If Henry VIII was the unlikely King of England, his two sisters grew up knowing that they were very likely to be queens of something or another. Their father, Henry VII, took care of his eldest daughter’s betrothal, and it fell to their brother to manage his baby sister’s alliance-building marriage.
Margaret Tudor, Henry’s elder sister, was married to Scotland’s James IV at the age of just 13, following the provisions of the recently concluded Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and Scotland (spoiler: the treaty did not result in perpetual peace between England and Scotland). The marriage went well enough, but when James VI was killed by English forces at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 – proving that there was not to be perpetual peace between England and Scotland – Margaret’s story gets pretty weird pretty fast, and includes the kidnapping of Scotland’s baby king!
While Margaret is causing all kinds of problems in the summer of 1514 in Scotland, her sister Mary Tudor is off to claim her new role as Queen of France. The 52-year-old Louis XII is her future groom, and the 18-year-old Mary has a few surprises yet to come in this continuing series.
Listen ad-free at patreon.com/trashyroyalspodcast.
To advertise on this podcast, reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com.
