Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Margaret Tudor and Archibald Douglas and a niece of Henry VIII. Her proximity to the succession repeatedly placed her under suspicion, especially after secret relationships with Lord Thomas Howard and Charles Howard.
She married Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox, and became the mother of Lord Darnley, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots. Through Darnley she was grandmother of James VI and I, who united the crowns. Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox was born in Northumberland and died in London Borough of Hackney.
Carol McGrath’s A Tudor Rebel makes the young Margaret Douglas its central figure, following her place in the succession and the secret betrothal to Lord Thomas Howard that Henry VIII treats as a dynastic offence. Alison Weir’s The Princess of Scotland likewise centres the conflict between Margaret’s private attachments and the political value of her Tudor blood, while The Lost Tudor Princess traces the historical consequences into her marriage to Matthew Stewart, the promotion of Lord Darnley and the ancestry of James VI and I.