A true heroine

Everyone knows the story of Mary Queen of Scots, but how many could cite details about her mother, Marie de Guise?

 

 

 

 

Corneille de Lyon - Portrait of Marie de Guise - 2017.88 - Indianapolis Museum of Art

James V of Scotland followed the Royal Scots tradition of marrying French brides when he persuaded Francis I to part with his sickly daughter Princess Madeleine. Unhappily she did not thrive in the Scottish climate and died within weeks of her arrival. Reluctant to part with a second daughter, Francis I offered James sound financial inducements to accept the recently widowed Marie de Guise as his second bride.

The de Guise family had only recently been elevated to the dukedom, but on the plus side Marie had proved her ability to produce sons. A cultured, intelligent woman familiar with the French Court, she was well able to fulfil the role of Queen of Scotland as intercessor, peacemaker, and mediator as well as ornament of the court and a shining model of piety. How much she missed her eldest son, who remained in France with his grandmother, is not recorded.

Her life in Scotland began in 1538 when she was 23. By 1542 she had given James two sons and by the middle of the year was expecting a third child. However, tragedy struck when the Scottish princes died with days of each other. Both parents were distraught. In November, Marie’s fifth child was born only days after the disastrous battle at Solway Moss in which the Scots were roundly defeated by the English. In Falkland Palace, James V reputedly turned his face to the wall in despair. Aged 30, he died on the 14^th December, leaving the nation in sad disarray and his no doubt distraught wife alone with their new child at Linlithgow. His only surviving legitimate child, Mary, became Queen on his death.

Recovering from childbirth while in mourning for her husband, Marie, as a foreigner in a war-ravaged land, might have felt insecure enough to retreat, with her precious child, behind the walls of the strongest castle in Scotland.

The times were dangerous, and not everyone was helpful. The child’s closest relative, the Earl of Arran, wanted her to marry his son. Henry Tudor wanted her to marry the English Prince Edward and Francis I was determined that should not happen.  

Marie de Guise, as Dowager Queen of Scotland, refused to be elbowed aside; she gathered loyal supporters of the crown around her and very soon the Great Seal had been amended and documents were issued in Mary’s name. Mary Stewart’s coronation was held on 9^th September the following year.

Living in Scotland for less than five years, Marie de Guise had an admirable grasp of Scottish politics and managed to safeguard herself and her daughter. Slowly and surely she built up French support and in 1547 she deemed it wise to send Mary to France where she married the heir to the French throne

Standing firm and alone, visiting her daughter only once, Marie de Guise continued to rule as Regent in Scotland. Over time Scots feeling grew against the French; they disliked being thought a subsidiary of France and deposed Marie in 1559; her death in June 1560 was followed by the death of her son-in-law, Francis II of France and by December, Mary was no longer Queen of France. Mary returned to Scottish shores in August 1561.

My first review of y latest book!

Absolutely delighted with this review which came in yesterday. The writer could not load it to Amazon, presumably because she has not spent £50 with them this year, so I will use it wherever I can as it is too good to lose!

The Queen’s Letters by Jen Black

With regret I reached the end of this exciting tale of intrigue and adventure, brilliantly coloured by Jen Black’s strong sense of period. In this novel we are taken to France, Scotland and England in the time of Henry Vlll and the details of daily life which she has so well researched convinced me I was actually there with her all the way.

 Her hero, Matho Spyrston, is no stereotype adventurer but a living breathing character who has appeared in earlier books and whom we are happy to meet again as he undertakes a dangerous mission to deliver the Queen’s letters.

Journeys always make for fascinating reading and Jen takes us with Matho and the delightful youth Jehan through sixteenth century France at a time of intermittent warfare. Intertwined with his story is that of Meg Stewart and the Earl of Lennox whom we have also met before, both of whom had previous dramatic dealings with Matho and now provide the fitting climax to this novel as old scores are settled.

The different strands are cleverly woven together and the tensions between the warring factions within the Scottish court keep the drama at a high pitch throughout. Matho has to escape many life threatening situations but they develop plausibly, not at all in James Bond fashion, and the love interest with Agnes de Guise is similarly handled, realistically, because she too is an inconsistent, believable human being. There is also a wealth of other characters from cruel cardinal to cheerful stable boy.  Jen brings to life everyone who has a part in her story however small and I find this one of the most delightful features of her writing.

I can heartily recommend this novel as an enjoyable and rewarding read.

Reality and fiction

Flodden was a disaster for the Scottish nation. The heir to the throne was a baby in 1513 and the best of the country's leaders perished along with their king. The misery of a long minority and a succession of regents did nothing to help stabilise the country. Queen Margaret married the young Earl of Angus who assumed power until in 1528 King James  escaped his step-father's rule and took power himself at the age of 15. Margaret and Angus produced a daughter, also named Margaret. Dowager Queen Margaret chose to remain with her son when Angus was outlawed and fled to France and England, taking his daughter with him.

In spite of his mother being English, James V leaned toward France, and married two French women. The first, Madeleine, died within months of arriving in Scotland, but the second, Marie de Guise, produced three children; two boys and a girl. Only the girl, Mary, survived childhood. Somewhat ironically, the king's illegitimate children survived and one later caused young Mary a great deal of harm.

