn't want Margaret specifically to 1.00

00:33:35.460 have any power or authority because she was the sister of the English king who was actively at

00:33:40.940 war against them right now. But James, who again is dead now, had reasons for choosing her as the

00:33:48.080 regent. And one of those main reasons was he knew that she was really suited for this role.

00:33:54.060 Like she was really smart. She had learned a lot from her grandmother about like how to be schemey, how to like be political, how to be in charge of a country. Like she had skills that he respected. Like, you know, she hadn't paid attention to a lot of the schooling that happened when she was a girl, like slash she was not able to attend a lot of the schooling that happened that her brother learned.

00:34:15.340 but she had been paying close attention on how to run a kingdom like she'd been scottish queen

00:34:19.540 it for three years in england like when she was a girl so she had picked up some useful

00:34:24.720 skills and strategies just from like watching her dad to see how he did it but here as again

00:34:31.100 this is like i'm starting the season with this story because it kind of like sets the scene for

00:34:36.200 everything that's going to happen with mary queen of scots but it also is just kind of like 0.99

00:34:39.120 the same shit keeps happening and so much of it has to do with the asshole scottish lords 1.00

00:34:43.880 always getting in the way. Anyway, so the Scottish lords hated her, but they also hated 1.00

00:34:51.940 each other. So there was constant infighting among them. So she really had her work cut out

00:34:58.500 for her to try and make things work here. But anyway, she was good with being charming and

00:35:03.800 charismatic, but also smart and clever. By 1514, she personally had helped in creating a new peace

00:35:10.880 treaty between England and Scotland. But in the course of just kind of like her hanging out and

00:35:19.080 seeing like, who are the guys? Like, who are these asshole lords? You know, who could I maybe 0.99

00:35:23.300 get on my side to be my ally? She had met a guy whose name was Archibald Douglas, the Earl of

00:35:32.220 Angus. He, I mean, was awful. So how awful was he? It's not just me saying this based on what I know

00:35:40.240 he's going to do, but his own uncle, his uncle was a famous poet, described Archibald Douglas as 0.99

00:35:46.540 a young witless fool. Like he was pretty useless and awful. And I don't know if Margaret had like 0.99

00:35:55.500 literally fallen under her spell in like a big dick energy sort of way, or if she was just like, 0.99

00:36:00.420 I need to find someone to be my ally. And for some reason, like he had, you know, the

00:36:07.400 the family had good connections and stuff. And so she picked him, but for whatever reason,

00:36:14.100 and here's the other thing too. So part of the paperwork that her husband,

00:36:19.240 dead James had left had said, I want Margaret to be the regent for baby James,

00:36:23.600 but if she ever marries anyone else, then she won't be the regent anymore. So knowing that

00:36:32.800 like that. And I wonder why James did that. I don't know if it's, he probably just knew like

00:36:38.380 if she married somebody, then that would kind of set off a cascading effect among all the 0.99

00:36:42.000 asshole lords to kind of cause chaos, which it did. Anyway, even though she knew getting married 0.99

00:36:50.580 would mean the end of getting to be the regent for her son, she was just like really into this

00:36:56.180 guy, Archibald. And they had a super secret, sexy marriage, August 6th, 1514. And so while she might

00:37:06.440 have like, you know, romantically wanted to marry him or like emotionally, psychologically been like,

00:37:11.660 this is going to be good. I have to assume that was most of her reasoning because it was

00:37:16.100 extremely disastrous for her politically. All of the other asshole lords, like all of the 1.00

00:37:23.120 noble houses of Scotland were mad at her because this showed that she favored the Douglas family. 0.97

00:37:28.720 And so that made all the families that weren't the Douglas family kind of team up against her. 0.97

00:37:33.200 And so there's lots of pressure from the asshole lords for her to name somebody else as the 1.00

00:37:40.380 regent. And so eventually she did. And the person who she chose was a guy named John Stewart, 0.99

00:37:45.140 the Duke of Albany, who was his last name was Stewart. So, you know, he's like somehow the

00:37:50.180 illegitimate son of some previous Scottish king. He was living in France at the time,

00:37:57.600 and he's going to become like an important character later. And we're going to call him

00:38:00.780 Albany, I think, just because so many people are called Jon Stewart. Anyway, so she chose him to

00:38:06.960 be the new regent. But just one month after her super secret sexy wedding to Archibald,

00:38:12.720 the Esau Scottish Lords came out with a new law saying that not only was she no longer the regent,

00:38:18.340 but she couldn't even supervise baby King James or her other son, baby Prince Alexander.

