Margaret Douglas - Early Life

Early Life

Margaret was born at Harbottle Castle in Northumberland. Her mother had crossed the border from Scotland. When her father was facing difficulties in Scotland in October 1529, he sent Margaret back into England to Norham Castle the household of her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey. When Wolsey died in 1530, Lady Margaret was invited to Beaulieu, where she resided in the household of Princess Mary. Because of her nearness to the English crown, Lady Margaret Douglas was brought up chiefly at the English court in close association with her first cousin, the future Queen Mary, who remained her lifelong friend. Henry VIII gave Margaret £6-13s-4d for Christmas at Greenwich Palace in 1530, 1531 and 1532.

When Anne Boleyn’s court was established, Lady Margaret was appointed as a lady-in-waiting. There she met the Queen's uncle, Lord Thomas Howard (1511 – 31 October 1537), and they began their courtship. Thomas Howard was a younger son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk by his second marriage to Agnes Tilney. By the end of 1535 Howard and Lady Margaret Douglas had fallen in love and become secretly engaged.

Thomas Howard's niece, Queen Anne Boleyn, fell from power in May 1536. This undoubtedly contributed to the King's fury when in early July 1536 he learned of the engagement of Howard and Lady Margaret since Lady Margaret was at the time next in the line of succession as a result of the King's bastardization of his daughters Lady Mary and Lady Elizabeth. Both Howard and Lady Margaret were committed to the Tower, and on 18 July 1536 an Act of Attainder accusing Lord Howard of attempting to 'interrupt ympedyte and lett the seid Succession of the Crowne' was passed in both houses of Parliament. The Act sentenced Howard to death, and forbade the marriage of any member of the King's family without his permission. The death sentence was not carried out, and Howard languished in the Tower despite the fact that Lady Margaret had broken off their relationship. While in the Tower Lady Margaret fell ill with a fever, and the King allowed her to be moved to Syon Abbey under the supervision of the abbess. She was released from imprisonment on 29 October 1537. Lord Howard remained in the Tower, where he caught a fatal illness and died on 31 October 1537

In 1539 Margaret Douglas and the Duchess of Richmond were appointed to greet Henry VIII's bride, Anne of Cleves, at Greenwich Palace, join her household and convey her to the King. This would have been a great honour, but instead Henry chose to meet Anne at Rochester.

In 1540 Lady Margaret was again in disgrace with the King when she had an affair with Lord Thomas Howard's half-nephew Sir Charles Howard, the son of Thomas' elder stepbrother Lord Edmund Howard, and a brother of Henry VIII's fifth Queen, Catherine Howard.

In 1543, Margaret was one of the few witnesses of King Henry's final marriage to Catherine Parr, the dowager Lady Latimer, at Hampton Court. Margaret would become one of Queen Catherine's chief ladies. Catherine Parr and Margaret had known each other since they both had come to court in the 1520s.