00:00:14.880hello welcome to vulgar history feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann foster and
00:00:33.280this is margaret tudor part two but this is also the second episode of season six there's something
00:00:39.100about mary queen of scots if you listen to this episode you know i recommend listening to margaret
00:00:44.860Tudor part one first, just to understand a lot of what's going on. But if you just like to jump in,
00:00:49.700I respect that. And here we go. So we left things off. So Margaret had been married to the King of
00:00:57.840Scotland. She had two surviving sons, baby King James, baby Prince Alexander. He died, her husband.
00:01:05.800And then she, like some of the characters that you might remember. So there's the Duke of Albany,
00:01:11.380who became the regent for baby King James, but Margaret had fallen and super secret sexy married
00:01:19.020Archibald Douglas. And then she ran off with her babies and Archibald to, uh, Stirling Castle.
00:01:26.260Her brother, Henry VIII was like, why don't you come to England? And she was like, I'd love to,
00:01:30.900but I can't because if I do, then maybe baby King James won't, won't be King anymore.
00:01:35.860and that's kind of where everything is at the moment. So meanwhile back in Scotland so the
00:01:42.980Duke of Albany who was the regent for baby King James he was John Stuart some sort of descendant
00:01:49.480of one of the kings of Scotland he had one main priority and his priority was understandable as
00:01:55.060the regent was to get the baby king back from Margaret because it's hard to be the regent for
00:02:01.160a baby king when the baby king is being actively held hostage by his mother, you know, in a
00:02:06.600different country. So that was his goal. Margaret's main priority was just to keep the baby king and
00:02:13.040her other son the fuck away from the asshole Scottish lords. And so she kept her babies with1.00
00:02:17.980her as long as she could until she was finally out of options. And she unfortunately had to hand
00:02:23.860the two boys over to Albany and the asshole Scottish lords. Bear in mind that Margaret was1.00
00:02:28.840now pregnant again with her first child with Archibald. And so this child, like, spoiler,
00:02:37.500is going to be Margaret Douglas, who we talked about in the Women Trapped in Towers season.
00:02:43.020So after this, or before you listen to this podcast, you can listen to the Margaret Douglas
00:02:46.720story to get kind of what her take on all the situation was, but she's not born yet. Anyway,
00:02:53.380that's also if you have the Vulgar History bingo card, naming your daughter after yourself moment.
00:02:58.840Anyway, so Margaret Cudor, pregnant with Archibald. And she was like, you know what? Okay. Like Ella, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus. Like, let's just be like the nativity and like head out on horses to Edinburgh for some, you know, nesting time with my new young baby.
00:03:16.480That's what she wanted everybody to think she was doing. But in fact, she'd secretly contacted
00:03:21.320her brother, Henry VIII, and accepted his offer of safety in England. So her plan was to run away
00:03:25.960to join him there, basically just to get away from the asshole Scottish lords, which this would0.99
00:03:31.040mean abandoning her two previous children. But like, you know, were they going to murder her?1.00
00:03:36.860She didn't know what was going on. Anyway, because patriarchy was a thing and is always getting in
00:03:43.000away. She had to get permission from Albany and the asshole Scottish lords to travel anywhere.1.00
00:03:50.180And so she was like, no big deal. I'm just going to take my little family to this random little0.99
00:03:56.260Scottish town that's kind of close to the English border. But you know, I'm totally not going to go
00:04:00.640to England. I'm going to stay in Scotland. And the lords were like, sure. Yeah. Okay. And so she
00:04:06.100wrote off, got off on this town. I'm sorry. I didn't write down what town it is. And then she
00:04:10.560just hopped over the border and got herself into safety in England. So she got one past Albany and
00:04:16.280the Asshole Scottish Lords, although their main thing was they just wanted baby King James, who
00:04:19.600they still had. Anyway, so now she's in England. So her brother, Henry VIII, set Margaret up in her0.88
00:04:25.360own private castle, which is where she gave birth to her daughter, Margaret, Margaret Douglas. Again,
00:04:30.900I did a whole episode about her a couple of seasons ago. And around the same time of having
00:04:35.680this baby and, you know, not dying in childbirth, she got information that back up in Scotland,
00:04:40.980her younger son, baby Prince Alexander had died. And just as though things can get depressing
00:04:47.540enough for her at this point in time is that she had began to discover that her husband Archibald
00:04:54.380was in fact the worst. If you don't know how much he is the worst, he was one of the first people I
00:05:00.820ever profiled on Patreon in the So This Asshole series. He's awful. And when you know who his0.99
00:05:08.960descendant is, that tracks. I mean, so Archibald and Margaret, their daughter was Margaret Douglas.