00:38:24.780 Like basically they're saying just like, you can't even see them anymore. And Margaret was like,

00:38:29.620 really? Fuck you. And so she took both her sons and took off with her babies and Archibald to 1.00

00:38:36.340 hang out at a place called Sterling Castle. So at this point she was on good terms again

00:38:42.180 with her brother, Henry VIII. And so this is like, much like Scotland and England were kind of like,

00:38:47.920 Now we're friends. Now we're not. Back and forth and back and forth. Margaret and Henry very much

00:38:53.400 had a back and forth and back and forth relationship. And a lot of her letters still

00:38:56.280 exist. So we know that they were kind of on and off as allies. Anyway, Henry VIII encouraged her

00:39:03.620 to bring the babies with her and to come and live in England with him, which made the Scottish

00:39:09.900 lords just freak out because they didn't like England. A Scottish king of England, what's that

00:39:16.380 Anyway, after weighing her options, like should she go to England or not, Margaret decided to stay in Scotland because she suspected if she brought baby King James to England, the asshole lords would do something asshole-ish, like say, oh, he's not king anymore. 0.97

00:39:30.820 And then like name some other person as king or something. 0.98

00:39:34.280 So she was stuck in Scotland, but you know, at least she had the love of a good man.

00:39:39.500 JK, no, because Archibald Douglas was the worst.

00:39:44.560 And we're going to dive into more about how and why he was the worst in next week's episode,

00:39:49.240 because this is a two-part episode. And I do want to also clarify or just explain something to you

00:39:55.660 about, like, just to be clear, to be continued. We'll talk about the rest of the story next week.

00:40:01.500 But I do also want to say that the way that this season is going to work, I think what's going to

00:40:05.740 work best, just for various reasons, is we're going to have, or we're talking about each person,

00:40:10.840 And it'll be like a one or two or three or four part episode about each person's life.

00:40:15.660 So we can really dive into who they are and what their deal is and really talk about and

00:40:20.440 think about it.

00:40:21.440 And then kind of in between each biography series, then there's going to be a super special

00:40:28.320 episode where I'm going to be talking to a book author or a friend of mine who has an

00:40:33.380 expertise in something.

00:40:34.480 And this just kind of gives me the wiggle room to like really settle into my research

00:40:39.180 and to really make sure that the episode episodes have as much information in them as they can.

00:40:45.960 And I do also want to explain, so I've just been doing this on the series and I've never

00:40:50.360 really explained why I call some episodes super specials. So it's inspired by myself as a child

00:40:56.020 of the nineties, the Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley High and those sorts of book series

00:41:01.500 imprinted on me. And so the way that those book series would work, like for instance,

00:41:07.320 Sweet Valley High. You know, like the first book, it's like the beginning of junior year or

00:41:11.280 whatever. And then the books kind of go sequentially through that school year. Asterix, they have like

00:41:16.660 three spring breaks. I don't know. But every now and then throughout the series, they had books

00:41:20.660 called Super Specials. And the Super Specials were like outside of the regular chronology of the

00:41:26.080 regular book series. So, you know, like those books would be like books one through 25. And

00:41:29.680 then there's a Super Special where like maybe crazy stuff happens. There's like serial killers

00:41:33.540 after them and the book 26 continues on and it's like that never happened so for this podcast like

00:41:39.840 I've got the seasons with a theme like this theme is there's something about Mary Queen of Scots

00:41:43.920 super specials are bonus episodes where I talk about something outside of the regular theme so

00:41:50.380 there's still there's still episodes they're not not episodes it's just the kind of outside of the

00:41:56.200 chronology of the season so if you're listening to this in real time then it's like a nice little

00:42:00.980 treat for you in between Mary Queen of Scots content. And if you're listening to this like

00:42:05.940 far in the future, you might want to do something like just listen to all the Mary Queen of Scots

00:42:10.340 episodes in a row and then go back and listen to super specials after. Although I will say,

00:42:15.800 and there's going to be a couple of points this season where there's going to be so much overlap

00:42:20.720 between an episode of Mary Queen of Scots theme episodes and a previous episode that I might

00:42:25.320 recommend that you might want to re-listen to a previous one. And in this instance, what I would

00:42:29.380 recommend if you want to listen to an older episode while you're waiting for Margaret Tudor

00:42:35.000 part two is I'd suggest listening to Mary Tudor who was Margaret's younger sister and she had 0.85

00:42:40.860 quite a different experience frankly well largely because her old man husband was fucked to death 0.74

00:42:46.820 and died and then she got to marry her super secret sweetheart and she had a whole other 0.89

00:42:52.320 situation going on and it just gives context so I might suggest listening to that at around the

00:42:57.280 same time. And yeah, so I want to make sure I don't forget to say any of the important post

00:43:04.100 episode announcements. One of them is that I've made a guest appearances on a couple of other

00:43:11.920 people's podcasts that I think I had so much fun doing and I hope you enjoy listening to them.