Another battle with England in November 1542 resulted in defeat for Scotland at Solway Moss, and on the 14th December king James V died at the age of 30. Once more Scotland was punged into confusion after a battle in which her best men had died, the heir was barely eight days old and the Scottish nobles considered themselves better suited to rule than the Dowager Queen Marie de Guise. Cardinal Beaton seized the Regency, and amassed too much power at a time when the new teachings of Calvin were filtering into Scotland. The burning of heretics did not go down well, and he was murdered in 1546. Henry of England wanted the little Queen married to his son Edward, and rather than persuade the Scots into the marriage, he went about it with a great deal of force, harrying the Borderlands and sacking Edinburgh and Leith in 1544.

It is against this background that I have set my Scottish Queen trilogy. My protagonist is fictional, but he moves among real historical characters. The first volume, Abduction of the Scots Queen, is published and available on Amazon as both paperback and Kindle, as is the second volume, Queen's Courier. The third volume, The Queen's Letters, is nearing completion and will be published before Christmas.

Lord Lennox

In 1531, Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, aged 15 and feeling threatened by the Hamilton clan headed by Lord Arran, sailed for France and joined the Royal Guard, became a naturalised subject of the French King and changed the spelling of his surname from Stewart to Stuart. 

 In 1543 he returned to Scotland and began paying court to Marie de Guise, the Dowager Queen of Scotland. Reported as a handsome, charming and gallant man, or, in the words of the times, "well-proportioned with lusty and manly visage, and carried himself erect and stately, wherefore he was very pleasant in the sight of gentlewomen." She was said to have enjoyed his company, which was not surprising since he spoke her native tongue fluently and was skilled in playing the lute. 

Both she and Cardinal Beaton thought Lennox would support them against the ambitions of Arran, but they discovered him to be unreliable and driven by self-interest, which was understandable when his livings in France were denied him and he had little that brought him money in Scotland. The lands that should have belonged to him had been scattered among the greedy lords when he left for France. Marie refused to marry him, and eventually he defected to the English to see if overtures from Henry VIII would pay off. In return for his support against the Scots, Henry VIII bestowed on him the hand of his niece, Lady Margaret Douglas.

The wedding took place in July 1544 at St James's Palace in London. Born the same year as Lennox, Margaret was the daughter of Henry VIII's elder sister, Margaret Tudor (widow of James IV and grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots) by her second husband, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. She was close enough to the  English throne to be controlled by Henry, and yet he allowed a  marriage between her and Lennox that could only reinforce the dynastic claims of both parties. Of course, at that time Henry had his beloved Prince Edward, and two daughters to follow him in the succession. 

Their marriage seems to have been a love match: he was said to be 'far in love', and in his letters addressed Meg as 'mine own sweet Madge' or 'my Meg', told her she was his 'chiefest comfort', and signed himself 'Your own Matthieu and most loving husband'. 

Margaret was a devout Roman Catholic, so Lennox, who had been reared in the old faith but recently favoured the new religion, tempered his views to please her and also King Henry. Religion was a matter of expediency with him.

Regretably I cannot find a picture of  said Lord Lennox, certainly not one that is listed with certainty as him, so I have included a picture of my own taken on a trip to Stirling Castle on a grey day a couple of years ago. I was there familiarising myself with the place because I was, and still am, writing about Stirling and the Dowager Queen, Lord Lennox and  Meg Douglas. 

The blood royal

Marie de Guise

Queen's Courier is a stand-lone story that follows on chronologically from Abduction and Fair Border Bride. The main protagonists include three real characters - Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, Mathew Stewart, fourth earl of Lennox and Marie de Guise, Queen Dowager of Scotland,

None are particularly well known, and yet it is Mathew and Margaret's off-spring, Darnley, who sired the child who would one day rule both Scotland and England, and whose blood has come down to every sovereign since.

The year 1515 was the year all three were born, though in Mathew's case there is some evidence that he was a trifle younger than the two ladies. Marie was born in France and brought up almost as a French princess, part of the illustrious de Guise family. Mathew was born in Scotland, great grandson of James II of Scotland. Meg was born in England, in the remote castle of Harbottle on the southern side of the Anglo-Scottish border, daughter of Henry VIII's elder sister Margaret Tudor and her second husband Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus.

Archie and Margaret divorced in 1527 and Meg moved south into the English court where she was accepted as a princess of the blood. Mathew's father was killed by a member of the Hamilton clan, forcing Mathew and his brothers to escape to France. This was the cause of the constant hatred between Governor Arran and Mathew twenty years later. Marie de Guise married the 2nd Duke of Longueville, but became a widow at a very young age and was then chosen to become the second French bride of James V after the death of the fragile Princess Madeleine. Marie and James produced two sons who both died in childhood, leaving only a daughter - the daughter who married Darnley and added her blood to the royal line.

Publication Day

Any minute now, Abduction of the Scots Queen is going to be available in paperback at Amazon. It is already available in Kindle format. That means I am off the hook, free, able to ignore the PC for a while if I wish. Freedom, in other words. Yipppeeee!

Not that I would have missed the experience. Having Matho's story out there for everyone to read is a wonderful feeling after I've worked on it for so long. Some might say it's a coming of age story - how a young man goes off to try and earn fortune in the last few years of King Henry VIII's reign. Not that he and Henry ever meet. Henry never figures in the pages except as the man who bellows that he wants the Scots Queen in England so she can marry his son Edward. He has cogent reasons for that, but the story centres on Matho's experiences as he travels north across the border and runs smack bang into Lady Margaret Douglas. Characters include her father, Archibald Douglas, Marie de Guise, the Dowager Queen of Scots and Mathew Stewart, Lord Lennox.

Others might say it's a historical suspense story - will he or won't he succeed at the task he has set? Will he survive trying?

I don't think anyone will claim it is solely a romance, though there are two romance threads running through the story. For good or evil, Abduction is finally done!