00:05:16.840As I discussed in the Margaret Douglas episode, Margaret Douglas's son is Lord Darnley, who later
00:05:22.260ends up married to Mary Queen of Scots. So this is just kind of where the asshole genes come from.0.99
00:05:26.540Archibald and Darnley have a lot in common just vis-a-vis being the worst. And it's not like0.99
00:05:33.260Archibald did much to try to disguise the fact that he was the worst. So not only did he flee
00:05:39.300their English castle to return to Scotland after they had just snuck over there, but once he got
00:05:44.100back to Scotland, he made a deal with Albany and the Asshole Scottish Lords. Henry VIII, who already
00:05:50.180just like really hated Scottish people in general, he heard that Archibald had done this and he was,
00:05:55.180he said done like a scot which was you know like a burn for him in that time so anyway so now
00:06:03.580margaret is just kind of abandoned by her second husband who betrayed her separated from her only
00:06:10.060surviving son she's got her baby margaret douglas there with her and at least she's in england i
00:06:15.700guess um silver lining and henry the eighth was happy to have her back in town um he got her set
00:06:22.500up in Scotland Yard, which made me pause, but that was not, that was a castle at that time before it
00:06:29.160was like police headquarters. Kind of like in the Queen Margot story for a while, she's like kept
00:06:34.600prisoner in the Louvre and I'm like the museum with the Mona Lisa. No, that was a castle before
00:06:39.380it was a museum. Anyway, so Margot's living in Scotland Yard and just kind of spent some time
00:06:44.980doing some self-care. I think just kind of like processing everything that's just happened to her
00:06:49.660and of what we know of her interests and the things that spark joy in her.
00:06:53.680I would imagine she was designing some new outfits,
00:06:57.240you know, thinking about jewels and how she could make some more jewelry,
00:07:01.060dancing, playing music, and maybe spending some time with her daughter, Lady Margaret.
00:07:06.880After about a year like this, of this kind of like self-care vibes,
00:07:10.600kind of like in, you know, when Hortense Mancini hung out in that guy's house for a while
00:07:14.840and she just got to just like vibe and like go walk in nature.0.62
00:07:17.520Like this was just a good season for Margaret just to kind of be with herself.
00:07:23.360Anyway, after about a year, um, a new treaty of reconciliation had been signed between England
00:07:28.120and Scotland, like listeners from England and Scotland, like, is this, am I correct in that
00:07:35.000England and Scotland have forever been just on off at war? Is that true? Like, it seems like it's
00:07:44.540just it's so chaotic anyway you never hear about whales doing stuff like this what's what's that
00:07:49.680relationship like welsh listeners let me know anyway so there had been this peace treaty and
00:07:54.620so margaret was like okay like i want to go back to scotland and i want to like i'm going to bring
00:07:59.100baby margaret with me and i want to reunite with my terrible husband and also to see my son little0.86
00:08:06.080boy king james but the ass of scottish lords were just like uh we're not going to let you visit0.88
00:08:12.240the king, a child who he like very recently kidnapped, literally. And Archibald greeted her0.98
00:08:19.000just kind of like, oh, you know, hey, how's it going? Like, this is my mistress. I'm living with
00:08:23.580her now. I've been also spending all your money without telling you. So she went back and things
00:08:29.680were not at all clearly what she had wanted. Margaret maybe herself puts it best. She wrote
00:08:36.600Henry a letter, and this is a quote from that letter. This is about Archibald. She wrote,
00:08:41.500quote, I am so minded that, and I may by law of God and to my honor depart with him, for I wit
00:08:47.120well he loves me not, as he shows me daily. Like, he loves me not, as he shows me daily. It's so
00:08:55.020devastating. Like, Archibald was just done with her. He just had no interest in even pretending
00:09:00.460to not be cruel. So basically, what she was writing this letter to Henry was to say, like,
00:09:06.800she kind of wanted to divorce Archibald's useless ass, and who can blame her? But someone did blame0.99
00:09:12.780her, and that was Henry VIII, because this was all happening years before the whole Anne Boleyn
00:09:18.080situation, and when Henry VIII suddenly became cool with divorce. So at this point, Henry VIII
00:09:22.640was just the English king, and he was really religious, and he was morally opposed to divorce.
00:09:28.180Full stop. But not just that, it turns out that Archibald could be a handy ally to have around
00:09:34.820to help offset the pro-French Scottish faction who are also of concern to Henry and to England.