00:43:17.520 So if you listen to, um, just check out, I made, I was a guest on for the love of history,

00:43:23.340 the podcast where I was talking about India's bandit queen, Fulan Devi. And then if you listen

00:43:29.200 to the Fatal Fortunes podcast, I did an episode a bit ago, kind of a preview of this whole season

00:43:34.020 where I was talking with hosts there about Mary Queen of Scots and her increasingly terrible

00:43:38.440 husband. I also, since last season, since we like all checked in with each other,

00:43:44.900 I've started a little newsletter on Substack, which has nothing to do with this podcast at all.

00:43:49.720 In fact, the reason I did it is because I work so much on this podcast and researching women's

00:43:55.040 history. Other interests of mine were starting to be neglected. And I was like, what's a way that I

00:44:00.560 can talk about other stuff that interests me in like a zero pressure environment? So if you go

00:44:05.660 to threenicethings.substack.com, and the link is in the show notes as well, you can follow me on

00:44:12.040 my podcast, or not my podcast, my newsletter, my newsletter, which is where I talk about not

00:44:16.900 women's history other things that interest me at the moment it's things like korean reality shows

00:44:22.140 and um murder mystery television programming anyway that's the thing that you can do and then

00:44:28.560 also this podcast so yeah if you want to get in touch with me and maybe because of how the season

00:44:35.340 is going to roll out where i have like a couple you know i talk about somebody for a few weeks

00:44:39.140 and then we have a super special then we're back talking with mary queen of scott send me your

00:44:42.400 mary queen of scott's thoughts or your thoughts about these episodes and maybe i can read some

00:44:46.700 your comments on air and you can send me those thoughts at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com. There's

00:44:51.940 also a form to contact me at vulgarhistory.com. And both of those are places where you can also

00:44:56.540 please suggest other people that you think maybe I'd want to talk about either in this season or

00:45:01.820 another season. You can keep up with me on Instagram at vulgarhistorypod. I'm on TikTok

00:45:07.940 at vulgarhistory. And then I also have a Patreon. So that's where if you pledge a little bit of

00:45:13.600 money every month, then you get bonus content from me. So if you pledge at least $1 a month,

00:45:19.060 you get early ad-free access to all episodes. And if you pledge at least $5 a month, you get access,

00:45:25.960 well, you get the same thing, the early ad-free access to episodes. And then you also get bonus

00:45:31.200 episodes of Vulgar Peace Theater, which is like, these tend to be like three hour extravaganza.

00:45:37.220 So that's where I'm joined by friends of the podcast, Alison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson.

00:45:41.000 And we're talking about costume dramas. Recently, we've talked about, we just did a live episode, actually. Depending on when you listen to this, we're about to do a live episode. Anyway, we talked about Lady Jane, the Helena Bonham Carter movie about Lady Jane Grey. Coming up, we're going to be talking about Corsage, the Empress Sisi movie. We're going to be talking about Chevalier, the movie coming out about Chevalier St. George. We're going to be talking about The Woman King with Viola Davis.

00:46:05.760 previously we've talked about tombstone um anastasia the animated movie various costume

00:46:11.120 dramas where we um talk about them from a historical point of view and then also if you

00:46:18.120 pledge at least the five dollars a month on patreon you get access to every month or so 0.69

00:46:22.700 i release an episode called so this asshole where i talk about awful men from history most recently

00:46:28.660 f scott fitzgerald and um if you want to get some vulgar history merch including the new 0.90

00:46:35.080 collection that says very biased and also other past merch, you can go to vulgarhistory.store

00:46:41.240 where you can always use code titsout for free US shipping or titsout10 for 10% off.

00:46:47.880 And I'm really excited to be here doing this season. And I'm glad you're all along for the

00:46:53.400 ride and happy Women's History Month. Although I mean, that is a thing I celebrate year round.

00:46:58.660 And until next time, keep your pants on and your tits out. 1.00

00:47:02.340 Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster 0.99

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Vulgar History - March 08, 2023

Mary, Queen of Scots： Mary's Grandmother, Margaret Tudor： Part One

Episode Stats

Transcript