00:09:40.800Because I've been talking a lot about England and Scotland, but the other big player in,
00:09:46.960if we're setting the scene for American Scots is France. Like France is going to have a big
00:09:51.860involvement in this story. Anyway, so Margaret is just like, are you fucking kidding me? Like0.98
00:09:59.380Henry VIII is just like siding with Archibald instead of his own sister, which actually knowing
00:10:04.520their past is like the most surprising thing in the story is maybe that brief period of time where
00:10:08.780Henry actually did side with Margaret. Anyway, so Margaret is just like, she did that whole thing
00:10:14.420of like the enemy of my enemy is my friend scenario, which we've seen happen only a couple
00:10:18.840of times previously in this podcast. We saw it happen with Margaret of Anjou when she teamed up
00:10:23.700with Warwick. We saw Ronnie Dida did a similar thing and a Margaret is doing the same thing
00:10:28.860because she decided to ally herself with the asshole Scottish lords led by Albany,0.99
00:10:35.560because that was her best and only option. Like, how does it have to be to side with them?0.99
00:10:41.820Anyway, so at this point, I'm not sure who the regent is of baby King James. I guess it's still
00:10:46.780Albany, but Albany himself was like actively in France, just kind of like regent from afar,
00:10:52.420I guess. And he didn't feel like heading back to Scotland, which at this point, all love to
00:11:00.000Scottish listeners listening to this now. But a lot of what I've read about this era of Scotland,
00:11:06.020like the 1500s, is that it was kind of cold. It's kind of like in the Christine of Sweden story,
00:11:13.500when Descartes was just like, please don't make me go to Sweden. Just kind of like,
00:11:17.200if you could live in France, just like in a castle, but like with fires and wine and cheese
00:11:24.860versus living in Scotland, where it's just kind of like everyone's wearing fur all the time and
00:11:29.880it's cold and kind of damp. Like Albania was like, I'm going to stay in France. Thank you so much.0.98
00:11:34.780But he was like, you know what? Like, if you aren't so bad, Margaret, you can just be the
00:11:38.860regent again, if you want. IDK. But then things get even more confusing because we are introduced
00:11:45.420to another man in Margaret's life, who is James Hamilton, the Earl of Aron. Hamilton,
00:11:53.460oh my gosh. This is a women's history podcast. And this is a Margaret Tudor podcast. And all
00:12:01.260these men are just bitches. They're just like, they all have a nemesis with each other. They're1.00
00:12:06.180just so busy trying to have a dick measuring contest with each other. I can't stand any of0.99
00:12:12.180them, but this guy, Hamilton. So he was the arch nemesis of Archibald. And so Margaret was just
00:12:19.160like, great. She's just like starting like the enemy of my enemy. She's just like, okay, I'm0.71
00:12:23.540going to be friends with this guy who is, who her like horrible husband already hates to just kind
00:12:29.220of like play mind games to sort of like pit them against each other. So she was just kind of like
00:12:34.120using all the skills that she learned. I don't know if she learned these sorts of skills from
00:12:37.820Margaret Beaufort, but she learned these skills from somewhere, or maybe she just like was amazing
00:12:41.340on her own. So she just played mind games, like siding with one, then siding with the other.
00:12:45.800And this went on for like three years where she's just like trying to break
00:12:49.160Archibald down emotionally by siding with his enemies. Finally, things are just getting so
00:12:54.760crazy that Albany was like, okay, fine. I'll like stop eating one and cheese in France.
00:12:59.020And he dragged his ass back over to Scotland to try and like play mediator in the situation.0.97
00:13:05.180So it's 1521. Margaret is now 32 years old. She and Albany, um, you know, warmly greet each other0.97
00:13:14.360like, Hey, Hey, how are you? Whatever. Like we're friends now. We were enemies, but now we're
00:13:18.580friends. We both like wine. Like it's cool. And everyone is just like, wait, weren't those two
00:13:24.520enemies recently? And then everybody is just like, Oh my God, are these two having an affair?
00:13:30.280Herman my pills but there's there was not then and there still is not now any evidence that these
00:13:36.880two were having an affair knowing Margaret like I feel I do she might have just sort of like0.97
00:13:42.140pretended they were having an affair just to fuck with people's minds because she was just getting0.99
00:13:45.720really tired of all this Scottish lord bullshit Albany was also good friends with the pope0.99
00:13:51.420whoever the pope was at this time and so she knew that siding with him like maybe Albany could put0.97
00:13:57.760to Goodward with the Pope, which would help her be able to divorce Archibald. And so maybe that
00:14:03.300was another benefit of this friendship. So as a team, Margaret and Albany worked together to just
00:14:10.800get everything going again, just to get the asshole lords off their asses and to stop just1.00
00:14:15.820being little bitches. And eventually Margaret was just like, you know what? I can take it from here.1.00
00:14:22.500Albany, you can leave if you want. And Albany's like, thank God. Thank you. I miss cheese and
00:14:27.240line and hand it back to France. And the minute he left, Margaret staged a full-on coup to seize1.00
00:14:35.660power for herself and for her son. I love that she made it seem like she's such a chaotic person0.98
00:14:43.240and she would give rumors of what she was doing, but secretly she was doing something even cooler.
00:14:48.440And it's a bit like this show I've been watching lately called Columbo,
00:14:51.320which is a very old murder mystery show but the detective colombo always pretends like he's really
00:14:57.800like foolish and doesn't know what he's doing but then he actually is the smartest person in the
00:15:02.480room so like mark that off in your bingo card if it's on there a coup so at this point her son0.97
00:15:10.140james is like i don't know he's a queen basically he'd been living away from royal court and margaret
00:15:15.220had him brought back and then she struck a new law stating that james didn't need to have a regent
00:15:20.340at all anymore and could now rule on his own as king. So he's 12 years old, meaning that even
00:15:26.240though he didn't need a regent legally, he still needed an adult on the scene. And this is how
00:15:32.820Margaret Tudor got herself formally recognized as the king's chief counselor. The way she just
00:15:38.500played all these lords against each other, playing the long game for years, using them
00:15:44.420and discarding them, all with the long game of just getting herself back in power. It's
00:15:50.340breathtaking. When we get to scoring, the scheminess of this is going to, I think she's
00:15:56.780going to get a good scheminess points. So here we are. Margaret and her son are now in charge
00:16:02.800of Scotland. Her brother, Henry VIII, still in charge of England. And so the whole thing was
00:16:08.260still happening. Henry wanted to take over Scotland. And he'd always kind of hated his
00:16:13.620sister Margaret. So this is just really taking their sibling rivalry on to like an international
00:16:18.400war based scale. So would you be surprised to hear that the next twist in the story is that
00:16:24.420Henry teamed up with Archibald to try and bring down Margaret. Like, honestly, this really proves
00:16:31.740a theory I have, which is that there's no situation that Henry VIII's involvement did
00:16:36.200not make worse. And the thing is, it's like politically savvy and clever and playing the
00:16:41.660long game as margaret was she also had what we're gonna see a couple more times and we have seen
00:16:48.620previously in her family the tutors is just kind of like not great taste in husbands is a thing0.52
00:16:57.660that keeps happening it's kind of in the you know the empress cc and her cousin ludwig and stuff
00:17:03.720where it's just like the vittles backs like oh they're sort of prone to like melancholy and like
00:17:08.200some like mental illness it's like the tutor people are just tend to fall in love with the
00:17:14.360exact wrong person and it fucks up everything so just when things are going well here's what
00:17:19.980happens um and honestly like henry the eighth has this in common with her too so it's not just the
00:17:26.300women tutors it's like the men tutors as well like just kind of diving headfirst into love affairs
00:17:32.140that led their entire countries to turn into just kind of like collateral in like them just having
00:17:37.700a crush. So anyway, Margaret fell deeply in love with a guy named Henry Stewart, which is like
00:17:45.680everyone has the last name Stewart in this story because that's the last name of the Scottish0.76
00:17:51.480Kings and they fucked all the time and had lots of illegitimate children. So anyway, Henry Stewart.0.90
00:17:58.300So Mark is still technically married to Archibald. I do not blame her whatsoever for seeking
00:18:04.380companionship elsewhere. But her crush on Henry Stewart manifested in her appointing him into a
00:18:13.200senior position that he wasn't qualified to do, which is kind of like another Tudor woman whose
00:18:18.620name was Elizabeth I, who had all of her, the way that she treated Robert Dudley and then Robert
00:18:25.680Devereaux, like she gave them positions that maybe they shouldn't have had just because she0.99
00:18:30.780kind of had a crush on them anyway like the tutor human beings just like all genders of tutors just
00:18:37.660like make the same mistakes over and over and it's fascinating and not unlike in the sweet valley
00:18:43.020sagas which if you haven't read them or if you haven't listened to double love my favorite
00:18:47.640podcast um the sweet valley sagas are about the people from sweet valley high and it's like their
00:18:53.340ancestors and like every generation there's like twins and one is kind of mischievous and one is
00:18:58.600really like saintly and then one betrays the other and it's just like the same thing keeps0.99
00:19:02.440happening and it's just that again here anyway and the asshole scottish lords are just there0.98
00:19:07.300lurking you know and they're still they're probably mad about how she played them earlier1.00
00:19:10.920and they're always looking for any excuse to turn on margaret because they hated smart women in
00:19:15.460power positions they saw this as an opportunity to remove her from power and so now they the0.95
00:19:22.380asshole scottish lords team up with archibald to take down margaret and this is where i feel like0.84
00:19:27.260you need one of those drawings like they have in football of just kind of like, you know,0.93
00:19:31.420a circle with an arrow where it's like, no, these two are teamed up. And now these two are like
00:19:36.100everyone, every possible combination of people has happened now, except for Margaret teaming
00:19:39.520up with Archibald. And I'm fairly confident that's never going to happen. So what happened
00:19:45.420next? Archibald marched to Edinburgh with a bunch of allies and demanded to be let into parliament.
00:19:51.760While he was en route, Margot was busy throwing a party because that's just who she is and she refused to let her useless estranged husband ruin her plans to dance the night away.0.99
00:20:02.660She likes dancing. She likes music. She likes dresses. She likes jewels. And even if her life is like a disaster, like she is going to do her. And I respect that.1.00
00:20:13.880And now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.
00:20:16.880the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered
00:20:25.700like bones in the dust now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world praying the
00:20:32.860darkness chooses someone else tonight but in the shadow dark the darkness always wins this is old
00:20:40.300school adventuring at its most cruel your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies
00:20:46.500something else rises to finish the job.
00:20:48.900This is a brutal rules-light nightmare
00:23:23.120She's just like, oh, this guy running my party.
00:23:25.180So she ordered cannons to be aimed and shot at him from two different castles.
00:23:29.320Like, if there had been a third castle nearby,
00:23:31.500she'd probably have ordered cannons from there as well, but there was just two.
00:23:33.960Anyway, so two English ambassadors were at the party. And they were like, maybe don't fire cannons from two directions at your husband. And then she said, and this is a direct quote, go home and not meddle with Scottish matters.
00:23:47.260um this is me talking again just to clarify because like in scotland guess what they do
00:23:53.700they settle their like fraught divorce situations with cannons and if you have a problem with that
00:24:00.520then they'll point their cannons at you like this is just like what scotland is about apparently
00:24:05.120archibald wasn't feeling like being hit by cannons so he and his troops withdrew before
00:24:10.100she actually fired the cannons at him so she'd won that night but not the battle because0.98
00:24:16.540the asshole lords were just kind of like whining and being like, maybe you should give Archibald a0.99
00:24:21.480second chance. Like, oh my God, these guys, they're in like every story we're going to be0.99
00:24:26.920doing this season. And I just hate them so fucking much. Just to shut them up, she finally allowed1.00
00:24:32.540Archibald back on the scene in February 1525. Did Archibald behave politely and appreciatively
00:24:38.940towards his wife and his stepson, the king, for being so forgiving of him? Like, of course he did
00:24:45.900not. He is the worst. And this story is just constant kidnapping. What Archibald did was he0.99
00:24:52.260kidnapped King James, now a teenager, and refused to give him back for three years, during which
00:24:58.440time Archibald made everyone treat him, Archibald, as the regent, even though he was just the king's
00:25:04.640stepfather. Understandably, King James emerged from this nightmare, like this three-year imprisonment
00:25:11.520by his deadbeat stepfather with a lifelong hatred of England because Archibald had the backing of
00:25:18.100Henry VIII to do this whole situation. And he also emerged with a hatred of the Douglas family,
00:25:23.200which is Archibald's family. And just a reminder, like this King James who we've seen here,
00:25:30.180this isn't the King James who later marries Anne of Denmark. This James is the father of
00:25:39.000marry Queen of Scots. They're all called James, so it's confusing, but this is a different James.
00:25:43.140Anyway, so, I mean, yet another red flag about her husband being the worst in the world.
00:25:49.280Margaret's desire to divorce him just, like, could not have been higher. Despite everything,
00:25:55.140she and Albany were still in good terms. I like, at this point, I'm just like, Albany?
00:26:00.560I don't know. I like their vibe. I don't think they were lovers, but I think that he seems like,
00:26:07.500in the context of this story, maybe like the coolest person other than Margaret.
00:26:13.040So I remember Albany was also friends with the Pope. So she got him to continue to like
00:26:18.000promote her cause with the Pope and like the Catholic authorities in Rome. And finally,
00:26:23.100in March of 1527, she was granted her petition of divorce, but because this was oldie times
00:26:29.000and there wasn't, there wasn't text messaging, there wasn't email, there wasn't overnight
00:26:34.720delivery just basically and everyone was at war with everybody else and so like this messenger
00:26:40.180like her divorce was permitted in mark but she didn't find out until december which is just nine
00:26:45.820months of her not knowing and that is really frustrating to me anyway she got the news and0.91
00:26:52.660then what did she do except marry goddamn henry stewart um her brother henry the eighth was just0.98
00:27:01.140like, oh my God, Margaret, you can't get divorced. Marriage is like a holy thing. It's meant for life.0.99
00:27:07.240And she's just like, oh, we'll see if your mood changes about that in a couple of years when you
00:27:11.660meet Anne Boleyn. Anyway, so all of this, like the, all of this, the whole like Henry VIII worked
00:27:19.520with Archibald to kidnap teen King James, the fact that Margaret got divorced when Henry didn't
00:27:25.140approve of that. Like this is why the two of them just like fully estranged. And this is why
00:27:30.120later on when Henry VIII was making his will or whatever about like who would inherit the throne
00:27:38.980of England. Because, you know, I have to assume, you know. So, but to recap, Henry VIII had three
00:27:45.540surviving children. So there was Edward, who was like a little sickly boy who died very young.
00:27:49.920And there was Mary, who became Mary I. And then Elizabeth, who became Elizabeth I.
00:27:54.300And if there had been a boy anywhere in the family tree, that person would have taken over
00:27:59.500after Edward. Like that's, again, like you can listen to some of the Lady Jane Grey season to
00:28:03.580get more about that. There was a guy called Ferdinando. So one might think Henry would be
00:28:08.240like, okay, like who's going to be my heir? It has to be a boy. Like, oh, Margaret has a son
00:28:12.000who's called James, who's the King of Scotland. Like maybe that person could be my heir. But no,
00:28:16.520because he hates Scotland. He hates Margaret because she got divorced and because he was
00:28:22.760pals with Archibald and Archibald was her ex. He hated Margaret's Scottish children.
00:28:29.500And so it's this, this is why like Henry just hated that. He just like chopped off that whole
00:28:34.480branch of the family tree effectively. And so this is why we wound up with the whole Lady Grey,
00:28:39.920Lady Jane Grey scenario, because he didn't consider Margaret's children to be possible
00:28:46.560new monarchs. And this really leads to Mary Queen of Scots life being like what it was
00:28:54.980with just like England versus Scotland, but also with Mary, Queen of Scots kind of thinking like,
00:29:01.260shouldn't I be Queen of England? And like a not unsubstantial amount of people being like,
00:29:06.840shouldn't Mary, Queen of Scots be Queen of England? But they weren't allowed to be because
00:29:11.780Henry VIII hated Margaret. And this is why. Anyway, so all of which to say, Henry VIII is
00:29:17.640yet again patient zero for generally a lot of misery in a lot of people's lives, especially0.80
00:29:21.620a lot of women's lives. And that is part of why I hate him a lot. But he did bring the drama.
00:29:28.380And that's not the end of the story. So June 1528, teen king James V finally escaped from his
00:29:35.540horrible stepfather Archibald. And he claimed full power of being king all for himself. He's
00:29:40.160like, I don't need a regent. I don't need an adult. I don't need my mother. I'm the king.1.00
00:29:44.880Fuck everybody. And in terms of just the complex trauma he must have had from1.00
00:29:49.380all this kidnapping is just like good for him just like take control fuck everybody yes0.98
00:29:55.740so he sent archibald into exile which is frankly where he belonged i hope he never comes back he0.98
00:30:02.620also so her mother's new husband was henry stewart and james gave him the title of lord
00:30:09.600methvin so presumably he liked him better than her mother's previous partner so even though he
00:30:16.520was a king all by himself, Margaret continued to advise him, which is again, sort of the vibes of
00:30:21.360her grandmother, Margaret Beaufort, of being not the monarch, but actually just a valuable advisor.
00:30:27.120And that's the thing, a lot of history until recently-ish has been like, oh, Margaret Tudor,
00:30:31.940she just dresses and dancing. She wasn't smart or anything. No, she was a powerhouse and also0.98
00:30:39.060really smart and also advised her sons. So just you can do that. And also dresses, people can
00:30:44.860have layers. Her main cause, like her main political thing that she was encouraging him0.99
00:30:50.700about was to try to get peace between England and Scotland, which seems insurmountable, but it was
00:30:57.060her life's work. So in 1534, perhaps because of her influence, a new peace agreement between England
00:31:04.620and Scotland was created. Do you remember last time there was the, like it was when her marriage
00:31:09.280was arranged to the previous kingdoms, there was a treaty of like perpetual peace. And I was like,
00:31:14.440that doesn't last. You see how it didn't last? Anyway, so the thing with this peace agreement
00:31:20.700is that James was still just like, he hated England. He hated English people. He hated
00:31:26.740Henry VIII because of Henry VIII's connection to the whole being kidnapped by Archibald for three
00:31:31.260years situation, Henry VIII. Frankly, like he always has, just hated Scottish people. He just
00:31:38.100hated Scotland and he hated Scottish people. That's just what he was like. He also especially0.56
00:31:43.680hated his sister and so margaret was just like oh my god how is she gonna like get these two people
00:31:50.080like her son and her brother to who are the kings of england and scotland unfortunately
00:31:54.000to like have peace meetings when they just like hate each other so like to the bone she's every
00:32:00.480ounce of skill and clever she had to try and convince the two kings to meet each other face
00:32:03.980to face to solidify this new peace agreement but everybody's least favorite supporting characters0.98
00:32:10.400in this saga, the asshole Scottish lords, sabotaged her intentionally and also just0.97
00:32:17.240like the constant infighting and uselessness got in the way and everything just got so complicated0.98
00:32:21.140and messy that these two men never actually met face to face. And by now, Margaret and I give her
00:32:26.920all the credit for this. Like she'd spent most of her adult life trying to make peace between these
00:32:31.140two countries was just like peace out. Like she had just run out of fucks to give. She was just0.98
00:32:38.380like, fuck you and fuck you. Like I choose me, like fuck all of this. I'm out. She told an1.00
00:32:45.620advisor in a private conversation that she was weary of Scotland. And she just started like
00:32:50.660telling Henry VIII Scottish state secrets because she just didn't give a fuck about Scotland or0.96
00:32:56.320politics or anything anymore. And it's just like fair play. Like she had like, after all this,0.95
00:33:04.780like, of course, it's just like, of course. But also adding perhaps to this sort of like gives
00:33:11.140no fucks attitude was the fact that she had realized that her new husband was also a terrible0.99
00:33:15.000person because surprise, Henry Stewart sucked. So like her previous ex-husband Archibald,0.99
00:33:22.600Henry Stewart's main hobby seemed to be spending Margaret's money without asking her for money
00:33:26.600and hooking up with other women. And so Margaret was like, well, you know, the Pope let me get one0.98
00:33:31.760divorce. What's one more? But this time, someone new was standing in the way of her getting a0.95
00:33:37.020divorce. And that was her son, King James, now an adult. But remember how James had given that title
00:33:42.420to Henry Stewart to show that he maybe kind of liked him? So it seems like perhaps, allegedly,
00:33:48.060James was being bribed by his new stepfather, Henry Stewart, but probably with Margaret's money,
00:33:53.860to act against Margaret. And so James refused to allow her to get a divorce,
00:33:57.780like his own mother. Margaret tried her old trick of running away to England, but she was1.00
00:34:02.300intercepted at the border and sent back to Edinburgh. She was trapped in Scotland. She
00:34:07.200was trapped in this shitty marriage and she, that's it. And then her son James took a bride0.99
00:34:14.900who we're going to hear about in a future episode. So, and this bride was a cool person
00:34:20.900and they became friends. So her daughter-in-law was Marie de Guise, who was from France. She was
00:34:27.520like six feet tall and like i'm gonna do at least two episodes about her coming up soon anyway marie0.99
00:34:33.900like you just need to know that these two women quickly realized they were the two smartest and
00:34:38.700capable people in all of scotland um and they agreed to help each other out and to be friends
00:34:44.360like women supporting women you gotta love it so they were just like pals this is cool
00:34:50.720like marie could be sort of like her protege in some ways but then margaret1.00
00:34:54.680three years into the relationship had a stroke. That's her condition worse. And she called for0.95
00:34:59.440her son to come and visit her, but he didn't because he was, it turns out, also the worst.
00:35:05.800It became clear that she wasn't going to get better. And Margaret had not written a will,
00:35:11.440but she made a request that her possessions be given to her daughter. Remember her daughter
00:35:16.240from the previous episode, Lady Margaret Douglas. Margaret Tudor passed away October 18th, 1541 at
00:35:23.080age 51. And when her son finally showed up to be like to mourn her or whatever, he ignored her
00:35:30.640request to give the possessions to his half sister, Lady Margaret Douglas, and instead kept
00:35:36.020everything for himself. And you can learn more about that in the Lady Margaret Douglas episode
00:35:40.100I did a few seasons ago. Every man in the story is awful except for Albany. And maybe he was awful
00:35:47.040too, but maybe not. Anyway, so despite Henry VIII's hatred of Scotland and his sister and
00:35:55.140excluding them from the line of succession, eventually what happened is just like so many
00:35:59.960Tudors died off that when they're looking for a new heir, they wound up having to look at the
00:36:07.040descendants of Margaret. And that's what we're going to be spending the whole season talking
00:36:12.920about some more. So on this podcast, if this is your first time hearing the conclusion of a story
00:36:20.160on the podcast, we score everybody. Oh, actually first, no, there's two categories. So first there
00:36:25.360is the, if anyone in the story was like a cool person who helped out, they can be awarded the
00:36:30.460Lady Jane Seymour Memorial Award for Outstanding Supporting Performance. This is named in honor of
00:36:34.800Lady Jane Seymour, who was best friend goals. She was the best friend of Lady Catherine Gray.
00:36:40.880Albany was there you know what I'm gonna I don't think there's gonna be a lot of people receiving
00:36:47.480this award this season so I'm gonna give it to Albany because he um helped Margaret get her
00:36:54.740divorce he let her be regent and then when she did a coup he was like okay and didn't intervene
00:37:03.240and in a world where every man was terrible he was okay but then we also score everybody on the
00:37:09.820Fredegund Memorial Scandaliciousness Scale. And that is named after Fredegund, a queen of
00:37:14.580ancient, ancient France, who was so great in so many categories that we remember her when we
00:37:22.280score everybody else. So the first category is Scandaliciousness. And this is looking at,0.83
00:37:28.780not just like to us today, or like to me, because again, this podcast is biased with an agenda,
00:37:35.580how scandalous were her actions seen by the people of her time now in terms of like yes0.99
00:37:43.160she repeatedly kidnapped her own children who included the king but then like the asshole0.93
00:37:48.640lords also kidnapped the king archibald kidnapped the king like so i don't think that's scandalous0.98
00:37:54.560to that era because everyone was doing it what i do think was scandalous was the um the divorcing
00:38:02.440because that was you know it made henry the eighth clutches pearls herman my pills0.99
00:38:08.900it made people sort of shocked um scandalous also she did a coup she outsmarted everybody1.00
00:38:14.840and took over like it's not it's not a 10 for scandalousness but it's certainly up there i
00:38:21.000think i'm going to give her for scandalousness i'm going to say 7.5 because while some of these
00:38:29.080things are certainly scandalous. It's like, yes, she did a coup. Yes, she pointed cannons at her
00:38:34.780ex-husband, but it's kind of like everyone else was acting like that also. But the divorce,
00:38:40.140that was, that was shocking to people. Her scheminess, this is where I think she's going1.00
00:38:45.480to get top marks. I'm literally giving her a 10 for scheminess because the long game,1.00
00:38:50.040the way that she played all the asshole lords against each other until she suddenly was in the1.00
00:38:53.940power position and they were just going to be like, wait, how did that even, like she,1.00
00:38:57.660her scheminess was top-notch. And I do think that's something that her granddaughter,0.85
00:39:03.040Mary Queen of Scots, inherited from her. Her significance. So this is, hmm. Like she was the
00:39:11.100mother of James. She was involved in like numerous attempted peace treaties between England and
00:39:17.220Scotland. It's because of her actions, like specifically the divorcing and stuff that made
00:39:22.700Henry VIII cut her out of his will. And if that hadn't happened, then maybe the succession would
00:39:30.020have been different in England if they had gone to her descendants. So that is significant because
00:39:35.000things could have turned out differently with, maybe there wouldn't have been Mary I,
00:39:39.840maybe there wouldn't have been Elizabeth I, that would have been. So that's kind of like a
00:39:42.220butterfly effect though. I think her actions certainly were significant at the time.
00:39:48.200although england and scotland i think would have gone back and forward
00:39:51.800warring even without her i'm gonna say seven for significance the sexism bonus and this is kind of
00:39:59.160like i was keeping that in mind when i was telling the story like the fact that james wouldn't let
00:40:03.400her get a divorce because he had sided with his stepfather that sucks and that was like partially
00:40:09.000a religious thing but partially also just like a boys club thing like she was constrained in many1.00
00:40:14.640ways by like the asshole scottish lords who just like wouldn't let her have power because she is a1.00
00:40:19.320woman like we're gonna see like the culture of the asshole scottish lords and just like not i don't1.00
00:40:25.520want to say like scotland because it was like where she was living in the royal court like0.98
00:40:30.000edinburgh and stuff like that's not it's not that highlander vibe of like you know sexy scots and
00:40:36.920kilts and just kind of like that vibe like it's just like prissy people in a royal court who are
00:40:44.520all like, but did you fill out the paperwork? Like that's the vibe. I think sexism certainly
00:40:49.320got in her way. She outsmarted them, which is to her credit. The sexism bonus is really a way to1.00
00:40:55.320give points to people who could have done more were not for the patriarchy. And she did do quite0.80
00:40:59.880a bit despite the patriarchy. So I'm going to say for sexism, I'll give her a seven as well.1.00
00:41:04.960And so for the first score of season six, what do we have? We have a 31.5. So 31.5. Lancer on the scale. Let's see other people with that same score.